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00:01 Let me ask you how many of you honestly the last two weeks you know when we ask
00:07 people to raise their hands they don't like to do it so we'll do a reverse psychology yeah how many of you the last
00:13 few weeks did not eat less chicken did not that means you didn't care you
00:21 continue to eat your one the few brave you know bits
00:28 not that many Uh I think pro ratta better than first service. First service
00:33 a lot of scat people. Okay your hand go down. Huh? Okay second attached
00:38 question. How many of you since so few hands went up? The majority
00:43 of you at less kifan as less uh uh uh
00:49 KFC at less any chicken of any type. Right? That's fair. Majority of you
00:54 didn't put up your hands. Now put up your hands if you came to that decision
01:01 based on checking all the data on avian flu did your research and very convinced
01:09 that there was a risk of the aven flu being passed to you when you add your
01:14 kyifan or your KFC all of that. Ah, very orders.
01:21 Meaning those of you who ate less chicken did it out of what? Because you
01:27 read the newspaper or someone sent you a WhatsApp message with some horrible pictures of what happened in Clantan.
01:34 It triggered your mind and your mind says, "Yeah, better don't eat."
01:39 Correct. Now, why we saying this? We are saying that the mind has a has a ability
01:44 to be inherently very negative. that when we're unsure of something, our
01:50 minds kick into a certain overdrive. And and in fact, cognitive behavioral
01:56 science will tell you this. You you inherently go negative.
02:01 Now, what are we dealing with this morning? We're dealing with the topic of fear, uncertainty.
02:08 So, we know rationally speaking that the the fear on the bird flu is quite
02:15 unfounded. The mind tells you that and the mind should inform the heart but the
02:20 heart starts to go better eat. So even though it's a illogical thing you
02:26 probably get more risk eating fish with salmonella or other things you still are
02:32 hardwired to go off chicken. So because of you all the chicken rice shop people
02:38 had to stop selling and I had to yesterday I was in SS15 courtyard mall.
02:43 They're selling chicken shop for 15 bucks. shame on you guys because everyone's suffering too much chicken.
02:50 Scripture tells us this uh in in the book of second Timothy, Paul tries to
02:56 encourage Timothy to say, "Look, you know, you got a gift. You're a young man. Don't be intimidated." And he lays
03:02 hands on Timothy and tells him to fan the gift that was given to him, you know, preach the word. And he tells
03:09 Timothy this, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear
03:15 and giving three things, but of power, love, a sound mind."
03:22 And as we look at the state of our country and the economy, and this
03:28 country is going through difficult times, it's not going to get any better. On a personal level, there are many in
03:35 our midst who struggle because of the economy. Finances are low. Uh people are
03:41 worried of being retrenched. And in our midst, there are those who go through
03:46 medical problems, relational problems. And does our mind then go into that
03:51 negativity? And that's this book is great. And we we're going to really look at this in
03:57 the the next few weeks because Habacook, how you spell it? Habacook.
04:04 This book is a Kadian name, Habacook. That's what Americans call it. Malaysians say Habacook. This book deals
04:11 with uncertainty because what Habacook does is that by the time he reaches the last chapter, he
04:18 looks out towards Judah. He sees a corrupt nation and he sees war is coming
04:25 and it is a war that Judah is not going to win and he knows the future is that
04:31 Judah will be taken into captivity and despite that he rejoices.
04:40 That's to put fear into perspective and it's great. I think it's something we all need to understand and and and take
04:48 God's word as our power as we go through linears. And we're going to do that in a
04:54 in a series of sermons. I had the honor of doing the two book ends. We'll deal with chapter one and I'll deal with
05:01 chapter three to close it off. And in chapter one, we deal with a question that sort of creates fear and
05:09 uncertainty and struggles with us. And it's brought up in many ways in verse 13
05:15 when he says, "Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
05:21 Why are you silent while the wicked swallow those more
05:26 righteous?" Verse two, how long, oh Lord, must I cry for you? Verse three,
05:32 why do you tolerate wrong? Verse two, why do you make me look at injustice?
05:39 Why, God? To put it in simpler terms that you and I understand,
05:46 why is my life so bad? Why did my marriage not end up well?
05:55 Why is it up to now other people seem to have it better than me?
06:01 Why, oh God? And it's great. So, we're going to unpack this and uh let me give you a
06:08 little bit on an overview of the book of Habacook in a in a in a form which you understand and then we'll zero in on
06:14 chapter one. How many of you know what this is? This is called the Chinese trap. Anyone know this? Okay, good. And
06:22 Habacook is very much structured like this. And it shows you a little bit of
06:28 how we tackle fear. You see the Chinese trap is a bamboo trap. And what happens that you put your
06:35 finger in one one part of it and you ask someone else to stick his finger into the other. Now when you stick your
06:42 finger into the other, how do you get it out? Now what happens is this. The more you
06:50 pull, the harder it becomes. In fact, the more
06:55 desperate you pull, the trap grips you better.
07:00 And if you think about it, isn't fear and anxiety like that?
07:06 You get worried and you say, "God, my someone close has cancer." And you pray and you pray. The more you pray, the
07:14 fear grips you because your mind just like that chicken flu thing goes in and
07:19 what if it's what if it's not going to work out? You know, we we expand that
07:24 fear. We magnify it. And the more we pull, you get desperate. you you pull harder and harder and you get irrational
07:31 and it grips you harder and causes you pain. That's what fear does. And chapter
07:37 one, he demonstrates a lot of this and we're going to unroll this why in many ways is not wrong. Is the natural cause
07:44 you need to go through to get to victory and chapter one is that. But how do you get out of the trap
07:51 and what what to get out of trap? You actually have to pull back and look at the thing. And when you have a big
07:57 vision, look, that's what God tells Habacook. Look, big vision, you begin to realize
08:05 when you pull, you know what you're doing? When you pull, you're sucking,
08:11 you know. So when you suck because the other side is stuck, you create a negative pressure. It's actually basic
08:17 physics, you know. So you keep doing that, it grips you. So when you have a
08:22 big picture of your problem, a large picture, God's plan on history,
08:30 you then realize the way to defeat your fear, the way to defeat your problem is
08:37 what? Is to face it. And you do the very thing everything in your being tells you
08:45 not to do. You push. And part of you say, "It's crazy. I'm
08:50 trapped. I shouldn't push. But when you push, he lets go. And it's interesting. And
08:58 Habacook is in many ways divided that way. He he pulls at God at chapter one and pulls and pulls. At chapter two, he
09:06 begins to understand grace and the pride of man and how the righteous live by
09:11 faith. And he he understand that God's glory will sweep the whole world. And in
09:17 chapter three, he looks face on and he moves. And that's Habacook for you.
09:24 And here the first thing that we all can understand. Chapter one, this words, how
09:31 long, oh Lord? You know, anxiety of fear is not necessarily bad. In fact, a
09:38 Christian whose whole life, his entire life is in comfortable zone, he's happy,
09:45 he has no medical problems, he's got a great marriage, all these things we all dream of. We all privately wish our life
09:54 has that security and that that comfort. In fact, a person like this is really
10:00 quite useless to God because he doesn't understand suffering.
10:05 He doesn't understand what's it like to to be on edge and to knock. And sometime
10:11 God puts us through that because God wants us to learn and to persevere and
10:17 to be shaped. And this is what he does. How long, oh Lord? And scholars would
10:23 tell you he's been praying this. Some scholars say 20 years. He's not the only one. King David says the same thing. How
10:31 long, oh Lord? So if you've been praying, you have a problem and you've
10:37 been knocking and knocking on the door and asking and you say, you know what, I
10:42 not getting anywhere. Be encouraged. You feel the Lord, no, I I'm praying. I
10:48 don't know why I'm unhappy. I don't know why I'm depressed. I'm praying. Be
10:54 encouraged. The very act of of doing this prayer is
10:59 a godly act. And we'll find out this is one of his great characteristics. This is a man who doesn't let go. But what is
11:07 he really uh uh complaining about? And we find it out in verse one. How long,
11:14 oh Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? That's an that's an
11:20 accusation prayer. You know, he's accusing God of not listening to him. And he's only starting to get warmed up.
11:27 And we find it from verses 1 to4. Without going to the details, let me give you a bit of the history of Judah.
11:33 Judah is in his twilight years. The last king, King Josiah was a great king. Name
11:39 your son children Josiah. I met a Josiah out there. Where's Mary? Is Mary here? Mary? No. Sister Mary I met outside.
11:46 She's got a son called Josiah. And u uh the son of Josiah is called Johim. Never
11:54 name your kid Joay Kim. He was a bad king. He was a corrupt king. He was a
12:00 king that took money from the people. He was a king that uh basically manipulated
12:08 the judiciary. Under this king, corruption grew very much.
12:14 I didn't say anything. Oh, you imply. Oh, you very suspicious voice. He was a
12:20 bad king. And here justice had become a
12:26 joke. And so Habacook looks at it and he gets angry. He's really angry. He's been
12:32 praying for such a long time. And God, how long must I call for help? But you
12:38 do not listen or cry to you violence. You do not say, "Why do you make me look
12:46 at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?" This is the first salvo of why.
12:51 Why God, you don't seem to listen?
12:56 And out of the blue, after maybe years of praying, God answers. And his answer
13:04 is something really great. He says, "Look at the nations and watch. Be
13:09 utterly amazed. I'm going to do something your days that you would not
13:15 believe even you were told." And Paul quotes this in Acts chapter 13 verse 14
13:22 to the Pharisees when he tells them that Jesus is the only way, the truth and the
13:27 gospel. And he warns the Pharisees by quoting Habacook because the Pharisees
13:33 could not believe it. Let me put it to you in simple English for us to get the text through. In simple English is this.
13:39 Habacook tells God, "Tell me what you going to do." And God says, "Okay, I'll tell. won't believe me. So God tells him
13:49 and after God tells him, Habacook's reply is basically this.
13:56 That's Habacook's reply. You serious, God? You got to be kidding.
14:05 Why? God says, you know, didn't I say you won't get it? That's the way to
14:10 understand the text. Now before you sort of run down Habacook in a nutshell, we
14:17 don't have time to read from verses 5 to 11, but you read it and get into the poetry in simple English. This is why
14:25 he's upset because God is sending the Babylonians,
14:30 the Chelian army, to punish Judah for its iniquities.
14:37 And when they come, they come like a They fly like a vulture. They
14:42 derive king. They sweep like wind. Guilty men whose own strength is their
14:48 God. But then God drops a hint which he'll develop in chapter two. He says, "Then they sweep past like the wind and
14:56 go on like the wind. They too will disappear." There's a hint there. But
15:02 Habacook is too swept up. He can't believe this. And so he goes to his
15:08 second complaint. He says, "God, this doesn't make sense." And we find that
15:13 from verses 13, 12 all the way to 17. Now, the English translation says, "Oh
15:20 Lord, are you not from everlasting?" But the the Hebrew is better. If you take the Hebrew Bible, the way the actual
15:28 construction in Hebrew is this, you know, I taught you from everlasting.
15:35 It's like this. I thought you're God.
15:40 Aren't you God? Aren't you a good God? Isn't a good God
15:46 supposed to do this? Aren't you a compassionate God? Why God? That's the
15:52 way to get into it. He doesn't get it. And he's really upset now. And his his
15:58 insulting tone, his accusatory tone is now getting really bad. He's almost
16:04 brutally confronting God. Every scholar who who who has done this has picked it up. You
16:12 see, the way to wrap in simple English is this. He's Habacook is telling God,
16:17 "Do something about injustice." You know what God's reply? I'm going to bring
16:23 even more injustice. And so, it totally breaks him. And now,
16:29 three points I want us to pick up. The first, what you wrestle in prayer
16:35 reflects what's important to you. Here's the second key point. Bring your doubts
16:42 to God, not to others. And lastly, God answers prayers, but we may not like
16:49 some of his answers. You see whether one of the most
16:55 difficult things for all of us to to acknowledge is essentially we are self-centered and chapter two has the
17:02 most insidious sin all of us have the sin of pride
17:07 even standing up here there is this temptation to glorify myself even ministry leaders who do things
17:14 unconsciously they tell you they're doing things for God but unconsciously there's a desire to I want to do my own
17:20 little thing. We all have this problem. So, here's a very simple way to test it
17:25 out. You know, you ask yourself, what is the majority of your prayers?
17:31 Especially in more particular focus, what are the prayers that you really
17:38 wrestle about? Here's a simple example. Give you a
17:43 test. We talk about wrestling prayers. For example, let me just do this. When
17:49 was the last time you prayed for?
17:57 Come on. Be honest. You guys don't wrestle by ABC. You talk about ABC a
18:03 lot. Don't wrestle. Oh yeah. This church leader honor. What
18:08 kind of sermon? This Peter, what kind of elder? This church like that the parking
18:13 also do like that. Like it can be a long list. But how many of us are burdened for the
18:20 church? You must understand what Habacook is doing is that he's burdened for God's covenant and God's people. And
18:28 what is the church? The church is the new Israel. You see, what burdens you will reveal
18:35 your fears. So for example, if I'm always praying, God pray pray that you know pray that my
18:43 business does well, that reveals my fear. I've been praying for that a lot because
18:50 I'm going through a bad season. I'm not the only one. I may have to retrench stuff. Those of you who know me, I'm an
18:57 architect. What what is who is building out there? They say it's going to be worse. So, the frequency I wrestle with
19:03 this reveals my fear. Correct? You think about it. If you if you have pounded in
19:09 prayer, Lord, I pray over this, it reveals that is your biggest concern.
19:16 And what Habacook's prayer reveals is that he's not praying about himself.
19:21 He's not praying that he's got cancer or his friends got cancer, close relative. He's not praying about his business.
19:28 He's praying for the people. He's got a bigger vision.
19:34 See, we are very much like this picture. You know, we we have this kind of close
19:40 mindset. In chapter two, uh, Habac describes the rich as people living in
19:46 cages and they push the cage high up so that they're out of harm's way. We all
19:52 want to do our ministry among things that we are comfortable with and we can do self-actualization. You don't realize
19:58 it is unconscious. But you unpack your mind and sit down
20:03 and pause and be very honest with you. A lot of things we do are self-centered. And that is the root of sin. The root of
20:10 sin is self-centeredness. Even for those of us who are involved in
20:15 ministry, we cloak it in religious words. But at the bottom of it, there's
20:21 a lot of self-centeredness. So, let me give you the key point. Bring
20:27 your doubts to God, not to others. In the first service, I made a bad mistake.
20:32 I quoted these lyrics from a song. You know, I'm 51. I I grew up in new wave music. All you younger people don't
20:38 understand this. In a new wave, there was this band who did this song, quite a famous song. I don't want to start any
20:46 blasphemous rumors, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor. And when I die, I expect to find him laughing. And
20:53 I made a bet on $10 whether anyone who got knew the band. And I lost $10.
20:59 So, I'm wise enough not to do it in the second service. But does anyone know the band? Just
21:05 curious. I should have tried this on the second surface, man. Oh, this is Depache Mode.
21:11 If anyone of you know your new wave history is a very famous electronic band and this is quite typical of pop music
21:18 and basically he's basically telling you why he doesn't believe in God. And a lot
21:23 of people don't believe in God. They'll blog about it. They'll write emails about it. They go to the mama store and
21:30 talk about it. You you find people who used to go to church and then you meet
21:36 them to tell you you know what I don't go to church anymore I don't quite believe in Christianity or they tell you
21:41 you know what I struggle with Christianity seems contradictory God is so good why is there hell why do bad
21:48 things happen to good people which is really what his main problem is here if
21:54 God is so good why doesn't he do something about this I I don't get it about you Christians why must it be the
21:59 only way and what God is saying tell him that.
22:05 Don't tell your friends at a mama store. Don't belong. Bring it to him. Let me uh give you
22:13 three of his faith struggles and they're very very connected to us. The first is
22:19 he says God is indifferent. That is what really verses one to four
22:24 is. How long must I call for help? You do not listen. And you do not say, "Why do
22:31 you make me look injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?"
22:38 That's his first complaint. God doesn't care about my life. That's
22:43 why he's saying, "God doesn't care if I got cancer. God doesn't care about my finances. God doesn't care what happens
22:51 to my life." And God is saying, "You take that to him." Here's the second one. God is inconsistent.
22:58 He says in verse 12, "Oh Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment. Oh
23:03 God, you have ordained them to punish. Oh Lord, are you not from everlasting?
23:09 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrong." He's building a case to tell God, "God,
23:16 you're you're a good God." And this is then he throws it. Why then do you
23:22 tolerate the treasurers? You're inconsistent. You're a good God. These are barbarians
23:29 who are murderers and you let them come in, they are going to be like the fisherman with a net who
23:36 sweeps us and pulls it out of the shore and they do it again. They're going to destroy Israel. God, you're not
23:42 consistent. We surely will not die. We are your covenant nation. And here's
23:50 the best. This is the one that all of us complain. God, you're not fair.
23:56 And he says this, why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more
24:02 righteous than themselves? And he makes a presupposition that the Babylonians are more wicked than him. That's
24:09 actually a dangerous proposition, but we'll go to that later. But isn't that something we all struggle with? God's
24:16 not fair. I I I had a friend um at 11 months lost
24:24 lost a son to a brain aneurysm. Seven years later he had a daughter.
24:31 Lost the daughter. Similar situation. How many of you lose two kids? When I talked to him after
24:38 that he told me actually told me I I I rather die at least I can be my
24:43 children. And and the hurt was so deep, you know, you couldn't you didn't know how to go past it.
24:50 And then years go by and you hope he heals. And I received a WhatsApp one
24:56 month ago at 5 in the morning. He tells me, "Arno, my wife has fourth stage cancer,
25:03 you know." And then I I I went to see him at a hospital. And you know what? basically told me not so many words he's
25:08 saying that you know if I know on the day I was born that this was going to happen my life I have told God I'd
25:15 rather not be born you see pain is real and in our midst
25:21 here they are those of us who suffer is so silent and and sometime we in the
25:26 church we don't give people a chance to just tear it out you know and they
25:32 bottle it deep deep deep deep inside now what hab Habac is doing is he's throwing
25:37 it all out at God. He pushing it out. It's an important point in part of your
25:43 faith movement to move from fear to faith. This is the journey you have to
25:50 take. And chapter one deals with that. You cannot get to chapter three before you do this. Uh let me try another quiz.
25:58 No money again. Recession. This is a very famous 1970s TV series. I
26:06 know all you millionaires are saying, "Oh, this old speaker, nothing very current, not a Netflix old guy 51." And
26:14 now in the in the TV series Mash, there was this character is a lieutenant, very famous character. And again, first
26:20 service, they got it. First service very dangerous. Anyone of you know this character? Any old people who watch
26:26 MASH? Sorry. Who? Wow, I'm impressed.
26:32 Yes. Wonderful. And you're young. Clinger. Hey, not fair. This one. You
26:40 see the name is great. His lieutenant clinger.
26:47 He's a clinger. You know what Habacook means in Aadian
26:52 or in what Hebrew? It means to embrace. Habacook is a clinger.
26:59 Now what does this mean? Let me break it down. Number one, he challenges God. You
27:05 cannot break that. He goes to God. He says, "You do not listen. You make me
27:11 look at voilers. God, are you really God? He is rude.
27:17 You cannot get past the language." Now, here's the point. Some of us say,
27:23 "It's God." No, we can't say this. But you know what? I tell God says, "God, why do you do this to me? God is not
27:29 fair. God is not right. I don't deserve this." He's bursting out. He's screaming
27:35 to God. And God, I don't deserve this is wrong.
27:42 When have you done that? He challenges God and not only challenged, he brings
27:48 his doubt. He says, "God, what you're doing doesn't make sense." He establishes a case, tells God, "This is
27:54 your character. So, what you're doing is you're completely wrong. You know how far it's going." He wrestles with God.
28:01 He does all the things a lot of us don't do. But, but remember, he's a clinger.
28:09 He never abandons God. Why?
28:14 Because Habacook understands something. And that's why Paul uses this in Acts 13
28:20 to the Pharisees. He understands number one, God knows how we speak when we are
28:26 desperate. And we sometimes bottle it. You see, if you're honest, if you're really honest
28:33 with yourself, the way we deal with pain or fears is we are like that Chinese
28:40 thing. We we we we can't you know so because we can't you know we do we live with it and we bury it deep inside we
28:48 push it inside and back of our head and then we put activities and things in
28:53 front and we hope that carries us through. It does for a while, but at one
28:58 point it comes out. And when it comes out, by God, it comes out in spades
29:04 and it breaks into your life. And God says, "Pull it out." And how do
29:10 you pull it out? What's the key word? The key word is grace. Because he
29:16 recognizes he is not saved by having legalistic prayers. He's not saved
29:23 because of his works. He understands Judah was redeemed not because they were
29:29 bigger nation but because God plucked them out not because they did anything.
29:36 And so he comes to God boldly. And that's what grace does because I
29:43 didn't deserve his merit. His righteousness was put in me. I walk in
29:49 faith by coming clean with God. And when
29:54 you do that, God will make you a faithful wrestler.
30:00 God will make you a clinger.
30:05 Now, I want to pause here for a while. And I want to suggest most of us don't
30:12 do this. We we go through the motions. So, what we're going to do at the end of
30:17 this service is really give you a chance to pray because about prayer. There's three
30:25 chapters of prayer. But you need to pray outside your comfort zone. I want to prepare you this. I want you to ponder
30:32 on things that really hurt you, disappointed you, made you fearful.
30:40 I would like you to sort of take that which was very deeply bur buried in.
30:47 It could be a hurt from childhood or some scar. I want you to pull it up
30:52 because this is what God wants us to do. Let me end with the uh last reason and
30:59 again we just remember Habacook tells God tells Habacook to
31:04 look at the nations meaning God's purpose for all of us is larger than we
31:10 expect. You see when we go through bad things you know our natural instinct is say why and we pray and we don't get it
31:18 or we pray God rescue me from this and if it doesn't come to pass we say why
31:23 and we pray and pray and pray but the answers are in the wind. And this last
31:29 point is important. You see God answers prayer. It's not that he doesn't. We
31:35 just don't like his answers. And because we don't like it, we buried it inside. Uh Martin Lloyd Jones wrote a book in
31:42 the 50s called From Fear to Faith. It was based on the studies of Habacook. He
31:47 wrote it when the world was in the throws of a cold war.
31:53 And the thing that everyone was afraid of was Soviet Union and communism.
31:59 That was the fear. And Habacook was saying all your problems, they all tiny dots. Whether it's the cancer you are
32:06 having or the business or your community and the all doors that go larger larger
32:13 and he was trying to tell everyone God works even through communism and of
32:19 course communism collapsed. Communism collapsed in a big way in China and is now home to probably the
32:27 largest growing Christian community. Now what he's saying is that the enemy
32:33 then was communism. The enemy here is Babylonians.
32:39 Now there is a new enemy. But God is still unstoppable.
32:47 Here's the way to give you a bit of history lessons. Yeah. The Babylonians came and swept to cross like vouchers.
32:55 Then they also died off and the Persians came. Persians came and swept like
33:00 vultures. They too died off. Then the Greeks came. But when the Greeks came,
33:06 they did something else. They brought language. And suddenly there's a lingua frana. That's why up to now people speak
33:13 Latin. You see how God moves and you don't see it. You think God silent, but
33:18 Greek is being established. And suddenly you have what you call a hellenistic culture. And after the Greeks left, the
33:26 Romans took over. And the Romans took the Greek language and the Roman Empire went so big they established Pax Romana
33:33 the peace of Rome. So that is order to have Pax Romana. What did they do? They had a road network. They had a sale
33:40 network. They had ports. Listed out is all of this. And if Judah wasn't taken
33:48 into captivity, Babylon wouldn't have happened, Persian wouldn't have happened. the Greek Empire wouldn't have
33:54 occurred, the Roman Empire wouldn't have happened. And if all of this wouldn't have happened, Christ would not have
33:59 come. You think he would have got it years ago? You see, God works that way. Joseph
34:07 had the same thing when he was in Egypt. So, here's one last thing I want us to look at. You see, we tend to look, like
34:14 I said, because of self-centered nature to a small little problem, but they're larger issues and they got to do with
34:20 our country. like the way Habacook looked at Judah. And so when you look at
34:25 certain things in this country, not just the corruption and things like that, but
34:30 when we look at specific things happening to the Christian community like this,
34:37 be assured God's hand is behind us.
34:42 So I want you to pause and just look at this and give you again our three points
34:48 that you know what are you wrestling in prayer. I want you to pause and think
34:54 about that and that wrestling I would like you to take it to God
34:59 and be assured God behind the scene works.
35:05 So what are we going to do now? Some of us are going through turbulent times.
35:11 I want to now do prayer. Now, if you need to live, can you do it quietly?
35:18 Because we're now coming to the most important part of the message. You do in
35:23 a quiet way. You have kids, we understand that. But for the rest of you,
35:29 it's time to be still. I like all of you to really just pause
35:35 and I'm going to take you through a very old prayer. It's called a centering prayer. you were developed by the
35:40 Benedicting monks. One of the most gospel- centered prayers that came out,
35:46 I want you to pause and as as this in the quietness, this this
35:53 silent moment, I want you to take out a problem, a fear, anything.
36:00 I want you to take it out and and and and I want you to bring it before God.
36:05 Can we do that? So let us all close our eyes and uh we're going to go into silence.
36:12 We're going to do as as the spirit moves in us. Let us just quieten our hearts right
36:17 now.
36:33 Lord, as we try to be silent, our minds are distracted.
36:39 So, so those who need to leave, Lord, we ask, they do it quietly. The rest of us, we sit there. Some of us
36:45 are thinking of other things because mind is restive. We ask right now, you pull us back and to be still and know
36:53 Lord, you're in our midst.
37:08 Lord, we we take this we take these things that are in our hearts and they they burden us and they're very personal
37:15 things that no one knows and we laid them at you, Lord, and and we cry, "Why,
37:21 oh God, that the proc process to finding faith
37:27 is to recognize that fear. And we don't do this with your own strength. We do it with you, Lord. So,
37:34 Holy Spirit, right now, we ask that you see it there. You you take this and you bring it before God. You bring it
37:42 boldly, every fear, every struggle,
37:47 cast that doubt to God. And Lord, we are reminded why can we do
37:53 that? because of the grace we have from the cross that we're redeemed not by our
37:60 righteousness but your righteousness and we walk by faith and Lord we don't understand everything
38:07 and Lord sometimes in our lives we think that things are not fair sometimes in our faith we don't
38:13 understand scripture we think you're not consistent and very often Lord in life we just hear
38:20 silence we think you don't But we take that before you because we
38:26 know you want to hear that. And Lord, we we recognize that you don't
38:32 work in anyone's timetable, but yours, a day, a month, a year, a century.
38:39 We ask, oh Lord, we enlarge our fears not just on our own little problems, but
38:44 we enlarge it to national and global and historical levels. And we put things in
38:50 perspectives. our fears become very small. Suddenly our own self needs become so
38:57 tiny when we look at what's happening. And so Lord, we right now look
39:02 especially with with the abduction of pastor Raymond and we sometime cry why
39:09 Lord so long we've been praying we have no news and we will keep knocking even
39:15 though it takes us months and years and we will continue to persevere in candle vigils and Lord like what happened last
39:22 Sunday when some of us were there we were continue we thankful we we hear how pastor Co's wife was so encouraging and
39:30 she prayed to love our enemies out there and we know behind the scenes you are unstoppable God and you work through the
39:37 pages of history. We are encouraged that darkness though they surround us
39:45 we will persevere and we will face our fears head on
39:50 and you oh Lord will be with us and we will be victorious
39:56 and we say this in Jesus name. Amen.
