First John 5:13-15 Confidence and Certainties of Believers 1,

Okay, so you see this is the rest of the year. So you'll see there's actually quite a few classes. Thanksgiving, and this is what we've done typically Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. We know Sunday school, but there will be the main service, of course. So anyway. And then actually, I didn't get very original with the last three classes in chapter five. I have the same title, so if you teach those, you're welcome to modify the title.

But it is actually, these are very encouraging talking about the certainties and the confidence a believer can have. And today is one that we'll talk about that in terms of prayer. Okay, so let's go on. So let me read the passage. These things I've written to you. who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

And there's a textual thing here which I'm not going to get into, but there's a last part of this verse which some versions have, some versions do not have. So I'm not going to... New American Standard does not have it, so I'm going to use that. So, I didn't find a whole lot of dialogue about that though.

So let's continue. This is the confidence which we have before Him that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. And these, you know, this whole section is to be an encouragement. John's kind of wrapping up 1 John here in this letter, and these are to be very encouraging verses, and they're to be encouraging about how we approach the Lord in prayer.

So let's go on. So it starts off with these things I have written to you." So actually, what I did, looking at the verse there, actually the inner linear in the original Greek, it has it in this order and it puts who the person is who believes in the name of the Son of God at the last of the verse.

But it has like I've written to you, and it gives a purpose. And I like that. And Macaulay liked that, too. So maybe I liked it because Macaulay liked it. I don't know. Whatever you think. But anyway. So it's the things I've written to you that you may know that you have eternal life.

So this is really kind of foundational kind of stuff. And this is to give us an assurance. And when we come to prayer, that if we know we have eternal life, we're to be bold and fearless, as we'll see shortly. Be fearless in our prayer life. Okay, so let's look at this. So I just kind of looked at, I'll put all three up there real quick.

Subject, verb, direct object. So it's, I, John, have written, Grafo, to write on writing material. And it's the direct object is these things to you who believe. And it's a fact, he wrote that. So the question comes up, what are these things referring to? And some, you know, this actually has been a controversial verse. Some have taken it's the entire book of John.

Well, looking at several different people and kind of thinking about it, it looks like the immediate context is always sometimes better. So I'm going to go with the immediate context, and Constable thinks that, and Chafer thinks that. So anyway, I'm going to go with the good company then. So these things seem to go with the context which was taught in 9 through 12.

So let's look at, and I think particularly, this verse goes with, or these verses go with the last two verses that were taught last week. So let me just read those. 1 John 5, 11. and the testimony is this and actually you find out testimony is like almost like court evidence if you will this is a testimony and so this is God testifying to what he's done God has given us eternal life and this life is in his son he who has the son has life he who does not have the son does not have life I mean that's you know we covered that last week just you know, just to the point, precise, and it's God speaking this. So his testimony, his evidence, that he's given us eternal life. And so I want to just kind of drill down a little bit farther on that. And I, a couple of charts I want to look at to do this. So here's some key points. I just took each of the verses and kind of chopped them up.

So the testimony or the evidence by God, here's what the evidence is. God has given us, every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, He's given us eternal life, and this life is in or in union with the Son. This is so beautiful, this preposition. It's in this living union we have. That's where we have eternal life, right? It's with a person, it's with our Savior. We have eternal life with a person, the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who has the Son, so God declares through John, He who has the Son has the eternal life.

There's no question about it. You don't have to worry about it, wonder about it. You just have to read it and believe it. And we all know this. This is what we pray for people that don't know Him. How do we come to have, how do you latch on to eternal life? We have the Son simply by faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, His person is who He is. He's very God and very man. His work is His work on the cross. He died for our sins according to the scripture. He was buried and He rose on the third day.

This is a big... Yeah, verse 11 too. And this life is in His Son. It is. It is. It is in... Yeah, that's right. It is in union. I know that preposition there. This life is in His Son. That's just so wonderful. It's in the very person of our Savior. And so when we come to faith, we can have that eternal life in His Son.

And then the converse? John's not bashful about stating the converse. The converse is, in verse 12, He who does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life. John's so black and white, right? I mean, this is it. You have eternal life in his son, or you don't have eternal life. There's no gray area. There's no gray area. Well, let's see.

So basically, and this is my words, this is a person who has not believed on who Christ is and what he's done. It's that simple. If there's anyone out there who has listened to this and hasn't done that, I would implore you to trust in the Lord Jesus as your Savior. And that's what it's all about.

A few more thoughts on that. Okay, that's actually that first one. So now let's go on to that you may know. So actually what's cool is, and John is very much this way, these things I've written to you, you have eternal life, but he wants you to go one step further. This is about assurance, right?

The step further is that you don't have a doubt about that. You know that you have it. And you say, I know I have it. And why do you know you have it? So let's look at that. So that is the purpose of that. You believers may know that you have eternal life. And it's not Gnosko this time. It's Oida.

Absolute knowledge based upon facts. And those facts are in his word, right? And God has declared that. You have eternal life, and you know that you have eternal life because of those absolute facts in these words. It's perfect tense. It's to be a settled state in the believer. You know that you have eternal life.

He wants to build on that. He wants to build on that and say, hey, because you know you have eternal life, you have a relationship with our Savior. And now when you get ready to pray, this should affect how you pray. And we're going to see the details of that in a bit. literally you are having, present tense, so you still have it, you have the Lord Jesus continually, 24-7, you are having, present tense.

So, Weiss renders this, you may know, I just, you know, he takes, what's cool about Weiss, I just love it. Go ahead. Is Mesa junket here, and if so, what kind of junket? Are you going to get to that? We'll get, that's coming, that's coming, that's coming. Okay.

You may know, with absolute knowledge, that you are having eternal life. So Wyss takes the definitions and the verb tense and puts that together. You may know with absolute knowledge that you have eternal life. So the purpose is to give assurance that we have eternal life in our possession. So the next part of the verse will tell us, and we already kind of know by the context, the next part will tell us will tell us the group of people, and we know already who this is going to be.

So Bob, what's your question? May I? Well, I'm kind of thinking, I kind of like it the other way around, the way it's written. Uh-huh. But I didn't recall it in you then. But I'll let it slide. I think these types of people who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know, and I like that it is first conditional. I mean, I think since you know, I think rather than, oh, you may know, you may not know, I guess, I think this is, I mean, John's a black and white person.

Well, remember, he's focusing on, know is kind of the key word here, oida, right? So he's saying oida is the word that I want you, that you know, that knowledge and that knowledge is factual based upon scripture, right? That you know, how do you know? We know it because God has declared it, right? Well, but then since you know. Well, since, I don't think since it's in the, I have to look at the... It's adjunctive tense, so it's got to be removed.

Okay. I have a question about that. Okay. All right. The question to interpret that is, if you know, by the way, I may or may not know. I think that's... Now, I think this is a categorical statement. I would go that route. And he says, you may know, and it's what kind of knowledge? If it was, if you had to grow into this knowledge, that might be one thing. This is absolute factual knowledge based upon scripture. Yeah, okay. All right. Yeah, in a sense might be appropriate. Okay. Okay, so let's go on. We're going to have some if-thens here in a bit.

So the group of people, it's no surprise, you believe in the name of the Son of God. So just a little, there's a cool word here that kind of, a cool preposition, who believe, who exercise faith. So here's a cool preposition. It's ace, in ace, the idea is that you are believing in the right direction.

So this is a little bit different. You know, I had heard this before, I had thought about this before, but this is kind of neat. We talk about what is the object of our faith. Well, this is kind of, this preposition talks about what's the direction of our faith. So this is kind of cool.

So faith, faith does not say, have you ever heard, I have faith, I have faith, you know, we have, you know, faith, you're people of faith. What does that mean? That means nothing. Without a direction or an object, you know... I have faith in gravity. That's good. Okay, that's a good take. You have an object, right? You can't just say faith. So faith doesn't save you. If you have faith, that doesn't do anything. God saves you, right? Based upon what Christ has done.

Anyway, faith is only valid if the direction is correct. So this is kind of cool. You think about the object is correct. Also, this is saying the direction has to be right. The direction has to be focused on our Savior. If it's not focused, it's the wrong direction. This preposition is telling us that.

So why was the end of that verse omitted? Well, that's, I don't, I'm not going to, it looks like it's, well, what seems to be, you know, it's different text. It's different Greek text. So, I'm not able to talk to that with any, you know. Yeah, but we don't know when, was it added or? Well, I don't know. I can find nobody to talk to that point.

I just know that it comes from, New American Standard, Roy can correct me here. New American Standard comes from one set of text. And King James and New King James come from another set of texts. And so you have different texts. And once you get to that point, that's a little bit – unless I – I've heard some opinions about that, but I'm not going to. So I'm teaching to the American standard today. The last part doesn't add a whole lot of new information. Scofield says most of the original versions don't have that. Right. OK. So I'll go with that. Thank you, Bob. OK. Good. All right.

Roger, I noticed that the King James and the New King James had a booth. Six versions that I have are the only ones that have that added text at the end. That's interesting. Even the Darby translation doesn't have that. I noticed that too. American Standard Version doesn't have that.

I know. They're old. I know. But, yeah, the King James and the New King James, they're from the 1600s, you know, so... They kept that text in there. Right. So, you know, they're a different set of Greek texts, and so that comes into play, and so that's a little bit beyond... I don't think it's necessary to debate... And it doesn't, also it doesn't add a whole lot of new information. No, it doesn't.

Anyway, okay. So now, the direction of our faith, and the direction is in the name. The name stands for, it's a name, the Son of God. The name stands for the entire person. So our faith must be directed toward the Son of God. He is to be the object of our faith and the direction of our faith.

So this verse adds a little more to that picture, which I thought was really cool. Okay, so we're going to move on to the prayer part of this. So this sets the stage for our prayer life, if you will. Okay. So now, McCauley, Aldeaster, McCauley there.

Okay, and this is the confidence which we have toward him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. So we're going to have two, 14 will be a conditional sentence, verse, and so will 15. One will be subjunctive and one will be first-class sense, if you will. And that's going to be really important too. Okay, this verse is telling us what kind of attitude we ought to have toward God in prayer. The attitude from the verse is confidence. But I like the definition, parousia, parousia. It's boldness, confidence is boldness, particularly in speaking. And I like this phrase, it's freedom of speech, it's openness.

Our interaction, I think I was talking to Jim a little bit, our interaction with our Savior and with God is openness. We're talking to, you know, to the God of the universe, but it's different. It's not like, Dear Heavenly Father, And when you go through a long liturgy, it's not to be that. It's to be openness and freedom. How do I talk with Jim or with my wife or anybody?

I talk with an openness. I'm not hindered. And that's what he's talking about here. That confidence is this openness or freedom. And a couple of verses which we've covered in the past, now little children abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence. It's freedom of speech. That's openness and not shrink away.

In 1 John 3.21, I'm getting here so fast. We love it. If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God, this openness before God. So this is going to set the stage for the second part of the verse here. So one of the characteristics of our prayer ought to be absolute openness, holding nothing back. Why would you hold something back? If God knows everything, what are you going to hold back? You didn't see that God?

I'm afraid not. You saw that. You saw everything I did and you still love me because I'm in your son. It's silliness. Confidence is founded upon knowing. we have eternal life. That question is not on the table, so to speak, right? You're not worried about that. It's not like, well, God, I've got to be careful here. Maybe you'll nix my eternal life. Well, that question is not on the table for the believer. That question is settled. And that flaws in every religion, Christianity, Bible, Christianity. Every religion wants to do something.

I got to do something now to guarantee I'm going to get there. I'm going to get to eternal life. I got to do something. I got to work harder. I got to be a better person. It goes on and on and on. It makes you a slave. People have this terrible kind of feeling that we missed the eternal life. We missed it because we have all this stuff that we did. And there's no way I'm really forgiven. It's just so sad. It is sad. It is sad. Very sad. I think that's why he just spends so much time about knowing that you have eternal life, knowing that's the case. It's just, you know, it's incredible. So what do these other faiths, what do they do with these verses? I don't know. They don't read them. They don't read them.

Roger? Yeah, go ahead, Roy. Just a thought here that what is the focus of our confidence? And the Greek really brings this out. He hears us. Right. Absolutely. Packeted by what's in between. Right. Right. That's great. That is our confidence that he's always listening to us. Amen. We don't have to go through a formula to get to God. If you miss one point on that formula, you're not talking to Him. Right. Well, I think many people use the middle part of the verse as being a condition that he may not hear us if we don't ask according to his will. That's not true. OK, well, we're going to head there. We're going to head there. You get me anxious, Roy. You get me all.

OK, good. Good. OK, that's great. I love it. OK, so now, we haven't quite finished with this thought. OK. Toward him has some cool things to think about. We have confidence and it's toward him. And this is his cool word, pros, face to face. This makes it even, I mean, these verses are so encouraging. We have this freedom of speech with him. And are we, are we kind of in the vicinity of God? Do we kind of roaming around God's over there? No, he's right. We're face to face with him. Toward is the word, pros, face to face. And this is the one that our brother Howie caught a lot on. I love it. And he would point out face to face. Therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with that's the cross face to face With God through our Lord Jesus Christ We are face to face with God through Christ.

I mean, there's just so many this is another just stacks on top So why wouldn't you be totally open about your prayer life? Why wouldn't you why wouldn't you ask with assurance? I'm asking Someone who cares for me who I'm I'm not far away from I'm face to face with him. Well, man, it's just neat.

I Okay, and then another cool verse using face-to-face or pros, for the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you. So Paul's commending the Thessalonians from you, but also in every place your faith, face-to-face to God, so that face-to-face faith they had, those Thessalonians, has gone forth so that we have no need to say anything. I mean, I think that's what people see, and believers, they see that you have a relationship that other people don't have. There's something different about you.

You have a relationship that I can't understand. Many testimonies are like that. I, you know, we listened to the one for Israel. Jews get jealous of Christians. And I see that, it's talked about in Scripture, but actually some of the testimonies of Jews that have become Christians say that, I'm jealous. They know more about the Bible than I do. they have a relationship with God that I don't have. How can that be? I'm, we're Israel, you know, and they just go on anyway. So, it's a little bit of a diversion, but anyway.

Okay, cool. So now, this is, this is, actually Courtney was putting up a sign, fearless is a banner for Camp Helium this fall. Fearless. I said, Courtney, that's my word today. This is fearless confidence we have toward God. Okay, so now, finally, get to the, get to the praying part here.

So now, this is the first conditional sentence. So this is a conditional sentence, if then, so if we ask anything according to his will, and I inserted then, so you can see it, then he hears us. Okay, so let's kind of go through this. First, we ask, that's ayato, we ask for something to be given.

That's basically what the word ask. Merriman points out this word, The verb form is to pray. So it's prayer, asking of God. And the idea, present tense, we keep on asking. And that's one thing I kind of discovered as I went through this, that it seems like as we pray, God is teaching us as we pray. We start off praying one way, and Mike's going to talk about it today. Paul started out praying one way.

Lord, take away those thorns in the flesh. Well then after a while, that prayer that prayer, his dialogue with God kind of changed, right? Well, wait a minute. If that's your will, then hey, Lord, I want your will. As you pray, and we're going to see that in other examples, as we pray, the Lord teaches us more about himself, and we pray differently at the end of the day, it seems like.

So this is subjunctive, this is present subjunctive, middle, this verb. So it's subjunctive third class, so it's fulfillment is uncertain, but still likely. And I like the still likely, that double talk there. So it says that you may not do it, but it's likely that you will, is kind of the idea. And middle is that we're asking for our own interest. And that's not a bad thing.

We're praying to God for something that is of very personal interest to us. And I think many times our prayers, and most Christians don't have trivial prayers. We have prayers about our family, our loved ones, and they're serious prayers about serious matters in life. And so they're not trivial prayers.

And I think that many times we seek the Lord, and over time the Lord shows us how to pray about that situation. So this is present, subjunctive, middle, sverb. So Wiest has it, he renders that, we keep on asking, for ourselves. So this is a personal side of prayer that a believer has.

So it's according to his will. It is according to a norm and standard of his will. And it's anything. That's what it says. Ask anything. So this is cool. Roger, that word according to his will is kata. which means in the direction of, again, according to His purposes, according to His goals. Okay, so we're focused on His will being done. Amen. Amen.

And that's really what you learn from this. That's the direction the Lord wants us to come to. That's where He wants us to come. He wants us to make our will His will. I mean, I got that wrong. His will, our will. That's where He wants us to go. Thanks, Roy. That's great. Okay, let's keep going here. So the last part is, that was the if part, now the then part.

He hears us. So the result of our prayer is that he hears us. He hears us, present tense, he keeps on hearing us. So as we keep on praying, he keeps on hearing. That's cool, right? He doesn't say, whoa, I heard that enough, stop. Nope, he keeps on hearing. If it's a serious matter, we keep on praying. I mean, if you're like me, we keep on praying every day, sometimes every hour that we have. So we keep on praying.

But, if you look carefully at this, there's limitations. There's limitations, and this is, Merriman kind of pointed this out, which I thought was great. I didn't see this at first. There's limitations on asking, the asking part, the if part, and there's asking on the receiving part, the then part.

So let's look at those first. We're asking according to his will. This means prayer has a proviso. Proviso is, if it be your will. And boy, we see that. We see that in so many prayers. We see it in our Savior. We'll look at it briefly at the end. What did the Savior pray in the garden, right? And the Savior even learned. I just blew my mind. He even learned. He prayed one prayer. The first time he was in the garden, during the garden situation, he prayed one prayer. And then he says, I'll wait until I get to it.

But anyway, it points out this point. It's your will to be done. But we grow to understand that, it seems like. The proper attitude is your will for my life is better than my will for my life. I'll say that again. The proper attitude is your will for my life is better than my will for I think what is God's will for life is to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I think part of that as we grow in grace, we come to accept God's will because we've grown to know that's the best for us. Just like this says, I can't say it very well, your will for my life is better than my will for my life.

Okay, there we go. Okay. And sometimes we don't know His will. But I really think as we pray, as we spend time with the Lord, we will at a point understand, we will allow his will to happen. Lord, whatever it is, it's okay. I accept your will in this situation. Sometimes we find it very hard. We just can't. I can't accept that, Lord. I just can't accept that to happen. But sometimes he allows, you know, what we say, quote, bad things to happen from our perspective. Okay. So let's go on. I'll continue with this. So the second limitation is one of receiving.

He hears us. Okay, it's important, is it? This verse says, in this verse, we're going to see it's going to change a little bit in 15. In this verse, it does not say he grants us a request. It says he hears us. So we pray in accordance with his will, he hears us. Okay? The answer to the request, maybe yes, maybe no. Both McCauley and Merriman said the same thing. So this is from Smith and Weiss' writings here. The promise is not He granted, but He hearkens to us. He answers in His own way.

So now we're going to amplify that. Let me see. Well, next we'll amplify that. Go ahead. Is there a question? Yeah, just can you hear? I hope you can hear me. Yeah, it is God's will that we pray to Him is the focus here. Amen. He wants us to be open with him, to tell him intimate things about ourselves that are true. He knows what's true. He wants us to just be open about that. And that's really the emphasis here, that he is hearing us. That's what we are confident in. What a blessed Lord we have. OK. All right.

So now what's going to happen now is 15 is going to add a little more detail to what we've learned in 14 here. So it's another conditional sentence, but it's different this time. And if we know that he hears us, and we learned that from the previous verse, right? We know that if we, he's hearing us, right? If we know that he hears us and whatever we ask, then we know that we have the request, which we ask from him. I struggled with this verse for a long time, and hopefully, see what you think of where I came to. Okay. So, the first part, the if part, if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask. Okay. It's a first-class condition, so you could say sense.

So, when you think of it in that sense, it connects it with the previous verse, right? So what I kind of came to here is that this verse seems to assume we have prayed, we have agreed with verse 14, your will be done. We said, Lord, I'm praying that your will is to be done as Christ prayed in the garden. This verse kind of assumes that. So the heart of this verse is this if-then structure.

And Merriman, he summarized it kind of very succinctly. If you just take the key, if, if we know, then we have. If we know, and the know has the rest of it. If we know that he hears us, we have the request. That's the key part. So what do we know? And know again, all three knows in these passages are oida, absolute knowledge. Again, we know, and we know it from scripture. He hears us in whatever we ask. So we know that from the previous verse. What do we know we have?

The request which we have asked from Him. So that, you know, so it makes sense. If we ask according to His will, then 15, and it's based upon that, then it says we have the request. We have that request. So if we pray in accordance with His will, this verse says we will have the request that we asked for.

So, you know, what I found was that people didn't exactly say, they didn't show the connection between these two verses. That's what I thought was missing as I read and studied. But I think they're totally connected and they should be taught together. Okay, so I was going to go on to some examples here. Any other thoughts, Roy or other folks?

Just one, Roger, that this is a third class, not a first. Well, no, according to what I have, it's first class. It's Aon. Well, OK. I don't know. Well, OK, I don't know. Well, let's talk about that, because I had several people I looked at, and I looked at the... Anyway, we'll talk about that. OK. So all my teaching is based upon that being first class. So whatever. All right. Okay.

So here's some examples. So we have basically a request and an answer. So this is some examples that Macaulay got me kind of started on this. This is requests that were made, but the answer was different than what the request was. So the first one, 2 Corinthians 12, 8. Mike's going to teach on these two today. So Paul said, concerning this, the thorn in the flesh, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.

And so what was the answer? Answer in the next verse was, he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Right. So Mike's, Mike's going to take, this is going to be his message today. So I won't say a lot more, but anyway, Paul prayed one way. And the Lord answered another way. And then what's neat is, within a short time in the scriptures here, Paul changes his mind, right? He says, Lord, it's your will.

Your will be done. I agree with you. OK. Well, here's one. This is almost a funny one. Not funny, but one funny for Moses. So Moses, speaking in Numbers 11, says, I alone am not able to carry the burden of all these people. Please kill me at once. If I found faith in your sight. I know, Lord, this is too much. Get me out of here. Kill me. I don't want to. OK.

Well, the Lord didn't answer his prayer. He didn't answer that prayer. What the Lord did do, though, he said, OK, Moses, later on, the Lord therefore said to Moses, gather for me 70 men from the elders of Israel, and I will take of the spirit who is upon you, and will put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people.

So that's pretty cool. Pretty cool answer. Okay, so then the next set here. The request was, and this is Martha and Mary with Lazarus. Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. So the sisters sent word to him. Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.

So, in the context, it's not exactly a prayer, but they're dealing with the Savior, so, you know, it seems like that's kind of appropriate. So, what was the Lord's answer? And this one kind of defiles, you know, it's amazing. It shows he knew exactly what he was going to do. So, when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. So, somebody comes and says, Somebody's sick. You rush right to him.

Well, no, not in this case. He says, this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, so that the son of God may be glorified by it. And then, and then the last one is, uh, and this is the one I really, you know, I kind of added this one in and I thought it was just appropriate. So here's where he's in the garden, the Lord Jesus in the garden. And he went, uh, a little beyond them and fell down on his face and prayed. Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. So, his prayer was to let this cup pass from me.

So, to my mind, we have the God-man. This shows the humanity of the God-man. Yet, but then, yet not as I will, but as you will. But then, very shortly, a few verses later, it happens a second time. And he prayed saying, my father, if it cannot pass away, unless I drink it, your will be done. So that kind of, kind of spoke to me about, well, here's our savior. He prays, he starts, first he asked for something to be taken away, passed for me. And he says, and he says, your will be done. But then the next time he prays, he says, well, if that's not possible, So he's in tune with the Father. And it's not possible. He had to go to the cross. They agreed to that and eternity passed, right? So he says, your will be done.

So I kind of thought as a growing, if you think of the Savior as growing, I don't know. I thought, wow, that's a really good pattern or a good connection between God and praying. Maybe it was to show us to do that. Maybe it's a teaching moment. Absolutely. No, I think so. Go ahead, Roy. Just my thought here, so that I'm not misunderstood.

The previous verse has a, with the indicative mood, the if, at the beginning, we know, and that's indicative, that you are right, okay? This is a confidence that we have. So that the things in the subjunctive, whether we know the result or not is his will, we don't know that for sure. Just like our Lord in the garden. He talked to the Lord. The son talking to the father had this perspective. And he had so much confidence in the father.

Nevertheless not my will, but your will be done. And that's the whole, what a beautiful illustration of the verse you discovered. Yeah. No, I thought, I thought it was just, it really, no, amen. No, that's great. Thanks for it. I thought so too. Both the security of if in the one and the subjunctive of the if in the one in the verse that you discovered. which is a great one, I think, is, and then you think of that Hebrews 12 too, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, for the joy that was meant for God's will was the joy of crucifying us and every sin that's ever taken place. Yeah, isn't that incredible?

It is. It is. No, it is. He prays one way. Being a God man, he prays one way. He starts off just like Paul. And it kind of fits with Paul. Paul starts off one way. So we think about us. We start off one way praying. We have a serious situation. This is something that is huge. And we start praying one way. But then over time, I think the Lord is so gracious. He shows us. He shows us.

I've got a question, though. Do you think it's prayer in the flesh, if you will, his human side? Let's not say that. Is that the physical harm you would want to have the cup? I think, I mean, he went to do a mission, right? So the cup that was there for him was to take on the sin of the entire world, right? That was the cup. I think we believe that, don't we?

It just wasn't crucified. No, no, no. Do you think that human prayer reflected the fact that his physical body, I mean, we don't have to answer that. I don't think his birth is a human prayer as a God can. questioning God's will that the whole sin of the world was going to be taken apart. I think that the human thing could have been maybe the physical. And that does seem to fit. I know what you're saying. It does seem to fit. It was because he was going to be separated. And that's good. That that was more important to him than actually the physical death. Right.

When he talks about the joy set before him, maybe we'll get back to that. Okay, well, I think there's joy that there's you know, I think in in John there John 17 that we're we're a gift from God the Father to God the Son I mean that the whole the whole thing is a whole picture of the Godhead interacting with man and we're a gift We're a gift from God the Father to God. I mean you just it just Beyond was all the redemption of all his all his He's the author and finisher of our faith. So, in a sense, I think we can't forget Thanks, okay.

I just have, we've gone way over time here, but okay. Actually, musicians need to practice here. Okay, just three quick examples. We, Stanford, Miles Stanford and J. Vernon McGee, about, you know, this is some last thoughts, you know. We have our requests, not always as we pray. but as we would pray if we were wiser. I thought that was good.

God gives us not what we ask, but what we really need. And that's true. He always does. He wants to give us what we need. I mean, we know that, but we fight against that. And sometimes that's fighting against something that is very hard, very, very hard for us human to take.

And then Stanford says, prayer is fellowship of an intimate and living union. As with all Christian life, it must be carried out in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. And lastly, McGee says, we are walking in a fellowship with Him when we are following Him. We can have confidence that He hears us, hears what we ask, and answers our prayer. We come with boldness to ask God's will be done. And that's kind of the bottom line. We ask for God's will to be done.

It may take years, and some prayers may take years for that to happen, but I think the Lord desires that we come to that point. Yeah, thanks for all the great comments, and so let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you for your marvelous provision for us and your dear son, Lord. We thank you that we can come boldly, we can come fearlessly, we can come to you, and we can know that Your will is to be done, and we pray that we would submit and listen to that Lord. In Christ's name, amen.