# It’s OK to Ask God

Key Passage: Psalm 86
Date: June 7, 2024

But it is good to be here. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. We’re going to go to Psalm 86 this morning, but I was born in Puerto Rico. And so I say that so you all know that I’m legal. I was born in Puerto Rico and was reared in Chicago at the age of six. My family moved to Chicago. Actually, I see the Farfan family here, and I grew up just not too far from them at Mount O’Hon. I think you might have lived on May Street. Was it May Street you all lived on? I’ve been to your home a couple times. You had some family that lived there. I would pick up for school.

I grew up about four or five blocks away on Sermak, and I went to school there. It was really weird. We were from Puerto Rico, and the neighborhood was Polish, and they would curse at me in Polish, and I’d curse back in Spanish. But the neighborhood changed. It became predominantly Mexican.

When I was seven years old, these tall bus workers from Hiles Anderson College came, knocked on my door. They said, “Tomorrow is horseback riding Sunday.” I came to church for the first time on horseback riding Sunday. Any bus workers in here? Or are they in? There you go. Y’all are a bunch of liars. I just wanted to point that out.

Horseback riding Sunday. I’m thinking, hey, Wild West, we’re going to gallop. And they take you around the bus and tell you to get off. But I got saved that day, and that was 45 years ago. I got saved.

We have this school, City Baptist School. Dr. Jack Hiles had a burden for bus kids. In 1978, he started the school. I attended that school, graduated from there, and then went out to Hiles Anderson, did ministry there with your pastor. From there, Brother Hiles called me and said, “I want you to be a youth pastor.”

I’ve been a youth pastor now for about full-time 25, part-time 28 years, something like that. I think I’m one of the oldest youth pastors in America. Almost anywhere I go on a platform, I’m the old guy. I tell all the kids, I got one fight left in me, just like Mike Tyson, so let’s go. I think he’s got his last fight coming up here.

That’s a little bit of my testimony. I’m married. My wife could not be here today. We’re in that part of our life where we have to require our parents, and her mother’s elderly and sick. It’s one of the first trips that my wife has not been on. My wife’s very talented, plays piano, sings, and so on. She could not be here.

The Lord never gave us children. We prayed and prayed. The Lord never gave us children, but gave us a ministry in which we have a ministry reaching out to a lot of young people that come from bus routes and so on, mostly bus kids. I actually have two churches. I run a teen church on Sunday morning with about 250, 300 kids. The offering’s about $11, but it’s about 300 kids.

It’s not your average church. We sing, I mean, we sing and everything, but sometimes I remember years ago we were singing, “Everything’s All Right in My Father’s House,” and right in the middle of that song, a fight broke out. Chairs started flying, and all of a sudden everything was not all right in my father’s house. It’s tough, and there’s gangs, and we separate them by schedule. Our south side gangs come in early, our north side gangs come in later. That’s true. Now, we no longer have north side bus routes; we started a church in Chicago for them.

I’ve been in this area, it’s called Little Village. I’m Puerto Rican, but I’m in the most densely populated Mexican neighborhood in the U.S. God must laugh at me. He’s like, “I, you’re a little boycott. I’m going to put you over here with all the Pisces.” And so that’s where I’ve been.

About a year ago, I saw this church, an old church, 120-year-old building. I said, “Lord, I want that church.” I should have said, “Lord, I want the building,” but he heard me say, “I want the church.” A week after I said that, they called. I knew the pastor, an elderly man, been there for 28 years. He said, “Can you help me get a pastor?” I said, “Sure.” It’s called the Crawford Bible Church.

My job was trying to find somebody. I went to Pastor Wilkerson and said, “They need a pastor.” We went through a list of five people. It’s a bilingual church, and Sunday morning when I preach, I translate myself, and that can get confusing, you know, just back and forth. Nobody took it. He said, “Well, I know you’re busy. Could you do it?” We started there a year ago, met with five people: three widow ladies and one couple.

The Lord keeps increasing and blessing. Would you pray for us? We want to change the name in September to the Hope Baptist Church, Iglesia Bautista Esperanza in La Villita, is what we want to do with the Lord’s leading and guiding. We’ve had 16 months; I’ve seen visitors every week. We’ve had 16 months of seeing people saved every weekend, and we’ve baptized every month. The Lord’s just good. It’s just a bunch of new Christians.

I’m going to talk about prayer this morning because we’re teaching our people the basics of the Christian life. I made the mistake of having a man—I knew he was saved, but I don’t know their background—and I said, his name’s Eloi, I said, “Manuel, Eli, would you come and pray?” He got up behind the pulpit, raised his hands, and prayed for 10 minutes. I was like, “Okay, I got to teach him.” Then I asked another man to pray, and he started quoting the rosary.

So I started teaching the basics of prayer. What time are we done here? 2 p.m.? Is that what you guys do? Are y’all Free Will Baptists? You preach four hours or something like that. I’m not a long preacher. I preach to teenagers. It’s like a TV show or a Netflix show or whatever. You need a break about every three minutes; you’ve got to pause for a commercial. About 26 minutes, they’re done. I already see the back row; you all are already done. You all are excused.

Psalms chapter 86. I want to talk to you this morning on, “It’s okay for you to ask God.” It’s okay for you to ask God. So many times in the Christian life, as we talk about the subject of prayer, we that are mature Christians always teach from the perspective of prayer. We use sometimes a little acronym: J-O-Y—Jesus, others, and you. We also talk about praying that you ought to pray for others, and then the last thing on the list of praying is you pray for your needs. Totally, I would agree with that. Anything your pastor’s taught on prayer, if I say something contrary, I’m an idiot; don’t listen to me. He’s been pastoring for 25 years; I’ve been pastoring for a year, if you could barely call it pastoring. It’s kind of futile work; every week, I feel like I reinvent myself every week.

You’ve heard people talk about you pray for others, and then you pray for God’s will to be done, and then the last thing on that totem pole is you pray for you. If you’re a mature Christian, that most definitely should apply to you. But a lot of times, as I teach younger Christians, I realize that they’re so self-absorbed, they’re so proud. The world revolves around them, and the last thing they think about is somebody else. The last thing they think about is praying for another person.

I find a lot of Christians, they come with all sorts of baggage. By the way, there’s no perfect Christians; there’s only forgiven Christians, right? They come with all this baggage.

I’ve been teaching our church on Thursday nights. We have a Thursday night service, Sunday morning from 9:45 to 11, then I leave and go preach to the teens about 30 minutes away, and then Thursday night, I have a 7 p.m. service. I grew up in a megachurch, a humongous church with a 7,000-seat auditorium. But let me tell you, man, I’ve been missing out on just that small group and the small church and just watching you Christians grow.

A lady last week in our church in Chicago, an older lady, came up to me. She was kind of mad and said, “You know, I don’t like you making me feel guilty.” I’m like, “Wow.” I said, “What about?” She said, “Well, you make me feel guilty because I wear slacks.” Her husband was right behind her. I said, “I’ve never preached about that.” She said, “No, but your wife always wears a dress.” I said, “Well, my wife, that’s the way we grew up, and I like that.” I said, “You wear whatever he tells you to wear to her husband, and just don’t come to church naked. Wear whatever you want to wear.”

I’ve got a lot of new Christians, and we went to the church, and there’s just a lot of them; they come in, but they’re hungry. We visited a neighborhood in Nashville yesterday, and in one housing area, we came across probably 12 nationalities. I saw this young black man, and I went up to him and spoke to him in English, and he looked at me like, “I don’t understand you.” I said, “Where are you from?” He said, “Rwanda.” I took out the Google translator. Thank you for Brother Google.

I went to the end, and I said, “You know, from the church, Jesus Christ,” and I do little things they say in Africa, and he was very sad. He said, “My father died last night.” That was yesterday. As best we could, we got to share the gospel with that man. This morning, would you pray for us? We’re going to go to a Spanish church there in Sylvan, I think. Brother Roger Superville, we’re going to be there with him at 1:30, so we’re going to have to run out of here.

We’re expecting visitors. Our youth pastor, Brother Hubal, witnessed to a man from Cuba. I witnessed to people from Peru, Guatemala, some folks from Burma that were just here in that little housing area. You’ve got the world coming here to your back door.

Let’s go to Psalms Chapter 86. Before we do, let’s go to the Lord and let’s ask the Lord to speak to us.

Father God, we thank you, dear Lord, for just Lord coming to a vibrant church. Coming to a church this morning that’s alive. Coming to a church that sings your praises, that they’ve talked about how they served you this week. Lord, I’ve just asking that you would bless your word and that your word would speak. Lord, you’d help us this morning. We ask in Christ’s name. Amen.

This morning, I want to talk to you on the subject, “It is okay for you to ask God.” It is okay. I want you to go to Psalms Chapter 86, and we’re going to bounce around a little bit in the Bible. If you look at Psalms 86 and you’ve got a Bible that has a title, it’ll say on the top there, “A Prayer of David.”

Throughout when you read Psalms, Psalms are going to be divided into three things. Sometimes it’ll say, “A Psalm of David.” A Psalm of David could be something like a meditation that David had, a meditation about God’s goodness, about God’s grace, about God’s mercy. Sometimes you see where it says, “A Prayer of David,” and that is a prayer that David specifically spoke to God.

In Psalms 86, when we talk about prayers of David, it’s not David praying for any particular need, any particular part of his life. It is just him stopping and asking God to bless him.

I want you to go to Psalm 51 because Psalm 51 is a specific prayer of David. Sadly, it is a prayer of David after David had sinned. I know I’m talking to many mature Christians in here, but I’ll tell you what I tell the young people: Be careful. Don’t ever take that exit ramp, Exit 51. Avoid that exit at all possible, that place where you are. The prayer is a prayer of repentance and a prayer of forgiveness and a life of regret.

So in Psalm 51, there is a prayer of David, but it’s specific because he had sinned. We’re not reading all of it, but he says, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness, according to the multitude that I tend to mercies. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me.” There’s a specific; there he is talking. He’s asking God for forgiveness.

In Psalm 86, there’s really no specific reason other than he wants God to bless his life. I’m talking to young people. Some of you are young; you’re young at heart. Amen? The bones tell you otherwise, but that’s okay. You’re young at heart. I’m talking to a group of saints this morning that, you know, we have needs, and there are things that only God can break through and answer. There are things that only God can do.

Sometimes we feel that if we go to God, that somehow we’re being selfish asking God to help us. I want to show you in Psalm 86 where David, I think, prayed for six or seven specific needs in his life. I’m going to encourage you this morning that you would take and maybe jot these down and that you would apply these to your personal prayer time every day, every day.

Let’s go to Psalms chapter 86 and verse one. He says, “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy.” Amen? How many of you are poor and needy? You know, I’m a Puerto Rican, but when I learned English, I thought they said I was a poor Rican. But I am a poor Rican. I remember learning English; I would cry. I had to learn English, go to the school, and they would say, “Say ‘church,’” and I would say “church.” They would say, “Say ‘chair,’” and I would say “share.” I still have a little of that; once in a while, it would come out. But I remember trying to learn that language.

Look at Psalms 86. In my Bible, those first three or four words are kind of emphasized, aren’t they? They’re in capital letters. How many of you have them in capital letters? That’s an emphasis. That is like himself saying, “Lord, bow down thine ear.”

I want to give you a couple of things. We’re just going to go through the scriptures and let the scriptures be the outline. That’s the best way of preaching. Just repeat what God has already stated. He says, number one, he says, “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy.” Six or seven different requests you ought to have of God every day in your personal life.

Request number one is, “Lord, I need you to bless me.” Now you say, “Why? That’s kind of selfish.” Look at your pastor here. Listen, your pastor cannot bless you unless the Lord blesses him. A lot of us cannot bless other people unless the Lord blesses us. I think it’s due time that Christians realize that you have an all-knowing and an all-powerful God, a God that’s rich in mercy, and that he wants to bless you.

You need to say, “God, bow down your ear. God, you’ve got to bless me.” By the way, it’s not selfish to ask God to bless you because the reason you want to be blessed is so that what? You can bless somebody else.

This past week, I just loved the way the Lord answers little prayers. This past week, I did a funeral for a lady from the bus route 35 years ago. She called me; they found me on Facebook and said, “My mother died. We were saved on your bus route. Can you come do my mom’s funeral?”

I remember that afternoon I was at the church. We got this new church, and the building’s 120 years old, and I’d like to take a bulldozer and just tear it down and start over, and we were patching and fixing everything. I remember that day there was a need for a door. We had these doors, and the hinge broke, and doors are expensive. I had to get it fixed, and it was $179. When you don’t have much of a congregation, sometimes you’ve got to look at your pocket, amen, and you’ve got to count the pennies and say, “Man, I hope ten cents will cover that.”

I called the repair guy out, and he replaced the hinge. It was $179. I thought, “Lord, how am I going to make that up? I’m a poor youth pastor.” They pay us weekly, very weekly.

I paid for it, and I went to the funeral. I did the funeral. It’s so good to see folks that were saved years before. Then, man, I’m leaving. I said, “Okay, now let me get back to church. I got service tonight.” It was a Thursday night. As I was pulling out, this man hit the window. I lowered it. I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “I’m the funeral director.” He said, “You are the pastor that officiated?” I said, “I am.” He said, “Well, we’ve got your per diem.” He said, “The insurance pays for clergy.” I’m like, “Well, thank God for whoever, whatever life policy that was.” I looked in there, got back to the church, opened it up, and it covered the repair.

See those little things? I want to challenge you with something: If you can trust God to save you, why can’t you trust the Lord to keep you? Why is it we can trust God for the eternal, but we can’t trust God for today?

Number one: Pray daily, “God, I need you to bless me,” and I need you to bless me because I want to be a blessing to somebody else.

Keep going. Let’s go down to verse two. “Preserve my soul, for I am holy, O thou my God. Save thy servant that trusteth in thee.” Number one, I said you need to ask God every day to bless you, so that you can bless others. God wants to; it’s just you’re not asking.

Number two, he says, “Preserve my soul.” We believe in eternal security, amen. We don’t believe that you can lose your salvation. That’s not—we don’t believe in purgatory. That’s not talking about preserving my soul like out of purgatory. Let me tell you what that is. Listen, the soul is the seat of your emotions. The soul is the seat of your affections. The soul is that seat that can be very easily bothered.

Every day we live in such a messed-up world where things bother our mind, our heart. Every day you need to say, “Lord, preserve my soul. Lord, put a hedge around me. Don’t let things come and affect my spirit. Don’t let things come into my life, dear Lord, that are going to cause me to act against your word.” We’re opinionated. Everybody’s got an opinion. Everybody has a right.

If you follow social media, if you look at something on television, if you follow news, there’s going to be something that’s going to affect you. But one thing I’ve learned in the last 10 years is I am very careful about what things enter that inner circle called my life. I’ll shut things off. I will avoid people. Why? Because we’re so bothered.

I’m talking to people just like as I preach in many churches that are full of worry and anxiety and full of fear. You need to go to the Lord every day and say, “Lord, preserve my soul.” That doesn’t mean preserve my salvation; one saved, always saved. But I’m talking about… you know very well that there’s things that bother you and that hurt you, and there’s things that—there’s these thoughts that dwell in you: thoughts of finances and children and the direction and so on. You need to stop every day and say, “Lord, preserve myself.” I do. I’m a pastor. I’m a happy person. I have a resting angry face, but I have a—amen? How many of you can testify to that? Husbands? There you go. Your wife has got the angry face.

But number one, I’m going to say, “Lord, bless me.” Number two, I’m going to pray, “Lord, preserve my soul,” because, man, that’s garbage in, garbage out every day. I want to make sure that I’m a good testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ. This is David, this is the king. How much bad news did the king get on a daily basis? How many times was the king bothered?

Let’s keep going. It’s okay for you to pray for yourself. It’s okay for you to pray and ask God, “God, bless me. God, preserve my soul.” I want you to go to verse three. “Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto thee daily.” Number three: Ask God to have mercy on you. Ask God to have mercy. Ask God to show you mercy. Amen. When that state trooper pulls you over? Amen? I claim it. It’s under the blood of Christ. Have mercy. It’s a little bit too late; you were speeding.

But daily you ought to say, you know what? Do you remember when you first got saved and how God was so good and kind to you, and his mercy was so good and kind to you? We forget to be merciful. Every day you ought to say, “God, have mercy on me. Have mercy in me. Guard me, keep me.”

Nothing is of a greater heartbreak than when you hear that someone slips away. When somebody slips away, so many times I’ll go to God and say, “God, thank you for having mercy on me. Thank you, dear God, for keeping me. I’m a nobody. I should have been out in the world, should have been a drunk, should have been, you know, an addict.” But there’s that beautiful word called grace. Amen? Grace and mercy.

Sometimes you beat yourself down. Sometimes the devil comes; he’s the accuser of the brethren. In Revelation chapter 11, we see that he does two things: he deceives the unsaved and he accuses the saved. When he comes and accuses you about you did this and you’re not that and you failed here and gets you comparing to the brother next to you or the sister next to you, you need to go to God and say, “God, have mercy on me.” David knew it. That’s probably David’s number one petition that he asks of the Lord repeatedly: “Have mercy upon me. Have mercy upon me.”

Number four, let’s keep going. I want you to go to verse four. Now, I like this one. The Bible says, “Rejoice the soul of thy servant, for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.” Hey, how many of you are saved? You know you’re on your way to heaven. Say amen. Amen. Good. Well, let your heart tell your face to smile. Amen? You got a lot of grumpy Christians. The devil wants everybody grumpy. The devil wants everybody mad. The devil wants everybody grumpy, grumpy, and he doesn’t want anybody glad. But Jesus wants everybody happy, and Jesus wants everybody glad. Except for the pastors. He wants them mad. No, but he says, “Rejoice the soul of thy servant.”

Remember that soul, the seat of your affections? Hey, you know what? Sometimes you—I know there’s that phrase, “You have to fake it till you make it,” right? You’ve got to smile for a while. But you know what? If you’ll go to God and say, “God, I come to you. These are things I pray daily: Lord, rejoice my heart.”

My wife and I, we’ve had a lot of trials in our life. We went through years of a battle with infertility, losing all sorts of money and failed adoptions. You say, “We look back at that?” No. I’ve got hundreds of young people that the Lord has allowed us to work with. The good thing is you love them during the day, and then they go back to their houses at night. Amen? They’re like grandkids. How many grandparents in here? Okay, you grandparents, y’all are fake, okay? Because when your kids were growing up, “Mommy, can we stop at McDonald’s?” “No, there’s food at home.” And now, you know, Josh back there and Giselle, and they go, and they all say, you know, the little baby, little girl, little boy, you know, little grandkids, say, “Puppy,” you know, “Grandma, me-maw,” whatever name you all got down here. Down here you probably—I don’t know—call him Colonel. I don’t know. Oh, wait, I’m in Tennessee, not Kentucky. And you say, “Can we go to McDonald’s?” “Oh, sweetie, we can go to McDonald’s? Oh, sweetie, we can go to McDonald’s? What do you want?” You’re so fake. Your kids ought to sue you for breach of contract. Amen?

Ask the Lord, ask the Lord to rejoice your heart. Ask him to keep you from depression, from worry. Ask him to keep you from disappointment. It’s incredible. We only pray about those things after the negative has happened in our life. Why don’t we be proactive? Pray for it before.

So we pray, number one, “Lord, bless me.” Why? So I can bless others. We pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me.” We pray, “Lord, go ahead and rejoice my heart.”

Let’s keep going. See what else David prayed for here. I want you to go down to verse 11. This is a needy one. “Teach me thy way, Lord; I will walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name.” Pray, “Lord, teach me. Teach me your way, Lord. Lord, teach me to know you. Teach me to understand.” We know we come to church to learn, and that’s awesome. We go to school to learn. What was the last time you said, “Lord, I’m getting ready to go into service. Lord, teach me. Lord, help me. Lord, please, Lord, I don’t understand.”

Sometimes I read through scripture, and I’ve been a Christian for many years, and I’ve studied the Bible, and I’ve read the Bible many, many times, and I teach the Bible, and sometimes I go in there and say, “Man, all right, now that one’s really got me.” He’s the author of the book. Who better than to go and say, “Teach me what you wrote?” David says, “Teach me. Teach me who you are. Teach me, God, not only to ask for your hand, but teach me, oh, God, to know your heart.”

So many times we just go—and I’m preaching on asking God—so many times we only go to God when we need something. David said, “Teach me.” I wonder how much more of the Bible you would understand if you would just go and say, “Lord, teach me today.”

Let’s continue. He says in verse 11, he says verse—I want you to go to verse 16. I like this one. He says, man, we’re almost done. There’s one more verse. No. Now I got to explain it all. Look at verse 16. He says this, “O turn unto me and have mercy upon me; give thy strength unto thy servant.”

I’m not talking about spiritual strength. Ask the Lord daily to give you physical strength. I hate getting old. I hate it. I tell my kids, “I’m not old, I’m gold.” Amen? And I tell them, “I got one fight left in me. Who wants it?” I tell them that. I’m not fighting. But when is the last time you said, “Lord, give me strength?”

So many times when we’re ill, the first person we talk to about our illness is the doctor. The first person you ought to go to is God. Say, “Lord, I don’t know what’s going on in my life. I don’t know what’s wrong, but God, you do. You made me. You’re the designer. You know everything. You know my uprising, my downfall. You know, you know every gene in me.” So, God, before I go talk to that knucklehead who thinks he knows something—he’s got M.D., stands for mentally disturbed—and you go and talk to him, God, I’m going to come to you.

Recently, I did something in my hand and I busted a tendon in my hand. I went to a doctor, and he said, “Oh, you’ve got this.” No, I didn’t have that. Gave medication. It wasn’t for that. But how many times we go to man and say, “Oh, we believe him?” But have you ever gone to God and asked God to give you strength? You know why you’re in church today? Because you can. Amen? Because the day’s going to come when maybe you’ll be bedridden or wheelchair-bound, and church is not—you know why you ought to go? Because you can. You know why you ought to serve in church? Because you can. Amen?

So he says, “Give me strength.” Give me strength. Not only the spiritual strength, man, because we do need to fight off all the wiles of the devil, but you know what? You got to go to God and say, “Lord, come on now. His body’s old. His body’s beat up.” Hey, but you know what? “Lord, can I ask you for strength today?” I dread that day when I have some illness, and probably I will, because that is the way it goes, right? It goes like, yeah. Do I dread that day? No, but I want to do as much as I can while I can. He says, “God, give me strength.” I like that.

Then I want you to go to verse 17. We are not Jews. Well, there might be one or two in here. I don’t know. I got Jewish blood in me somewhere. We’re originally from Spain, my great-grandparents. I did a little one of those Mormon ancestry tests or whatever. I heard the Mormons own them, and I did that test, and I was like, I don’t know, some percentage of Jewish or something.

But he says here in verse 17, “Show me a token for good, that they which hate me may see it and be ashamed, because thou, Lord, art hoping me and comforted me.” I think every so often you just need to go to the Lord and say, “Lord, I want to see you today. In my walk today, I want it to be evident that you are with me. Lord, I want it to be evident that it is God.”

I heard a lady testify about another lady that came to the rummage sale here. She could tell that that lady’s spirit was down. How the lady did not get saved, but she made that connection and planted that seed, and it’s going to pray for that person. How many times if you’ll just say, “Lord, lead me today,” God will lead you across somebody that needs you?

Brother Paul, I’m busy. You’re busy. One thing I learned a long time ago, and this is a prayer I make every week: I say, “Lord, send people across my path. Send people across my path.” Sometimes I’m busy; I may not have the four or five hours to go knock doors and do all that, but every week the Lord sends somebody across my path. Every week. It’s not magic; it’s what God wants to do for you. He wants to strengthen you. He wants to lead you. He wants to help you. He wants to rejoice your heart. He wants to bless you.

But there’s one problem: You do not ask. You don’t ask, and you don’t receive. Then you think, “Well, God doesn’t like me very much.” No, God loves you. You ought to say, “Lord, show me a token for good.” I’m not saying going on, you know, start worshiping crystals and, you know, whatever, and start looking at the eclipse and putting, you know, having all sorts of crazy things about it. But I am saying go to God and say, “God, I sure like for you to cross my path with somebody today that needs the gospel, that needs you. Lord, I sure like to know today without a doubt that you did this.”

There are two phrases—I’m a youth pastor, and I follow trends—and I’ll be done with this. Two phrases are trending with teens and their lingo. One of them is when a teen tells another teen, “Hey, John, you did that.” It’s all over social media: “You did that.” “Marcella, you did that.” The kids are like, “You did that.” That’s a phrase trending.

How about we go to God and say, “God, you did that? God, you did that?” Then there’s another one that’s trending, and the phrase is, “Look at God.” Those two little phrases are trending in social media: “You did that” and “Look at God.”

Can I just, in closing, say, why are we surprised when God answers our prayers? Recently, I was at Easter; of course, we preach on the resurrection. In the story of the resurrection, there’s a little teaching where Mary and some of the disciples had prayed for Jesus, and then when he shows up, they didn’t believe him. You pray for things, and then when God answers, you’re like, “No, that can’t be true. No.”

You ought to look at God at everything and every place that God works in your life. Not just the big things. Y’all ever were hungry and somebody gave you a sandwich? Amen. Look at God. Now look at me. You ever just come across somebody’s path at the right time? He did that. You ever have somebody cross your path, and the Lord used you to help them? Look at God. Look at God.

You’re probably thinking this is the most elementary sermon on prayer you’ve ever heard, but I want you to understand, we have a loving Heavenly Father that wants to hear us. It’s not always just about feeding us and healing us. Did you hear me? Ninety percent of our prayer requests are, “God, heal me.” Amen? There ought to be, “God, strengthen me. God, show mercy. God, incline your ear. God, bless me. God, show me a token. God, rejoice my heart. God, show me mercy.” Those are prayer requests, prayer requests.

May I encourage you? Ask God. Ask him. Notice we didn’t say anything in there, “Lord, give me a pickup. Lord, give me a pickup truck.” Wives, next time your husband comes to you and says, “Honey, we need a pickup,” you just tell him, “Get thee behind me.” Say, “All right, honey, the Lord spoke to me. We need a boat.” Tell him, “Honey, if it ain’t an ark, we ain’t buying it.”

We need to get back to where we pray and we trust God for things other than feed me and heal me. Would you bow your heads, please? I have the pastor come. Heads are bowed, our eyes are closed. I read, I think, just this morning, Spurgeon, a great, great Christian years going by, he said, “Rarely does 15 minutes go by that I’ve not talked to my Heavenly Father.” Maybe today, you see, and I’m just going to work at this thing of praying more. I just need to ask more. We worry, we contemplate, but just praying. God spoke to my heart. I’m going to work at this thing of connecting with God throughout the day, praying more. God spoke to my heart about that. That’s you this morning. You just lift a hand, preacher, “I want to pray more throughout the day.” Maybe next time I’m tempted to complain, I’m going to pray. I’m tempted to talk about someone, I’m going to pray. Yes, God worked in my heart. I’m going to be praying more. I want to be a greater prayer warrior. Will you? Many, many hands raised. Maybe one more, “God spoke from the heart. I honestly need to pray more.” That’s just not anybody else. Anybody slip it up? God bless you. God bless you. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. God bless you. Thank you so much. You can put your hands down.

There’s a prayer we call it the sinner’s prayer. It is when we go to him for our salvation, when we relinquish what we can do to save our soul as far as eternity, and we put our full faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone. It’s amazing, just a prayer, but he’s listening for that prayer. You go to him and say, “Lord, I know I’m a sinner. I need a Savior, and I know you’re the Savior. The only one. I’m coming to you for my salvation.” You said, “Preacher, that’s me. I need to go to the Lord for my salvation. I need to sincerely ask him to save me.” That’s me right there. If that’s you this morning, just lift your hand, preacher, “I need to go to the Lord and ask him for my salvation.”

Would you do this? Would you stand, please? I’m going to have a word of prayer. Would you come just spend some time with the Lord? It’d be a good time to start right now asking, “Lord, help me. Be merciful and gracious. Help me to go to you throughout the day. Remind me of that.” Father, thank you for the message, the messenger. Lord, help us to connect with you all day long. Let that be true of us. Rarely a 15 minutes goes by now we’ve not talked to you. Help us to be more like that. Bless our people these few minutes. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

If God spoke to your heart, would you come? Don’t wait for everybody else. Would you come? “Lord, I want to ask more.” It’s amazing what you get just for the asking, just asking. I want to be one of those Christians that I’m asking day in, day out, just asking you. It’ll amaze what it’ll do for your soul, your spirit, and it’ll be amazing what God will give just for the asking. “Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened for everyone that asks.” It’s amazing. Everyone that asketh receiveth it. He that seeketh findeth him that knocketh shall be opened. If he then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto you, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? You have not because you ask not. Asking. Just simply throughout the day, just asking. Ask until he either gives you what you want or changes your heart. Paul kept asking; the Lord didn’t give him what he wanted, but he changed his heart. “My grace is sufficient,” he said. “Most gladly, therefore, I’d rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Keep praying until either he answers or changes your heart. Keep praying.

Original File: Its ok for you to ask God - Sunday AM 040212024