Everyday Church
That's a Jesus Question, Part 2
(upbeat music) - Hello, friend. Welcome to today's podcast, Everyday Church, with Pastor Jason Kiefer. Everyday Church is a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. (upbeat music) - It's asking Jesus' effects, your mindset. Making things a Jesus question, it's gonna change your life in some profound ways. And listen, if you'll start asking Jesus, if you'll make it a Jesus question, it'll change your mindset. Now think about it for a moment, we've already kind of went through the story here. In the beginning of the story, they're frantic, they're frustrated, they're asking questions, they don't know what to do, they're probably, some of them are ticked off, and they're hurt, they're discouraged, they're afraid. Again, every emotion in the book, we would say this, they were emotionally unstable. I mean, you get 12 guys together, and one of them is gonna betray Jesus anyway. He's just sitting back, seeing what's gonna happen, right? And you get 12 guys together, and they're living in doubt, and they're living in fear, like they're all over the map. Well, like they're all over the map. But then what do we see over there in verse 30? Now, I know there's some clarification that Jesus gives in 31 through 32. But when you read verse 30, what you see is this. You see a group of men that say, "Wait a minute, "now we believe and understand." Like the light came on, they said, "We get it. "Jesus is the Son of God." That's what he's been trying to tell us all along. That's what he's been trying to get into our brain for three and a half years, is that he is the Son of God. He's the deliverer, he's the hope of Israel, he's God almighty, like he is the savior of the world. And they said this, they get it. So we go from verse 17, just being all over the map, to verse 29 and 30, to where they're just unified in one answer. And so what happens is their mindset was affected. When they begin to hear what Jesus is saying and they begin to hear that, "Wait a minute, "whether I'm here or not, "you're gonna be able to go to the Father. "You've got a direct line with the Father. "You've got direct access with God. "You're gonna be able to go to faith through faith "and talk to God and he's gonna answer those questions for you." Remember, he's already told him, "Look, "hey, he's already told him when it comes to the Holy Spirit, "all you've gotta do is ask and I'm gonna give it to you. "Like the Holy Spirit's gonna be present with you "and you're gonna ask for understanding "and the Holy Spirit's gonna give you understanding." Like all that stuff's starting to make sense now. And all of a sudden I sense that these disciples in some way, for the moment, for the moment, their fears begin to get calmed. Their anxiety kinda leaves for a little bit. Like they have clear thought and they have clear thought and they have a clear path of how they're gonna go forward. And so they go from fear to faith and they go from this chaos to having clarity. They go from this emotional breakdown, if you will, to all of a sudden just emotionally they look pretty sound. They go from being frantically questioning cries to starting to believe and know that what he is saying is true. Psychology talks about the emotional mind versus the wise mind, psychology says this. The emotional mind refers to the part of your brain that is reactionary, impulsive, and often illogical. When in an emotional state, you're driven primarily by your feelings rather than reason or rational thinking. Certain events, situations, or memories can trigger your emotional mind and cause you to react intensely. How many of you that resonates with you? Like you've been there. There are certain things that just emotionally will have you out in the weeds before you even know what happened. Like you're ticked off, you're fresh, everything was perfect. Everything was perfect. And all of a sudden, something happened. And man, you're frustrated. If you're not screaming on the outside, you're screaming on the inside. If you're not biting your fingernails on the outside, you're chewing them on the inside. You know what I'm talking about? I mean, you don't know what's going on. And so that's called the emotional mind. So there's also the wise mind. Operating from a wise mind state has many benefits, they say. They say when you act from a wise mind, you can make better decisions. You have healthier relationships because you can understand multiple views and validate others. You're less reactive and impulsive. You pause to consider the situation fully before acting. You have more peace by accepting your thoughts and feelings without judgment. You experience less inner tomo and distress. You develop self-compassion and grace. You gain life wisdom using both intellect and intuition over time helps you develop insight and judgment that lead to profound learning and growth. The problem is this. They use a broken method to get from an emotional mind to a wise mind. They say, look, here's the emotional mind. You can't control yourself. Bad things happen. Here's the wise mind. You make good decisions, good things happen. The problem is you and I are broke by nature. We have a problem with getting from here to here. Well, we have ways of kind of maintaining this and we call it this. When in reality, when it's dependent on self, we're always accepting from back to this. Like I can get it fixed for a moment. Like I can get them under motions under control for a minute. But how have you done it for a while, you get that thing fixed and then short time later, all of a sudden, you're back over here. You know, lost it. You know, I'm panicking. You don't know what to do. So what do we need? We need to make it a Jesus issue. We got to make it a Jesus issue, a Jesus question. Lord, I got some things going on that are just derailing me emotionally. Lord, I need some understanding and peace and yeah, psychology says if I reframe things and if I look at things for different lens and I'll have peace, but Lord, the reality is I don't have any more peace inside. Yeah, I'm able to handle it a little better, but I just say in friend, sometimes we need the supernatural power of God's grace that only comes when his children ask him to intervene in our life and intervene on our behalf to change our mindset. Philippians 4 says it this way. Be careful for nothing. The idea of there being careful for nothing is that you or I would not be anxious about anything, okay? Does it mean that when you leave out here today, just run the red light and don't be careful when you're driving, get an accident? All right, don't do any of that. It's saying that you don't have to be anxious for anything, but in everything, in everything, by developing a great plan and by being thankful that God gave you wisdom to develop that plan, that ain't what it says, at all, is it? In everything, by what? - In everything. - In everything, by what? - Prayer. - In everything, by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known unto God. Why would God tell you to bring your request to him if he was just gonna play games with you and say, "Ha, I'll watch this." Let's just see if they'll trust it out. My outcome's different. Let's just see if they'll trust that I'm gonna give them the other side of the coin and always just give them grace to endure. We always think that. We always think that if we have a problem that needs a miraculous change in it, that God's not going to give us the miracle, we always assume that the miracle is just gonna give us grace. And I'm not belittling that, my friend. There are some things that people in this room, there's some things that some of you, the only miracle in the situation you had to go through was God's grace helping you to endure through that situation. But as you sit here this morning, some of those same situations you've had to go through, there have been some situations in your life that it was a miracle given to you by the grace of God that allowed you to overcome, that allowed you to go through, that changed your mindset. Think about this spiritual, healthy people or emotionally healthy people. Looking back in Philippians chapter four, he said, "Let your request be made known unto God." In verse seven he says this, "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding." In verse six he says, "Don't be anxious. "Why would he say that? "Because people were anxious." Oh, why would he say that? Because fear was driving people's decisions and it was resulting in an outcome that didn't have to happen. And so Paul says, "Don't be anxious for anything. "Pray about it in everything, pray." And the result is this, the peace of God that passeth all understanding. I said a while ago when you go to God in faith you're good with the outcome. You're good with the outcome. But don't go to God in faith saying that I'm good with the outcome, but really that's doubting that God will give you what you need. Like if you listen, I'm just telling you and I'll share a little more on this in a minute. I'm just saying, if you need healing in your body you should go to God saying, "God, this is what I need in my body." Like I need this in my body. And yeah, okay, God's gonna give me peace to go through whatever it does that go that I need to go through. But God based on your word, you said the prayer of faith would do this. God, if I'm having a problem emotionally and I just can't get out of discouragement and I can't get out of depression and listen, I'm not belittling counseling, physical counseling, I think there's a place for it. I'm just saying God's people all too often rule out God's miraculous power in situations. And when we depend on the miraculous power of God it changes our perspective. God's peace and God's joy begins to rule our heart in the middle of the situation. Health, spiritual healthy people are emotionally healthy people. Spiritual health comes from the Savior. Greater peace and greater joy can only come from a greater dependence on the Savior. Look at verse 24 in our text this morning, Jesus says this at the end of that verse. He says ask and you shall receive, look at that last phrase there, that your joy may be full. Ask that you shall receive. That's dependence on the Savior. Jesus is saying this, depend on me. Like come to me for your needs. Come to me for your wants, for your desires. Ask, I'm going to give you. And he says, as your heavenly father, I am going to rejoice in the fact that you have joy. Why does that earthly father give good things into his children? Because it brings joy to that earthly father to be able to do that. It brings joy whenever you can do things with your kids and we went out on a vacation this summer and we rented a place in Orlando and man, we just chilled out of the pool and had a great time, had a pool right there at the house and we went to, we went to Aquatica one day. And they have this, they have a lazy river and then they have this other lazy river that ain't for lazy people, if you know what I'm talking about. So we thought that was a lazy river. And we saw all these people put in life jackets on. I was like, all right, you know, one kiss, any one can do, right, put my life jacket on and go get in the lazy river. Man, we got in that thing and it was like, it was rapids. I mean, we're bobbing up a ring, rhythm is bobbing down underwater. Man, every time she came up, I mean, she was laughing hysterically. I mean, Nate's there, really is there. Me and Tanya, we're trying to keep all the kids together. And every time I looked, I'm going to tell you, I looked around and my kids were laughing their full heads off. And I remember in that moment, I thought, man, this feels so good. This feels so good as a dad. And so I think we went back twice that week, right? We decided, and this is not me. We decided, let's go back twice. You know why? I just, in my mind, I kept thinking, man, my kids had so much fun there. We're like, y'all want to, let's do this. We can go here, we can go back to SeaWorld. All right, dad, we want to go to Quadica. All right, let's go. Let's do it. We want to do it. Man, you know what? We went back in that river again. And we got in the lazy river later, was like, this is stupid, man. Let's go in that one that drowned you. Let's go in the one on the whole genre of water, you know? And this is great, let's do it. I'm just saying as a dad, that does something for me. It does something for me. When you bring your request to the Savior, I'm telling you, and he says that your joy may be full, that you can be full of joy. Is that joy supernatural 100%? Is that joy going to be there? Whether or not things turn out the way you want it? 100%. But I'm just saying, way too often, we rule out the fact that it pleases our God to give us good things. And we need to make it a Jesus question. I remember in 2022, my wife, she shared this. I know she shared this with the ladies, and thank you for everybody that prays for her and our family. In 2022, September, we sat in a doctor's office, and the doctor confirmed what he thought was early on set Parkinson's from Britannia. I remember sitting there, and I remember the first question that came out of my mouth. It's like, all right, Doc, what do we gotta do? I mean, that's the reasonable question. If you have cancer, okay, Doc, what's the treatment plan? Right? If you have another issue, and you need surgery, okay, Doc, what's the plan? If you got diabetes, okay, Doc, what kind of medicine you put this on? You got a heart disease, okay, Doc, what's the plan? And he said, well, Mr. Kiefer, super nice guy, just a really great guy. He said, well, Mr. Kiefer, there is no plan. There is no plan. And I just remember sitting there, and I was like, I felt like somebody just punched me in the face. I was just like, I don't, what do you mean there's no plan? He's like, well, studies are being done, and they're doing research, and they're always coming out with new things. And he was a good doctor. You could tell he was trying to maintain some kind of hope or something like that. But it took me a while, and I know it did my wife, and there are some days where it still takes a while, to realize that the help that she needs is a miracle. I've asked, I've had to ask the Lord to help me in my prayer. I told her this the other day, we shared this the other day. I said, I'm changing the way I'm praying for you. I said, I'm just asking God for a miracle. When I go pray for my wife, I ask for a miracle. I said, God, will you give to on your miracle? Will you give her what she needs? And miraculously heal her. You say, well, what if God didn't tell me to go to him that way? That's the problem. See, God didn't tell me as his child, I had to go and say, God, will you do this? But if you don't do this, will you do that? It's like my kids coming to me and saying, Dad, can I have a popsicle? But Dad, if you say I can't have a popsicle, can I at least have an apple? I mean, think about it. Hey, it's like my kids come and say, Dad, we love pizza. Can I have some pizza? But Dad, if you say no, can I have vegetable soup at least so I don't die and go hungry? Or go hungry and die? That comes first, right? I think sometimes we convince ourselves that we're going to God the right way by saying God. I don't really believe you'll give us a miracle, so this is what I'm really gonna believe you can do. And listen and I'm, you gotta listen with your heart, okay? Listen to what I'm saying from your heart. I'm just saying all too often, we give God credit for things God didn't do. There's nowhere in the scriptures where it tells me to pray God, would you give my financial advisor wisdom so that I can make my ends meet? My ends meet? Doesn't tell me to do that. It doesn't say God will you give the doctor wisdom so that he can help me navigate this. Now I think that's a good prayer. And if I'm going to a doctor, I'm gonna ask God, give him wisdom. I mean that. But I'm just saying the Bible specifically does not tell us to go and pray that way. The Bible does specifically tell me to bring my needs and my requests to him and that he would answer them according to his will. And so I'm just saying if we could start asking Jesus, it'll change our mindset and check this out. It'll change from results. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to Every Day Church, a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. If this episode was an encouragement to you, be sure to hit like, share it, and subscribe for future content. (upbeat music)