I Jn 5:14-15
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
I want you to grasp the significance of what our opening scripture is saying
And this is the confidence that we have in him.
Hear the word of God
If we ask anything according to his will,
He hears us
The word of God is telling us that if we ask anything according to his will
It does not matter what it is,
It does not matter how impossible it may seem
He hears the request that we have made unto him and then verse 15 goes on to tell us that if we know that he hears us whatsoever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
What does all of that really mean?
It means that in order to have the confidence that you need in him,
You need to have a complete and thorough understanding of what his word is proclaiming to you.
Remember this,
There is nothing that will bring you confidence as a life that is well pleasing unto God.
Col 1:10
That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Heb 13:21
Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Dan 10:11-12
And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.
Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
Notice the key phrases in Daniel
#1 a man greatly beloved,
#2 for unto thee am I now sent
#3 from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
Here is a man whose life is pleasing the lord
1Thes 4:1
Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
Because the life of Daniel pleased the Lord he could ask to be protected and delivered in the lions den and he was.
In order to have and to ask in that kind of confidence there has to be that perfect union between you and the Lord just as there was that perfect union between the Father and his son Jesus Christ.
John 10:30
I and my Father are one.
John 17:21
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
What does this foundation need to consist of,
Confidence in God and loyalty to God.
I Jn 4:17
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
Because as he is so are we in this world we must strive to obtain and to secure the same confidence that Christ had with the father is the same confidence and loyalty that we must have with Christ and the Father.
John 11:33-36
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
Jesus wept.
Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!
There are a number of people who read this verse of scripture and believe that Jesus wept because of the great love that he had for Lazarus
There is no doubt that Christ did have a great love for Lazarus
The same as he has a great love for you and I but the reason that Christ wept that day at the grave of Lazarus was not because of love it was because of unbelief
As the lord stood there that day at the grave of Lazarus he realized that the people even Martha the sister of Lazarus
Had not yet come to the realization that the father would give him whatsoever he would ask because of the confidence that he had in the Father
Are you sitting in this place today and struggle with these same doubts and unbelief?
Are you sitting in this place where you struggle with believing in the promises of God?
Are you struggling with believing God to meet all of your needs?
How many make Christ weep because they have not come to the same revelation that the people gathered around the grave of Lazarus had not realized.
Thier unbelief and lack of confidence brought brokenness and sadness to the heart of christ and he wept.
He wept because they had not yet come to the revelation that God almighty hears and responds to the voices of his children.
Matt 6:8
Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
Listen to the Lord at the tomb of Lazarus,
John 11:41
Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
You see beloved,
There are times when it seems like a stone wall is in front of us, there are times when everything seems to be as black as midnight, there are times when you absolutely feel nothing and there are times when there is nothing left but confidence and loyalty.
And it is at those times that you must have the devotion and the confidence to believe that he will never leave you nor forsake you,
It is at those times that you must believe that he will never fail you,
It is at those times that you must believe that all things will work together for the good to those who love the lord and are the called according to his purpose.
You can not depend on your feelings,
You can not depend on your emotions
You can not depend on how you feel at the moment
It is then that confidence and loyalty must spring forth in you to know that he can never fail and that his word will never fail nor return void.
Heb 3:14
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
Now allow me to bring this to the very place that we as children of God need to grasp hold of.
Paul spoke of two different kinds of Christians
And those two different kinds of Christians are made up of those who obey and those who do not obey and those who are the redeemed and those who walk in carnality.
1 Cor 3:1-9
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
In these two classes of Christians one is going to be used for the glory of God,
One is going to be used to show the world the presence of a Savior,
One is going to be used to further the kingdom of God and they are going to be used to bring freedom to the captive so that they can be set free.
And the reason that God is only going to use the redeemed, the obedient is because only the obedient,
only the redeemed will be able to relate the experience that they have gone through,
You can not relate what you have not experienced.
You can not take people into the depths of God if you have never been there yourself,
You can never take people to a place of brokenness if you have never experienced that brokenness yourself.
You can never relate to the process that God takes us through to bring about transformation in our lives if you have never experienced the process.
Ps 34:18
The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
Ps 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Isa 66:2
For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
You must experience this,
You must experience the brokenness and contriteness in order to get into the depths of God.
There is rest that resides in faith,
There is a faith that rests in the confidence of God
And in that confidence there is assurance that the word of God and the promises of God never fail.
Rom 10:17
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
1Thes 2:13
For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
It is this word of God that creates within us irrestible faith,
Faith that never wavers, that never gives up, that is never daunted faith that never fails.
We have a problem and that problem is that we have a tendency to forget and not realize the vastness and the largeness of our Fathers supply.
We do not understand that he has a supply that can never be exhausted.
NEVER
And another thing that we forget is that it pleases the Father when we his children come to him asking
Matt 7:11
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Hear the word of God
How much more
It is the much more that I am in interested in,
It is the much more that I want to be shown by God,
It is the much more that I want to walk into his presence,
It is the much more that I want to grasp of Him.
Ps 84:11
For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
If you need healing God has a plan and that plan is through his word
Isa 53:5
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
His plan of healing is along the lines of perfect confidence in him and this confidence does not come from our speaking, from our preaching, from our testifying.
This confidence comes from our intimacy and fellowship, our communion with him the lord Jesus Christ.
There is a communion with Jesus that brings life, which breathes life, which promotes life and that life is life abundantly.
And it comes from his word for he is the word
John 1:1-4
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
We as the child of God need the life and light of his word to surround us and to become a two edged sword in our lives
Heb 4:12
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
When the sword comes to us we must never harden our hearts against it.
We must allow it to pierce us.
We must allow the piercing to bring forth yielding,
And in the yielding the word will work forth his love within our hearts.
When this love begins to work and manifest itself in our lives we must become lost in that love
When we become lost in that love we begin to see ourselves as nothing, we begin to see our accomplishments as only the greatness of almighty God working within a flawed vessel,
When this love is working within us, there is never boasting of what has been accomplished or what is going to be accomplished for the individual is lost with in that love.
I praise God for the sword of his word that prunes and cuts, that brings forth a tender conscience to hear the sweetness of his word.
And it is in that sweetness that brings forth life and brokenness so that we may enter into the depths of the fullness of almighty God.
It replaces the stony heart with a heart of flesh and love.
Ezek 36:26-27
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
How is this going to happen
How is a new spirit going to placed within you and the stony heart going to be replaced by the heart of flesh
Matt 18:3
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
This is the confidence that we as children of God can have in Him