Hebrews - Part 12 Jesus’ Prayers and Supplications (Hebrews 5:7)

We are in Hebrews 5 still, and we have encountered a verse that is, I don't know what the theological term is, but it's a doozy. And it's one of those verses that you can read it as you're reading your daily reading, and it's like, okay, you know, there it is. But when you're starting to think about teaching through Hebrews, rather than think you're going to get through, Good morning, Kevin.

Rather than think you're going to get through a whole chapter, this verse is just a stopper. And praise the Lord for that. It gives us something to meditate upon. And we will spend some time here on Hebrews 5, 7. So where we left off, though, in the context here was that the apostle, or even I guess if it wasn't an apostle, the inspired writer, is describing to us priests, and he's establishing the case that Jesus Christ, of course, is better than everything.

That's the theme of the book, the new covenant over the old covenant, faith over works, and Christ over everything. But he's establishing the fact that Jesus Christ is a real human being too, and he's trying to, at least from my perspective, but I think he's trying to get people to stop somehow thinking of Jesus as lesser because he is human. So one of the temptations when you look at a man who walked the earth in Israel times, in Bible times we call it, and evidently was killed, had to suffer all the same things humans suffer, one of the things to wonder would be, well, what kind of God is that?

That would be a normal response. I mean, almost everybody that tells me about their false God, you see these human qualities, and you think, well, that's not God. That's somebody like us with superpowers, right? And so Jesus Christ having two natures is so utterly important, but the fact that he really was a man is super important, and there were reasons he had to become a man.

It wasn't just, well, God wanted to tell a neat story, so he became a man, and then stuff happened, and now we get to know about God. There's reasons why Jesus being a real man were so important, and that was dealt with at the beginning of the chapter. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. That's about the high priest appointed by men. will Jesus Christ also be set with weakness as a man could do those things.

So let me read verses 7 through 9. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

Now in this passage we have several, I guess what you could call a problem verse. There's no such thing as a problem verse in scripture. I guess if you're reading the Message Bible or some bad translation, you could probably get some real problem verses. But the problem is that our finite brains and our ungodly brains in this flesh that we still carry, not only cannot fathom God, which we'll never fathom God fully, but we actually rebel against the truth of God deep down inside in our Adamic nature. and so when we see a verse that doesn't perfectly make sense to us that's when we start to feel a bit uneasy we start to wonder is is everything true that i thought was true because now i'm confused these are the verses that atheists bring up all the time the problem verses you know where it seems like there's a contradiction but the contradiction is always in us and so you know one of the things that's I think we have to deal with and it's hard to understand is the the line in verse 9 and being made perfect well how can I have a Christ who I proclaim is perfect and in fact later in Hebrews I'm going to say Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever.

Yet he had to be made perfect. It was like he's changing, he's becoming. So how do we explain some of the language here? How do we explain where it says, at least in the ESV, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, verse 7, to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. There's been, interestingly enough, and I love the phrase, a lot of ink spilled on that verse.

And I was a little bit, I'll say pleased, pleasantly surprised when I read that it seems like people for a long time have looked at that verse and struggled with it. And it's one of the joys actually of what I get to do right now with studying more in depth into the Bible when I read all these other men who we respect greatly. and I noticed that men historically have differed on how they've interpreted some of these passages. Even good men that I like both of their interpretations.

So in some cases we throw up our hands in praise and we say, Lord, you know more than we know. We going to believe you and the things that are a little bit unclear to us we going to trust that you got them handled and we just don understand so we need to keep studying So let's dig in a little bit. Hebrews 5-7 starts with, In the days of his flesh. Now, in the days of his flesh, we have to now recognize that Jesus Christ does not have flesh in the sense that it is often used in Scripture.

Scripture uses the term flesh at least two ways, but I would say two main ways. One way is that the flesh stands for the evil of our nature. When Galatians talks about the desires of the flesh or the works of the flesh, and Galatians says the works of the flesh are evident, and talks about sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, rivalries, fits of anger, dissensions, divisions, jealousy, when Romans talks about the flesh versus the spirit this is a reference to our carnal nature as fallen man in Adam this is a reference to the fact that even though you're a Christian today you have something in you that is actually trying to pull you towards sin and it's not just the devil on one shoulder you actually have a part of you that is unredeemed in a sense your flesh it isn't fully glorified that is why in chapter 13 of our confession it says the sanctification is throughout the whole man yet imperfect in this life it says there abideth still some remnants of corruption in every part whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war The flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

And so when we see the word flesh in scripture, usually we realize that that's just speaking of the antithesis of our spirit, speaking of the antithesis of the godly spirit that's been put in us. So when we read something like, and in the days of his flesh, Jesus did something, we have to recognize that this is not speaking of that earthly flesh that we have that is stained by sin and hopelessly corrupted until God will redeem it fully when he glorifies our flesh. This is simply speaking of the fact that Jesus Christ truly was in the flesh, which is an absolutely essential doctrine.

It's not an important doctrine. it's not a really really good doctrine it's an essential doctrine and in fact it's one that people should be grasping at a very early time in their christianity because to deny it makes you a heretic puts you outside the faith so although it's difficult it doesn't mean that we aren't to believe it nor teach it it's in this same chapter later where the rebuke comes where the teacher says, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. He says, you need milk, not solid food. He is trying to exhort the people to realize that they need to get onto these deeper things.

They need to be past the point where on a weekly basis they're trying to figure out the basics of Christianity and they need to be digging deeper. so the temptation becomes that all of a sudden you'll become so smart and lofty that you'll never have to study the basics well we always still work with the basics as well in any discipline of life I shouldn't have to explain this I think to a group of men in any discipline of life though you are well aware that abandoning the fundamentals and the basics of it will cause it to fail so I'll use a really silly example If you simply forgot the alphabet, you wouldn't be able to read. It's simple. But you don't do your ABCs every day either.

There's a point where we're always using the basics in such a way that it's like we're reviewing them, but we're actually using them for something more advanced. And that's what we want to do in our Christian studies is we want to establish these truths. We want to hold them so closely that they never fail us. So when I'm studying the scripture, I'm never studying it, forgetting that it's pointing to Christ and things like that.

But I don't have to constantly remind myself of some of those basics every single time I open a new passage. So Jesus was in the flesh, and this means he became a man. Again, he was a distinct man, made in a different covenant, a covenant of works that he was the head of, rather than the one that Adam was the head of. And so Jesus, unstained by sin, was in the flesh, showing us that the flesh itself is not inherently evil.

This is a refutation of the Gnostic heresy, which is that the flesh is all evil, earthly, physical things are just evil, and there's like this good spiritual world. And so then those people who think they can tap into it, they're the holy ones, they're the teachers. And so we confess that the creation is good. God created all these things, and he made them very good, and right now they're cursed.

And we will live in a form of a creation for all eternity, and it will be very good, and it won't be a sin-cursed one at some point. Praise the Lord for that. And so Jesus comes in the flesh, and then it says he offered up prayers and supplications. So now what we have is we have a human being, a priest, interceding and going to God. And Jesus goes to God directly because Jesus himself has full access to God.

He is God in the flesh. Jesus Christ is perfectly in the pleasure of his Father. He has no mediator that he needs to go through to go to God He is the high priest And he is able to offer up prayers and supplications Remember the context here is that he been made a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek and he is the son of God. He has the ultimate access.

There's no one who can possibly be closer to God than Jesus Christ, and as a man, he was still had that access this is one of the important things that jesus made for us was access to god and we can have access to god through him we just read that in chapter four we have access to the throne of grace through him and we can go directly to god so this is in great contradiction to most religions of the world where you have to go through some kind of holy man to get to God. And we have to, but we don't have to go through some weird earthly holy man only. We go through the holy man who actually was God and is God.

And so we have a human being who can go to God. And it says here he offered up prayers and supplications. It's amazing how much writing these guys can do about a couple of words. And it's great. It gives you food for thought. I just tend to think of prayers, supplications as, hey, praying to God, talking to God, and asking God to supply, right?

I don't read too much into it, like, well, these are just two types of prayers. And I think the idea is, is Jesus went to God and he offered prayers. We have some examples of prayers that Jesus prayed. in Mark chapter 14, verse 32, it says, they went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled.

And he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death, remain here and watch. And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. Verse 36, and he said, Abba, Father. Again, he's a son. He goes directly to God as a son and as a high priest. This is not something any of the Old Testament high priests were able to do.

They went as high priests, not as sons. He says, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. He says, yet not what I will, but what you will. Jesus shows us in his humanity this desire of man to avoid being forsaken by God, to avoid, in a sense, the pain and punishment of it. There is a natural desire to avoid affliction and discomfort.

So each and every one of us, hopefully if I asked you straight up today, are you willing to suffer for Christ? Your response would be, absolutely, but I hope I don't have to, or I hope it's not today. We don't look for it. In fact, we would pray for comfort for each other even, and we would pray that we would be delivered from evil and difficulty, and yet we all still say, yet not what I will, but what you will, Lord.

And this is Jesus's model for us. And so Jesus prays for this thing, and so the question starts to become, well, if Jesus prayed to him who was able to deliver him from death, yet Jesus still died, was Jesus' prayer unanswered? That's like the difficulty of this passage, and it's why we won't, probably at this point I don't think we're going to get past verse 7.

I thought we might talk more about 8, but one more prayer I wanted to point out, though, is in John 17. and John 17 is a prayer that Jesus has to the Father and the model in John 17 is just phenomenal you can do the Lord's Prayer, it's a good model Catechism will even teach you how to pray based on the Lord's Prayer John 17 is another good model for prayer and some of us think to ourselves it would be so neat to watch Jesus pray right oh I bet he prayed fervently oh I bet his prayers were so good now I'm sure they were I was you know they were perfect and yet God saw fit to write them for us and how often do we just review them and say I'm just going to pray like that but so Jesus says in John 17 he says in verse 6 I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world yours they were and you gave them to me and they have kept your word. He says, now they know that everything that you've given me is from you. In verse 9, he says, I am praying for them.

I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them. And he says down in verse 15, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in your truth.

Your word is truth. And he prays in verse 20, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. And so this prayer is for his people. He makes it very clear that he has an elect people.

It's a limited group of people. It's not the whole world. He also makes it clear that if you're one of his people, you're not of this world. You may have been born here. You certainly were in the covenant of Adam at one point in your life, but you are not from this world now. This is not your home.

He makes that clear. You can imagine being a United States citizen if you traveled to another country You wouldn alter your citizenship while you stayed there You were a sojourner You would remember you're a United States citizen with whatever the rights you have because of that. You wouldn't want to change that. And yet, how often we want to exchange our rights as citizens of God's kingdom.

Hold on, apparently my cat wants to leave this office. You want to get out of here? Go on, do what you want. All right, this is unscripted Bible teaching. So now back to Hebrews 5. Jesus offered up prayers and supplications.

He offered up lots of them. The historical commentators do not agree on whether this verse is referring just to his prayers in the garden. Some people immediately assume that's what it is, or whether this refers to just his general prayers. One commentator said, this obviously refers to prayers that are not written in the Bible. Okay. I'm not going to pretend to tell you that I'm sure exactly what this verse necessarily meant, which prayers.

But the point is, is Jesus prayed and asked for supply from God. And he did it not only on behalf of himself, but he did it on behalf of you. he did on behalf of his people we just read that but so it says he prayed with loud cries and tears and this is where I personally was a bit convicted I know some of us are more naturally disposed to some of that emotionalism while praying I think that some of us it's just not maybe the way we tend to be about things in general. I'm moved to tears through singing hymns a lot more than I am in praying.

This verse really convicted me that maybe the problem is I'm not actually praying, or I'm not praying enough, or I'm not praying very fervently, and that what needs to happen is I need to try maybe newer things in my prayer life instead of just the same thing every day where maybe it's going to be through spending more time in prayer that it would bring me to that point of even tears. And I'm not saying I've never been brought to tears in prayer, but I find that that happens more often when I hear somebody else pray than even my own prayers. And so we are to cry out to God in prayer.

And part of our crying out to God in prayer is expressing our weakness. We need you, God. We need you. I'm crying out. I'm yelling. I'm proclaiming.

One thing that I do inconsistently is in my private prayer life, not as often as I wish I did it. I'm getting better at this, I pray out loud. And when I pray out loud, it changes the direction of the prayers. It causes me to be thinking more about what I'm saying, because I'm also hearing it. It sounds silly, but I'm also hearing what I'm saying as it comes out of my mouth.

It helps me focus better. And I have found that to be helpful in my prayers, in my private ones in contradiction to the private prayers where I'm praying, I'm praying, and then all of a sudden I'm thinking about, you know, something at work I've got to do, you know, or a conversation I need to have. It's real easy when I'm not also saying the prayers out loud for my mind to wander, and I hate that.

I despise that. And it sounds like, well, you know, it's not that big a deal, and maybe some of you guys are like, ooh, I do that too, like, you know, go easy on yourself. Well, okay, we can trust that God's forgiven us, but can you just imagine a person who says they love you sitting next to you talking to you, and in the middle of what they're supposed to be saying to you, they just change the subject and they're just talking about their work, or they're thinking about, you know, are the Bengals going to beat the Chiefs or what, you know?

Like, what's going to happen here? Is there going to be a rematch, 49ers, Bengals, Super Bowl? You know what I mean? Like, all of a sudden your mind is wandering in your prayers, and it would be like somebody was having a literal conversation with you, and you were supposed to be engaged with them. You're listening. You're ready to help them with whatever their needs are, but it's infinitely minuscule compared to God's readiness to be helpful to you and answer your prayers, and they just start talking about random stuff that really has no bearing on the subject matter. you'd be offended.

You'd say, you can't just look me in the eye and talk to me for 10 minutes or whatever it is, right? And yet, we do that to God all the time. It's amazing how easily I can be distracted, too, from Bible reading or prayer. You know, I'm reading the Bible, and literally, you've got to realize, at the time you're reading the Bible, God's speaking directly to you.

You're listening to God speak to you. It's a private time with your Father in Heaven. he loves you he's written this for you the spirit is working on your heart while you read the word and then oh oh wait a second i got a notification i wonder what happened on facebook today you know what i'm saying i understand we got to be curry your wife walks in the room and starts talking to you you know i think you don't just ignore her but i think we have to try to explain to people too like hey i don't i don't appreciate you interrupting my conversation with god either and you can say it nicer we're supposed to be gentle I'm not saying go bash your wife because she's done that because I've done it to her I'm sure but I think sometimes we don't actually take seriously what's going on or communing with God in prayer, or in our Bible reading time. Now, Lord willing, you have a constant attitude of prayer, and so in some sense you're always praying, so you're always getting your prayers interrupted.

I've heard of these guys that they just walk around, it's like they're always praying, and that's fantastic. But I mean more when you're having your private time with God. How easily is it interrupted, and how annoyed would you be if it was your turn to be having a conversation with someone if they were as easily interrupted as you are when you're with God.

So think about that. And if that stung, it stings me too, okay? So Jesus cried out, though, to him who was able to save him from death, it says, and was heard because of his reference. And so here's the problem verse. Here's the part where people think, well, what does this mean? because what it sounds like it means is Jesus prayed to be delivered from death, which we just read, he kind of said something like that, at least in Mark, and that he was heard because of his reverence for God.

So it would make you think, okay, if I prayed for a bicycle, and somebody said Michael was heard because of his reverence for God, we'd expect to see a bicycle in Michael's garage. That's what we would think that meant, just reading it on the surface. So there are a few different ways you can try to figure this out. I didn't come up with all these. I mean, I read the other guys and learn, and maybe some of them the Spirit helps me understand too.

But here are some thoughts on this. So what we can't say is, well, the author of Hebrews just let us know that Jesus Christ didn't really die. All right? That is not what this verse means. So, one guy, in his comment on this, this was a really interesting comment. I kind of want to find it so I can read it to you instead of try to summarize it.

All right, so we got this guy. His name is, I think, Kaufman. Clark. he said but here we may consider the pronoun outone him as implying the collective body of mankind so he takes the verse and he retranslates it I won't read the guy's whole explanation let me tell you what this guy said Jesus Christ in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save them from death.

That resolves everything, if that's the case, right? So, I'm not a Greek expert, probably won't become one in this life, but that one makes sense to me. Jesus Christ offered up prayers and supplications to him who was able to save them from death, and he was heard. Well, again, everybody's dying. Everybody who has believed in Christ prior to, we'll say, probably 1920 is dead.

So what do we mean by save them from death then? If it's not a literal death, then it's some other kind of death, and it's the death that separates you from Christ, separates you from God, and will put you in unspeakable torment. And so Jesus is able to pray for his people, like in John 17, that God would take them out of the world eventually while delivering them from evil while they're in the world and give them some kind of unity in the world.

That's how we end up with confessions and we all agree on things. That's why you can meet a Christian on the street and you can become instantly better friends with him than you are with people you've known for years. but if this one i think's a little bit of a strange interpretation because if saving him from if saving us from death was what he really meant and then we have to realize well it certainly doesn't mean the literal death then it's it then it didn't have to mean a literal death for jesus either right and jesus could be saved from death some similar way so i'm not sure I love a guy that just translates it a little different. He has a justification for it.

But another option to think about is that it says, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence, being saved from death, our first thought is, well, that means not dying. But what if being saved from death means after having died and experiencing death for a time, he was saved from it and removed from it. So rather than experiencing eternal death, like the wicked and the devil and his angels will, Jesus Christ experienced death.

He tasted it. And yet death couldn't hold him. So he was saved from it by his resurrection. so Jesus prayed to the one who could save him from death and he was heard because of his godly fear because of his reverence because of his piety some of the translations say Jesus Christ was saved from death his works were good enough for God his works were enough to perfectly fulfill a covenant that he made with God And in fact his were so good that just like Adam he able to take everybody with him that he intends to take with him And so I think that it another way to look at it I'm not going to argue about which one of these options people come up with you pick, but I think Jesus was saved from death, not from the experience of the physical death that he had to endure, not from the experience of taking on the full wrath of God for sin that he endured.

But I think Jesus was saved from death in the sense that he went to the grave and the grave couldn't hold him. Satan couldn't hold him there. The earth couldn't hold him there. There's no power of hell, no will of man that could hold him in that grave, right? He was saved from death. It doesn't mean he was completely spared of having felt it.

It doesn't mean that he didn't experience it. but he was saved from it in the same sense that Abraham knew that Isaac would be figuratively raised from the dead or he Abraham believed Isaac would be raised from the dead and in Hebrews tells us figuratively was in that same sense Jesus Christ was saved from death not because like Isaac he didn't have to experience it but because he was delivered out of the death that he did endure. And the beauty of that is, is that rather than having a dead Savior, we have a living Savior. But we have a Savior who was made perfect through that experience so that he could do what all of us needed to do.

You see, Jesus wasn't made perfect in the sense that he had some moral flaw or he had some kind of imperfection that just had to be refined so he could be the man God wanted them to be. It's not like Jesus was not quite what God wanted and he had to do some stuff. Jesus was made perfect it says in verse 9 so that he could do what we needed him to do.

He didn't need to die for him to have access to God. He was already accessing God through prayers and intercessions and supplications. even when he became a man he had access to god he was spirit-led he did his father's business as a child jesus became perfect by dying on our behalf so that he experienced the death you deserve and in some you know if you like mathematics you know in some way jesus experienced infinite punishment. Because he's infinite.

As God. He was able to endure the infinite wrath that you're owed. And his death is enough to credit anyone who comes to him with salvation. That's why it says, being made perfect in verse 9, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. and so we'll we'll talk more about him being a son and obedience for what he suffered in verse 8 and and i kind of skipped to verse 9 but this is this is the this is the goal here of the author of hebrews is to remind them jesus came and fulfilled what all the all the other high priests were prefiguring and picturing and it is not a problem that jesus became a man in fact it was essential that he became a man.

It was essential that you have a man who literally prayed prayers and died. So rather than you having a loser God, like all the guys around you, the Greeks and the Romans and all the people whose gods are nothing but men with bigger muscles most of the time and women who are just whores. I don't know if you've read much mythology. I mean, I don't want to get on a tangent, but like every other like religion's gods are basically whores of some kind or pedophiles like Muhammad, you know.

But our God became a man, but he wasn't like other men. He was like the perfect man should have been, and he was. And so instead of feeling bad that we have this God that died and he got bloody and what an embarrassment and what a shame that he was crucified. Instead of feeling that way about it, which is how a first century Jew probably would have been tempted to feel at first, the authors tell him this is exactly what you needed.

And the fact that he prayed to him who could save him from death and he was delivered from death is your hope. Not that he would have been delivered from the experience of it, but that he was delivered from the power of it to hold him. And so when you leave today, when you go on about your day, just remember that you have access because of a high priest who's not just some priest that was appointed by men, though, in this case.

He was appointed by God himself and is God's very son who prayed and asked supplications on your behalf when he walked this earth. So I will stop there and open it up for any comments or questions or testimonies that you guys want to share. I agree with you. It's easy to become distracted. It might be something worth trying to bring out loud. Yeah, I just say amen.

I never get tired of just meditating on what Christ did and just the full implication of that, that a completely holy and righteous God would condescend to earth and take that humiliation on the behalf of wretched despicable sinners you know that hated him Just close your mind and completely humbling. Amen, Jeremy. I like the call out, Michael, to like we have, we can see in Scripture where Jesus prayed, yet do we look over those and not mimic, but study those prayers?

Because I know I haven't. And again, there's just, there's some obvious things, and it's just so easy to pass those up. And that's just one that really caught me today, along with the other stuff you're talking about, prayer. Because, yeah, it's like if we're sitting there talking with our wives or whatever, and then we just go and we stop that whole conversation and something pops up in our head, that's just rude, disrespectful.

But yet how do we do that with the Lord all the time, or at least I do? You know what I mean? you're trying to focus, you're trying to pray, and then something pops into your head. I just like how you put that, and it's definitely convicting. So I appreciate that. You're not alone, brother. Do you guys hear me okay?

Yes, sir. Okay, cool. I had to cut my video feed. I apologize. I'm having internet issues today but um as you were talking about you know offering up prayers with uh just loud cries and tears um i mean it really the more i the more i study the scriptures or just like a basic reading of the scriptures you know you're talking about the basics you know um it's kind of those building blocks and then as you go back through the scriptures but um but so i'll use a kind of a bigger term here, but the covenantal approach to reading the scriptures or a covenantal hermeneutic, like this consistent message all throughout scripture, you know, then we see this climax, you know, in the gospels of, wow, here he is the one who is the one that we have had shadows of and pictures of, and, you know, little sayings of, you know, like in Isaiah 53, for example.

So, but when you start to read through the Psalms, the book of Psalms, and you come across, like, passages, you know, like, chapter 22, like, if you just, like, you guys just read through, like, Psalm 22, and it's, like, this is, like, Christ on the cross is crying out, you know, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? like that he's talking to the father like that that's a that's a it's a loud cry with tears like why have you forsaken me but it's pointing back to like psalm 22 you know and you just read that and it's like man that that's our lord and you know i'm not saying that all of his prayers were with loud cries and tears, but you read through the Psalms, and it's just like, it is like the emotional book of the Bible. Like, these men that wrote these Psalms, yes, it's inspired by the Holy Spirit. It's actually the Word of God.

But there's a lot of Psalms in there that are just like that attitude of, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Right? It wasn't an enemy that betrayed me. It was someone who sat at my table, you know? And so the Psalms are, for me anyway, so helpful in when I go to private prayer. And just memorizing the Psalms, too, are extremely helpful.

We've got a few of them put to music now, so they're, like, easier for me to memorize. They come to mind so often, like during prayer. and it makes me think of like Jesus praying Psalm 22. It makes me think of Jesus praying in Psalm or in John 17. And it's like, it's almost walking like the same path, so to speak, that you walk, like you're just kind of following him.

And it just kind of, it just kind of brings you to tears. Like there's just so many thoughts and emotions that kind of rise up. It's like, first of all, like, how am I even, how can I even do this? How can I even walk the same path that Christ walked? I'm so unworthy. I'm so filthy.

I'm so sick. I'm so horrid. But I'm walking this path because just what we read in Hebrews that he has, through his death he saved us from death. And he is the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. That's how I'm able to walk this path behind Christ and offer up prayers with loud cries and tears because Christ did. And I can because Christ did.

And I know I'm heard because of Christ. Christ knew he was heard because he's a son. I know I'm heard because I'm in the son. And what a privilege. And just the fact it like this you know like Michael spoke about you know this when you read from the confession there this ongoing war that never going to be reconciled in this life between the flesh and the spirit And you aware of that in prayer And it like this absolute God must hear me or I will die type attitude And you're so dependent upon what God is able to do, which makes you plead with him all the more to send the spirit to help you. and then when you see and you look back on things you've prayed for or situations and you've seen a favorable outcome and it just makes you weep all the more because our faithful high priest has gone on into heaven before us and we were heard because of Christ and it's just a glorious thing I am just, all I can say is I am just so, so pleasantly thankful for Jesus.

That's just where it leaves you. Amen. Yeah, Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's not a model for us. He was forsaken so we won't be. Yeah, amen.

That's the beauty of it. is when you feel forsaken, that's the indicator that you're the problem. You're forsaking God right now. You don't feel his presence. Jesus was forsaken, so you won't be. What a pleasure. Yeah.

Good comment. There's a good lesson there. If you're reading a scripture and you're praying and you're studying the Bible with your men's groups and little groups like this and at church, if it's not leading to doxology, if it's not leading to the praise of God, the love of Christ from your heart, then something's not happening right. And it could be with you.

You want to pray that God helps you with that. It could be you're in a place that's not actually leading you well, wherever, you know, if it's someplace. But that's the end goal. The end goal is that Christ is praised. Amen. Well, it sounds like there was enough silence.

Everyone is finished. I will say pray for Stephen. He is on the West Coast, and he wasn't going to get up early to be with us, although I think he wanted to try. But he does want to still be with us, But he travels a lot for work. And I'll see you guys in about two weeks, I think it would be. So we'll do the second and fourth Friday after our little kind of break we had there with December and people being sick.

And Kevin, you were on earlier. I did announce that if people want to visit our church, we are going to be meeting in a home right now, trying to evaluate if meeting in a house would be good for us. For one thing, it would be good financially instead of paying rent. But we want to evaluate that. So if you were thinking of coming to see us, which we'd love for you to do, just let, I mean, you know Jeremy, Jason, and I, you know all our numbers.

So let us know, and we'd be happy to let you know. It's an undisclosed location. So I'm trying to make it sound a little secretive. People might be more interested. But otherwise, I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day today. and why don't we pray Father in heaven we come to you and pray and we know that we come to you only because Jesus Christ made a way for us to come to you it was through great sacrifice that that way was made and so we pray that you would help us to be those that honor that sacrifice that we would have reverence and awe for it, and that we would forsake our flesh in this world, that we would quit with the quick prayers we throw up before a meal sometimes, that we would quit with the being distracted while we're supposed to be focused on you and your word, and that you would help us become men of God.

We live in a day and age when a man sitting around and playing video games all the time is not considered an immature thing. And we need to evaluate ourselves by the light of your word. And so may we become men who are godly men, who are able to forsake the things of this world that we ought to forsake and live lives that show that we truly honor the sacrifice that was made on our behalf. please go with these men today into their various endeavors their work that they're doing their home life where they're leading we pray that each one of them would even just do a little more today than yesterday grow a little bit more in the image of your perfect son and that we all may constantly rely upon him because no matter how strong we sometimes feel we're truly weak we need him desperately amen Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin.

I am a writer at thingsabove.us, and I also have a personal website, michaelcoughlin.net. You can contact me by emailing me, michael at thingsabove.us. I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures