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Amen. Keep your place there in 1 Kings chapter 3. We'll be looking at this story throughout the sermon this evening. We're talking about Solomon's prayer tonight. We've been looking at famous prayers in the Bible and seeing what we can learn from these prayers. So before we talk about the topic of the sermon tonight, let's just look at the beginning of the story here. Look at 1 Kings chapter 3 and look at verse number 5. So here we see Solomon. He's just taken over the kingdom from his father David. And we see Solomon has a dream where the Lord appears to him at night. Look at verse number 5. It says in Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and God said, ask what I shall give thee. So here, God basically comes to Solomon in a dream and he says, what do you want? He says, ask me and I will give you something. You're thinking, must be nice. Whenever you read this story in the Bible, a lot of times you'll think, oh, it must be nice to have God come to me and just be like, hey, ask me whatever you want to give me. That's a thought that comes into people's mind. There was a game that we used to play when we were kids. I don't know if kids these days play it. Maybe I saw too many cartoons or something when I was a kid. But there's a game that we used to play when we were just little kids. It'd be like, what would you do if you had three wishes? What would you ask for? Do you ever play this game with your friends? And the first thing, of course, is everybody would always say, well, a million dollars. You ask for, duh. You ask for a million dollars. That's the first thing. You probably need more than that now. But anyway, I mean, you ask for money and all this stuff. And I was the smart one. I was like, no, of course, the first thing I would ask for is more wishes. Duh. Then you just have as many wishes as you want and you can do whatever you want. But look, God actually comes to Solomon and this actually happens to him. He comes to Solomon and says, what do you want? Implying that he will give Solomon whatever he wants. He's playing that game with Solomon. And we sit there and we say, well, it must be nice, but guess what? In Matthew chapter 7 and verse number 7, God says, ask what? Ask. He says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you shall find. He says to us, knock and it shall be opened unto you. So God has said the same thing to us before we even begin the sermon that he said to Solomon. Okay. So we're not anything. Solomon's not anything unique. The difference though is that Solomon was very smart in the way that he talked to the Lord and what he actually asked for. So that's what we're going to look at this evening, but just laying the groundwork there. Just remember, you know, the wish game that God made with Solomon, he plays the same game with Solomon. It says ask and I shall give unto you. You know, he says, ask me, just ask me. You know, this is the problem with us. This is why we're having a sermon series on prayer in the first place. Go back to first Kings chapter three. Look at verse number six. So God says to Solomon, he's like, what do you want? Ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon says, look what he says in verse six. It says thou has showed unto thy servant David, my father, great mercy according as he walked before thee in truth and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart with thee. And thou has kept him this with this great kindness that thou has given him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day. And now, Oh Lord, my God, thou has made thy servant King instead of David, my father, but I am, and I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people, which thou has chosen a great people that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Has he asked for anything? I just read you three verses in the Bible. God says, ask me what you want. And look what Solomon does. What does he do? What was some of the first things that we learned in this sermon series? Address God with respect. He doesn't just say, give me this. He goes and he addresses God with respect. He, he tells God, you're a God of great mercy. You've been great to my father. And then look what he says in verse number eight. He says it twice. He says it in verse number eight and he says it in verse number nine. He's the King. Think about this for a second. He's the King of the nation right now. Solomon is the King. And he says in the midst of who he says in the midst of thy people, he literally addresses the nation that he rules over as God's people. He acknowledges to God, these are your people. And in verse number seven, he's like, I am nothing. He says, I'm just a little kid. I'm just a little child. He's like, how am I supposed to rule your people? He says to God, he's getting great respect to God. He's asked for nothing at this point. Look at verse number 12, behold, I've done. I'm sorry. Verse number nine. Therefore give thy servant. And how does he address himself? Give this powerful King of this nation says, give thy servant. He's like, Lord, I'm your servant. Just listen to how he speaks to the Lord. Listen to how he comes to God here. Give thy servant an understanding heart to judge who? Again, thy people. He's saying to God, that means your, he's saying, God, help me rule your people. Not my people, not my kingdom. He's not claiming. Look, what have we learned from all these men and all these women? You give credit to the Lord. You give credit to where credit is due. Daniel, same thing. He was very good at just giving all glory and all credit to God all the time. And Solomon is doing that here. I mean, this is a pretty smart little kid right here. Okay, this is a pretty smart young man. So he says, give thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people. Now he asks, he makes the ask in verse number nine. He says, give thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad, for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? He asks for something that will benefit something that belongs to the Lord. You see that what he does? He doesn't ask for anything for himself. He asks for something that will help what? What was another philosophy that we learned? How is your prayer? How is the thing that you are going to ask for? How does that benefit God's kingdom on earth? Didn't we learn that a couple sermons ago? How does it benefit? You should probably try to make that case. Look, if it doesn't, you just can't think of anything. Well, you know, maybe we have a problem here. But look at what Solomon does. He says, give me an understanding heart so I can judge. He's not saying, you know, I mean judge. Everyone's like, oh, don't judge. He's saying, so I can like rule properly is what he's saying. So I can rule fairly these people. Look at verse number 10. And the speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. In verse number 11, he says, and God said unto him, this is, this is the school kids playing the wish game right here. God's like, I figured you were going to ask me these things because thou had asked this thing and has asked not for thyself. You know, what were the, what were the wishes that the kids play in the, in the playground? They're like, I want to live forever, right? I want to have a million dollars. You know, I want to be the most powerful person in the world. Those are the answers that the school kids gave. And that's what God said he was expecting right here. He said, and has not asked for thyself a long life. Neither has asked riches for thyself nor had asked the life of thine enemies, you know, just this big, to be this big powerful ruler, but has asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment. He literally instead, God was so pleased because he literally just asked for help with God's kingdom on earth. That's what Solomon asked for. So we see, I mean, we see before we get started here, we see the exact pattern that we've been talking about throughout these prayers. Just the respect given to the Lord. We see that he went and he made a case. He made a case. Not only did he make a case, he just asked directly for something that would directly benefit the Lord. So this is a very good prayer. Look at verse number 12. How does God respond to it? Is God going to grant this? Is he going to say, okay? He's like, you know, what does he do? Look at verse 12. He says, behold, I have done according to thy words. He says, yes, I'm going to give you that. Lo, I've given thee a wise and understanding heart so that there is none like thee before thee. So he goes, God goes further now. God goes further. He doesn't just say, yes, I'm going to give you good judgment. Have a nice day. Good luck. He says, I've given thee a wise and understanding heart. That's what he asked for. But so that there was none like thee before thee. Neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. He said, I've given you the wisest judgment that has ever been before or ever will follow after. Look at verse 13. And I also giveth thee that which thou has not asked. Both riches and honor so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. Verse 14. And now this is super important right here, verse 14. And if thou will walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my commandments as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days. So it's kind of like, it's kind of like the covenant with the land with Israel right here. He says in verse number 12, verse number 13, he's like, I'm going to grant you what you asked for plus all this other stuff that you didn't ask for as long as you obey me. Because I mean, how long could your days be according to the Lord? What did, you know, what did we find out today? Some kids told us today, our days could be tomorrow. That's it. Your days could be over now. Your days could be over today. So this all had, you know, this was a contract. God says, if you obey me, you know, this is what I'm going to give you. So basically he says yes to Solomon's prayer plus all this extra stuff as long as there's obedience that comes with it. So we're going to talk tonight about things that you should pray for. Things that you should pray for that God will answer positively. I mean, don't we want to pray? I mean, who wouldn't want to say that, you know, when I pray, God says yes. You know, when I pray for something, God answers me in a positive way. Who wouldn't want to say that? So we're going to look tonight using Solomon's example, especially the first part of his prayer. And then verse number 14 from the Lord, we're going to look, cause look, James chapter four says, if we ask, but it's not answered right, we ask amiss. That's why. So if God doesn't answer our prayers in a positive way, it's because we're asking for the wrong things. So we want to ask for the right things. Look, prayer is very simple. Answers to our prayer are yes, no, or not now or wait. Okay. So if the prayer is no, if we're asking for something and it's just no, we're not asking for the right things. God's actually doing us a favor by not, you know, by not letting us hurt ourselves. Okay. So let's look at some things that we should pray for tonight. So I mean, who wants to waste God's time? You know, praying for a bunch of things we shouldn't be praying for. Who wants to waste our own time? Solomon asked for a very smart thing here and we should ask for things that are good for us spiritually and good for God. Okay. And then God will answer in that same positive tone that he answered Solomon because look, God gave us in Matthew chapter seven, he gave us the same just ask me that he gives to Solomon in first Kings chapter three. Okay. So let's have that, that same mentality of what to ask for that Solomon had. So what is the first thing? So here's the first thing. Let's, let's just look at the things that Solomon specifically asked for. Okay. A lot of people think that Solomon asked for wisdom. He didn't ask for wisdom. Okay. Let me just give you two things specifically and then I'll kind of give you a methodology of how to ask for right things in your life. The first thing that you should ask for in your life is this good judgment. You should ask for good judgment in your life. Sometimes I think that this is maybe all the Christian needs right here is just good judgment and Solomon didn't ask for wisdom. You hear people misquote this story all the time. The Solomon asked for wisdom and he didn't ask for wisdom. He asked for judgment. He asked for good judgment. You know what? You know what he wanted to know? He wanted to know when I'm ruling this people, when I'm ruling, when I'm leading this, this nation, I'm going to be put in all these situations and he's like, God, I want to know what the right thing to do is in each one of those situations. And then we see an example at the end of first Kings chapter three of him putting God's answer in, in, you know, into practice with these. I mean, cause look, as a leader, as a leader, you get all kinds of weird stuff put in front of you. And I mean you, as a leader, you want to have good judgment with all these situations. I mean, look, that's a weird situation that we just read about first Kings chapter three. Some woman steals another woman's baby and claims it's her own baby and nobody knows whose baby it is. I mean, this, that's weird. That's weird that somebody would do that. Solomon has good judgment and how to get to the bottom of that situation. Okay. So that's the first thing he asked for good judgment. So take this, we should ask for good judgment. Specifically, you should be asking and praying for good judgment in your life all the time. As a Christian, as a Bible believing Christian, you should be asking, Lord, help me have good judgment. Help me understand the Bible, how to apply that to my life and make proper decisions in my life. That is a prayer that God will answer positively. Okay. But look, here's what people do though. You should ask for good judgment. You shouldn't necessarily pray for specific outcomes in your life. Okay. Does that make sense? I mean, it's a much better prayer to ask God to give you discernment and judgment like Solomon did then for you to make prayers in your life like, God, give me this job. God, I please, you know, please Lord, just, just, just give me this one specific job. This is what, you know, look, that's what we're, that's what we want to do in our lives. But instead you should pray for discernment. You should pray for just the judgment to know, you know, what the right opportunities are that we should take in our lives. You know, I mean, that's where we end up saying, you know, we're like, God, give me this opportunity or God give me this job or God make this happen or God, you know, help me this work out like this with this person or whatever. That's where God says no. And we're like, why did he say no? It's like, look, it's just, we need to just pray for, for judgment. We need to pray for good judgment and then let God, you know, you know, put things in front of us that we can have. Okay. But God show us what the right path is. Just like he showed Solomon in his first example, how, how Solomon could figure out whose son it was. Right. I mean, I'm sure that when Solomon had that idea, that very creative idea, by the way, to figure out who's baby, I'm sure that wasn't hard to figure out whose son it was. I mean, he's the king. He could execute anybody. He can do anything he wants. And he says, you know, divide the child in half. And I'm sure he was looking at both of their faces at that moment. And I'm sure at that moment it was very easy to see the horror on the, the real mother's face in that situation. So look, a better prayer is to God give us judgment. Give us a discerning heart. As Solomon asked for help me, God, help me to know what is right. I mean, you're in a difficult position in your life. Something's going on. There's that you can go this way or you can go that way. God helped me to discern what's right. Not God helped me go this way because we don't know. His way is higher than our ways. God, use your higher ways to help me discern which way I should go. Guide me in your wisdom, not my own is a prayer that we should use. Look, there's going to be all kinds of important decisions in all of our lives. You know, where, I mean, it's not just where to work. It's, it's where to live, where, you know, raising kids just we need, we're going to be put in all kinds of weird situations outside of church, inside of church. We just need to be praying for judgment. We need to pray this probably more often. Like, like I said at the beginning of this, this topic, if we asked humbly for good judgment, why would God not say yes to that prayer is what you have to ask yourself. Okay. So look what he does, does to Solomon. He not only grants him that judgment, that discerning heart, but he gives him all these extra things. Okay. God was so happy with that ask. We need to learn from that example. All right. This is something I pray for this for myself a lot. I pray for this for other people a lot, just that people would have good judgment. Okay. Because look, nobody wants to make wrong decisions. Nobody wants to make wrong decisions in your life. Look, men, men, especially men, leading families, the leader, your decisions, your decisions, they affect other people other than just yourself. You know, I mean, it's been said that, that everything rises and falls on leadership. That is so true. But everybody likes to look at the rises part of that, you know, everything rises on leadership, like, Whoa, you know, what a great leader, and everybody's going to be, you know, all this and, but look, if you're a husband, and you make the wrong decision, look, your family falls with you. And look, you're going to see this, okay, you're going to see this. And it's something that unfortunately, you're just going to kind of have to get used to, that everything rises on leadership, there's a good side of that. But if wrong decisions are made, people fall with the leader as well. It's sad to see, I don't like seeing it any more than anybody else likes seeing it. But look, it's just a hard reality of the Christian life. I mean, you know, your your marriage is a thing. You know, it's like your marriage is like an entity. Think of it that way. Your marriage is like, you know, you have the husband, you have the wife, your marriage is a thing. It's like an entity. And decisions can be made that can break that thing. You know, I remember, you know, I've heard this many, many times from men in the past, but you find some man that's that's been divorced. And I've even heard this from a saved Christian man, many, many years ago. He had a failed marriage. And any time that the term, even close to marriage was brought up, this guy would just launch off on his ex wife on how she was, you know, unsaved and she was a promiscuous woman and all just this strong language against like how everything was wrong with this woman. And look, all that may have been true. I have no idea. I never met her. But what he was doing, and he would even bring this up to the point where he was diverting all the blame for his failed marriage on this evil, wicked demon woman. But here's the thing. His marriage was a ship. It was a thing. It was a vessel. And he was in charge of that thing. And he's in that thing sunk. You know, this is why the captain, he goes down with the ship. Right? I mean, it's it's just, you're responsible. You are responsible as the leader of that entity driving that bus driving that ship. The man's responsible. You need good judgment. Men, fathers, leaders need to be praying for this all the time. Because a bad decision by you as the leader will hurt way more people than just one of the individuals in that family making a bad decision. You know, you're you can bring others down with you. So judgment, judgment, that's that's a that's a great prayer to just pray for all the time, both, you know, specifically and just in general, you know, say you have something specific that you're thinking about in your life that you're facing, pray for judgment, pray for God to guide you down the right path. But guess what? You got to be obedient. You got to be, you know, living an obedient life, having a good relationship, just like verse 14 said, you know, for God to respond to you the same way he responded to Solomon. Okay, what's the next one? Here's another example. Here's another example. How about this one? What did God grant on top of the judgment? Here's something that we should pray for wisdom. Turn to Proverbs chapter four, Proverbs chapter four. Now, obviously, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. As the Bible says in Proverbs 910, the fear of the Lord at the beginning of wisdom. Look at Proverbs chapter four, Proverbs chapter four, and look at verse number five. So obviously, wisdom. You know, we have God's wisdom in front of us. Look at Proverbs four in verse number five. The Bible says get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not. Now, here we see in this proverb, we don't see opposites. We see something that's reinforcing the first part of the proverb. So it says get wisdom, get understanding, good things to pray for. The Bible is saying get these things, forget it not, neither. Now he's going to tell you how to not forget it. Okay, at the last part of the proverb. Proverbs is so brilliant. Proverbs is so brilliant. Look at get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth. So how do you not forget it? He's like get wisdom. Well, how? Well, don't forget it. How? Don't don't go away from my word. He says, you know, don't decline from the words of my mouth. What do you mean? Well, these are the words of his mouth. This is the words of God's mouth that he's preserved for us. Why would God preserve his word? It's so we have the words of his mouth. So we have those words. And that's how we get wisdom. We get understanding and we don't forget it. Because we have it right here. Okay, but we have to do what? We have to read it. We have to study it. We have to look at it. We have to learn it. Okay, you can't ask God for wisdom. And they just never pick up your Bible. Look at verse 14 again, you have to be obedient in these things. I mean, that's not something that God is going to respond to well. You're like, he's saying the wisdom is in the Bible. So you know, yes, it's a great thing to pray for understanding of the Bible. If you're reading some things, and maybe you're reading something in the Bible, and you're like, boy, that's a really deep passage. That's a great prayer. God, I pray for wisdom that you can just give me understanding of this passage, and you can just keep reading it and keep studying it and God will grant that to you. You can't just be like God just make me the wisest person in the world. You just never touch the Bible. He's like, you have like, he's like, you have all my words like right there. It's like many people in history couldn't even didn't have what you have. You know, you have everything right there and you don't even look at it. I wouldn't expect a positive response in that case. So obedience is a nice prerequisite to any prayer, by the way. Look at James chapter one, look at James chapter one, verse number five, we're looking at wisdom, looking at wisdom. So we say we should ask for judgment. We shouldn't ask for specific outcomes for things in our lives. If we're faced at a, you know, if we're at a crossroads in our life, we should pray for judgment, not for God to send us left. Okay, we should pray for judgment. The second thing is we should pray for wisdom. And God is telling us in the Bible that my wisdom is right here. He's like, if you don't want to forget, you know, the wisdom, he's like, study my words. Look James chapter one, verse five, it says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, God is literally telling you. So with wisdom, God literally tells you specifically, he says, he says, ask me for things in Matthew chapter seven, he's like, you don't ask me, ask, seek, knock, God is saying, come to me more. God is begging to pray, is what he is literally begging us to pray. And then in James chapter one and verse five, he's literally telling us that we should pray for wisdom. I mean, so this one thing he's saying, you should pray for this specific thing. And then it says that, you know, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it should be given unto him. So God is literally telling us here, ask for wisdom specifically, and I will give it to you liberally. But we need to be in the Bible, as Proverbs four says, we need to be in the Bible, you know, making an effort to learn God's word, to learn what he's already told us. So we see some pretty good examples here from Solomon. We see, we should ask for judgment. We see, we should ask for wisdom. Now let's just kind of put this into a pattern, a methodology in our lives, and just say this, you should ask for things that you know God wants for you. Think about that. You say, how would I know? Well, if you never read the Bible, you won't know. So when you read the Bible, what you will find in the Bible is you will find things that God wants for you. And not only will you find the things that God wants for you, he gives you very specific directions on how to obtain those things in the Bible. You know, I mean, just a couple examples. I mean, like a strong marriage, we just talked about that, right? Turn to First Peter chapter three, First Peter chapter three. You know, I mean, but the first thing you need to do, you say, okay, I should pray for a strong marriage. But the first thing you have to do is be obedient to what the Bible says you should do to get a strong marriage. Be obedient. Verse 14, remember? God says, if you obey me, you know, you'll live long in this situation that I'm going to put you in. So you can't be, you can't ask, just pray for a strong God, just help me have a strong marriage. And then, you know, be this guy that just doesn't love your wife. That just doesn't, you know, show sacrificial, real, I mean, like the real definition of love, not what the world tells us, okay? The sacrificial love that the Bible says we should have for our wives. You know, you can't be, ladies, you can't be, are you at First Peter? Turn to First Peter chapter three, First Peter chapter three. Let me turn there myself. So, ladies, you can't ask for a strong marriage and then, you know, just be like, just not submit to your husband. Does not obey your husband. Just be like, you know, I'm not going to do that part though. It's just, it's not going to work. Obedience must be a prerequisite. Look at First Peter chapter three, look at verse number, I mean, look at verse number one, likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husband. So you can't be a wife that's like, God, my marriage is a mess and I want you to fix my marriage and then you're just like, you're just like running over your husband and you refuse to submit to him and you just refuse to let him lead your home and you're not listening to what the Bible says. At least it's not going to work out. It's not going to work out. Look at verse number seven, men. It's really interesting that God actually ties this to prayer with the men. Look at verse number seven, it says, likewise ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life that what? That your prayers be not hindered. God is literally saying, look, husbands, you better listen to what I'm telling you on how you are to be towards your wife, to love your wife as Christ loved the church, to sacrifice for her. You can't just be living this life where you're just this self-centered, selfish leader that's just driving over, like I'm in charge, I get everything, not thinking about anybody else and then just ask God to fix your marriage. It's not going to work. Obedience must be first. Obedience must be first. God literally ties it to him answering your prayers in first Peter chapter three and verse number seven. Women could use that against their husbands. You better be nicer to me. No, I'm just kidding. The point is, obedience needs to come first. You can't ask for these. Look, God wants you to have a strong marriage. God wants you to have a strong marriage, but he tells you specifically how to do that. So you go and you work towards those things and you pray for God to give you that strong marriage and it's going to work out. It's going to work out. How about this one? Strong Christian children. I hope you're praying for your children. Look, I hope that you pray for your children because if you're not praying for your children, that's a huge tool that you left in the toolbox right there. But how about this one? How about I'm going to pray for my kids and my kids are going off the deep end and things aren't working out in my family. I'm going to pray for my kids, but I'm going to listen to nothing that the Bible says about how to raise my kids. It's not going to work out. It's the same thing. It's the same thing as verse 14 in first Kings chapter three. I mean, look, he that spareth the rod hateth his son. Yet you'll find people, you'll find Christian parents that just won't spank their kids. They're just like, I'm just not going to do it. There's not going to do that part. It's too mean or whatever. No, the Bible says you hate your son if you don't spank him or her or whatever, but you can't not follow God's clear direction and then expect him to answer the prayer. I mean, he's like, what? I mean, God's got to be like, I told you how to do it. You know, I mean, you first get obedient, then you pray and it's going to work out. That's how it goes. This is the, this is what we see with Solomon. How about this one? How about this one? Strength against temptation, strength against temptation. I mean, look, you can't pray to God to have strength against temptation in your life and then just do nothing that has anything spiritual to do with it in your life. Just be, you're just walking in the flesh. You're just doing whatever you want. You just don't have any interest in coming to church, you know, whatever, soul winning, none of that. And then just expect God to answer that prayer. Like God, give me strength against temptation. It's not going to work out. How about this one? You know, success at my job. How about this one for the men? You know, you know, but you go to work and you're late and you're lazy and you know, it just, you don't even, you know, maybe you don't even have a job. I mean, whatever. I mean, but Lord make me successful. I mean, what in the world? I mean, God's got to be looking just, it's not going to work out. The obedience comes first. The obedience comes first. You know, look, you go to work, you work hard, you put in the effort, you behave accordingly, you be a good testimony. You be a good testimony and then you pray for success in that endeavor. It's going to work out. That's how it goes. You know, look, here's, here's another good one. Pray for, pray for creativity. I mean, these are good things to do. God give me creativity. If you have a job that requires creativity, that requires ideas, pray for those things. You don't have to pray specifically for God help me do this one thing. Pray for ideas, creativity, and then put in the effort and work toward, work like you're working for Christ like the Bible says that you're supposed to. I don't care who your boss is. Work like you're working for Christ and then it's going to work out because guess what? God wants those things for you. God wants you to be successful. I mean, you're starting a new job. Maybe you're learning new things. Pray for understanding. Look, it's maddening. Starting a new job or learning a new trade or whatever. I get it. It's, you can go to work. I went, I remember out of college and I started my first job out of college. I thought I was an idiot for two years. My wife can testify this. I'd come home from work and I'm like, I don't think I'm smart enough for this. I can't get it. It's too complicated. Just when I think I got it, it's more complicated. There's like another layer of complication. It's just super complicated stuff. Pray for those things. Pray for understanding. These are things, look, pray for things that you know God wants you to have because it's in his word. It's in his word. So look, we just need to ask for things that are in line with God's will. Does that make sense? And we will get positive results. Remember, how will this affect the kingdom of God? How will this affect the kingdom of God? I mean, Solomon did that here. He says, help me to lead your people properly, thy people properly, Lord. When we ask for these things, God will respond positively to us. Now, there's a problem here though. There's a problem here because you could say, turn to first Corinthians chapter two. Let's just look at this. There's a problem. There's a problem because a lot of people say, you know, I just don't really want spiritual things. So what do we do? What do we do there? Look at first Corinthians chapter two and verse number 12. So we're talking about asking for spiritual things and God's going to obviously like that you ask for those spiritual things. But what if you're just like, I just don't really want spiritual things. Look at first Corinthians chapter two, look at verse number 12. I mean, you should. I mean, we'll get to that in a minute. Look at verse number 12. It says, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit of God, which, which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given us to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words, which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy ghost teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual. See, these are spiritual things here. The difference between this book and any other book that you would ever read is that this is a spiritual book. So when you read this book, when you read this book, it's, it's when you sit down and you have Bible time, it's you and the Holy Spirit and God's word just working things out together. That's what's happening. It's a spiritual book. Look at verse 14, but the natural man received not the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. I ran into a guy just yesterday and he was, he was a Mormon and he, this guy was like full blown Mormon. He was in his fifties full blown Mormon knocked on his door and we were out there and this guy, like he was just like really bothered that I was there at his door. He was like really like his lips were quivering and he was all like, you know, he was really bothered. And look, I was nice. I didn't say goodbye. I didn't wish him well cause I just, I didn't say have a nice day cause he's a false prophet. So I went to his door, found out he was a Mormon. I asked him if he wanted to know the truth from the Bible and how the Bible is different from what the Mormon church teaches. He said no. And he wanted to argue with me and I said, I didn't come to your door to argue with you. And I walked away and he got in his truck and you follow me and you found me walking. And he pulls up, rolls down the window and I walk up to him again and I'm not even sure where I'm going with this story, but it's an interesting situation because the guy I'm like, I'm like, can I just show you the gospel? How do you know that? How do you know that that you're interpreting the Bible right? Well, the gospel is very simple. See, it's to the natural man. He doesn't understand it to, and especially somebody that's as deep off the deep end as him, who's in false prophet land. Okay. Look, if he would have been like, okay, could you show me? Look, we could have got him safe, but that's not where his heart was. He's like, well, you know, I'm like, I could explain it to you in just a few minutes. It's very simple. It's even a young child can understand the gospel and I can clearly point out as I'm explaining the gospel to you, I could clearly point out where it's different and the things that it says different about Jesus, about how to get to heaven, about, you know, having your own planet. Then, then the Mormon church teaches no interest, no interest. It is a problem with his heart is a problem with his heart. But you see, the thing is he doesn't think that you can understand the Bible because he can't understand it. This is what first Corinthians chapter two is talking about. He can't understand it because the natural man can't understand these things. He's, he's been so twisted up and because it's a spiritual book, even the simple thing of the gospel, he can't understand it. You know, he's so far down that path. But look at verse 15, but he did a spiritual judge with all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. The point is, is that we are, we are spiritual. We have the Holy Spirit in us. This is a spiritual book, so we should want spiritual things. Turn to first Corinthians chapter 14, first Corinthians chapter 14. So look, he, he didn't, he didn't, I was trying to get a couple words in edgewise since he did take the trouble to get in his vehicle and drive down the street and talk to me again. But any, look, I mean, he was generally nice, but I could just tell how he was just shaking. His lips were quivering and look, I have nothing to hide. I'm an open, I'm an open Bible. So whoever wants me to explain it to him, but he had no desire. He wanted to tell his stuff to me. Okay. So I mean, he, he didn't understand it. He didn't understand even the simplest thing in the Bible. There are, look, there's complicated things in the Bible. The gospel is not one of them. The gospel is very simple. I mean, this is why, this is why we can get like a seven year old saved or an eight year old saved. I mean, this is why kids that stay in church and listen to Bible preaching, they'll get saved when they're six, seven years old. You know, out on the street, we'll get kids that they're not even church kids. We'll get them saved when they're 10, 11 years old. Easy. It's easy to understand, but the natural man can't understand what he's reading. Okay. If people let us explain it to them, let us preach it to them. We can get them saved. We'll get first Corinthians chapter 14. So the Bible says that we are spiritual beings if we're saved. Okay. We've gotten that down payment in us. We've gotten that seal of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's in us. That's why the Holy Spirit is grieved when we're not doing what we're supposed to do. Look at verse number one of first Corinthians chapter 14. It says, follow after charity and what? And desire spiritual gifts. Isn't that interesting? So God is saying, God is saying through the whole first part of the sermon, I'm just like, we should ask for spiritual things. God is begging us, ask me for things. Talk to me, seek, knock. He's like, ask, ask for things. He's like begging us. And then we're seeing examples with Solomon, how he asked for this great spiritual thing that benefits the kingdom of God. And then God tells us, he's like, we should also desire those spiritual things. We should desire those things, but rather that you may prophesy, he's like, God wants us to desire those things. Okay. But you're just like, I don't desire those things though. Like why? Why? You're like, Oh, I desire. You're like, but I don't, all I desire is like, I think about what I want and I want cars and I want houses and I want a hundred dollar bills and I want, look, and you can, you can spiritualize those things too. You can spiritualize those things too. There's many people, look, there's been many, a Christian who has chased money in his life just because, well, I mean, God wants me to support my family. So he's made all these decisions based on money in his life or based on things and stuff. You know, I mean, but they don't desire any spiritual things. Turn to Galatians chapter five. So what if we don't desire spiritual things? Why is that and how do we fix it? I'm going to show you that now. So you're saying, I get it. I believe you. We should ask for spiritual things and God will answer those things positively. I just don't desire spiritual things. Look at Galatians chapter five and verse number 16. The Bible says, this I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. We see a super interesting thing here for the flesh lust against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. You see that right there in verse 17 you see how these two things are, are after each other, how these two things, they don't go together. These things are like, oil and water, so to speak, and these are contrary to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. So these things, these things of the flesh, it's not like, it's not like, Hey, you know, I'm going to, this is, this is what messes people up in the Christian life because it doesn't work like, Hey, I want to have this great life outside of my spiritual life. And I also want to have a spiritual life. See, cause one destroys the other. The Bible is saying one is contrary to the other. One eats the other. They both eat the other. So you say, I just, you know, I really want to just desire this, this life, you know, outside my spiritual life, but I also want to have a spiritual life. It doesn't work that way because that life of the flesh will eat and it will consume the spiritual life. So if you don't desire spiritual things, this is the problem. It depends. Look, what the Bible here is saying is if you don't desire spiritual things, it's because of how you are living. It's because of what you are doing. Because look, it's not about our works to get to heaven. It's not about works. There's no works, no works, no works, no works, all this stuff. We got it. We got salvation down. But guess what? If you want to start desiring spiritual things, that depends on your works. It depends on how you're living your life. It depends on what you're doing. If you are living in the flesh, you will literally not want spiritual things. That's what the Bible is saying here. This is super important that you understand Galatians 5 16, one will kill the other. The life of the flesh will kill the spiritual life. You're not going to get unsaved. It's not going to kill your soul. It's going to, it's going to destroy your spiritual life. And you know, it's going to go into generational problems after that with the kids and everything. But look, you say, all I want is cars. All I want is stuff. All I want is worldly success and worldly things. People can make those spiritual too. God wants me to be successful. You have some success in your life and God's blessing me. Look at me. People can make these things spiritual as well, which is kind of scary. But notice, notice how humble Solomon was though. Because you won't look at worldly things as spiritual things. If you're a humble person, if you're a humble person, you know, you can take blessings and just be like, I don't deserve any of this. And I'm glad that, you know, I have a car that doesn't break every five seconds. And I'm thankful for that, you know, but you won't get puffed up about those things. If you stay humble, like Solomon is just like, I'm just a little kid. So don't, don't forget the humility. You know, like this sounds pretty complicated. It is. That's why so many people fail at the Christian life right here. So look, I mean, just think about the things. Let's look at Galatians chapter five and verse 16. Think about this contrary, contrary thing. Think about things in your life that can destroy your spiritual life. Just think about things like we were talking the other day about things that you just, I mean, things that, I mean, we're living separated lives, but you just can't get away from. Think about this. I was at the dentist. I had a root canal. Hopefully you don't have to have one of those again. But I was at the dentist and they play music there. What am I going to do? They're playing music and I'm getting a root canal and they're playing music. And unfortunately these songs are like stuck in my head. They're like tattooed in my brain. It's like, I can remember the words to most of these songs, but guess what? If you just immerse yourself in that music and you just go that way to that music, guess what? You know what? It's not that, you know, what I used to say, here's what I used to say before I was saved. I just liked the tune. I just liked the tune. I just liked the, you know, the harmonies and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, it's much worse than that because not only are you listening to that music, but like what are the words of that music? And when you start listening to the words, you're just like, ah, as a Christian, it's crazy. You know, the words in these songs, but you know what that'll do? It's not just that you're filling your head with that stuff. It's not just that you're filling your head with that material. You know what it'll do? It'll kill your desire to hear hymns. It'll kill your desire to hear spiritual songs. It's crazy, but that's what it'll do because that's what Galatians 5 16. Look, Galatians 5 16 is telling you that's what's going to happen. If you listen to all this worldly music, it's like it will take away your desire for spiritual music. So you can't be like, oh, I just like to have my worldly music on the side, but I also like to sing it. It doesn't work that way. One eats the other. One eats the other. But you start getting into spiritual hymns and listening to spiritual music and just like, it just opens up a joy in your life. But if you go down those roads, it eats your spiritual life. Think about other things. Just think about other influences. Think about like media and movies. Think about, think about that. I mean, I don't, I don't know what the last numbers I've looked at. Like some people are watching TV like seven, eight hours a day. I don't even know how you can fit all that in, but people are watching all these movies, watching all this media on TV. I mean, first of all, I mean, forget the fact that you're just wasting your life, but what is the content? What is the content that you're filling yourself with? You wonder why people are accepting of every unnatural perversion that we could possibly think of today. And it's because they're feeding themselves with seven, eight hours a day of garbage. But you know what? You know what it'll also do? It will rob you of your desire to read. It'll rob you of your desire to, cause like watching things is lazy. Washing things you're just receiving. You're just like, Oh, you know it, but, but reading, you gotta actually think you got to actually put some effort into reading. Guess what? It'll rob your desire to read, especially the Bible like, Oh man, now it's much more serious because the non-spiritual, the flesh will eat your spiritual life. That's what Galatians chapter five is talking about. So I mean, just, I mean, those are just a couple of examples. I mean, you just have to ask yourself, you just have to ask yourself tonight, do you enjoy spiritual things in your life? You know, do you? I mean, think about it. Just church. I mean, you know, soul winning. Look, here's the thing. I love soul winning. I'm not going to tell you that every single time I go out soul winning, I'm feeling the greatest. Everybody gets sick or doesn't feel well or whatever, but in general, I love soul winning. It is like the best adventure. There's always exciting things happening. We didn't get it. Me and my partner didn't get anybody's safety. We ended up just in the best conversation, you know, and then, and then this like adventure happened over across the street with the ladies. Let me, let me just, I'll tell you about an adventure right now. Here's the power of women's soul winning by the way. So all the ladies, here's the power of you out soul winning. We pull up to go soul winning today and immediately there's three kids right on the sidewalk, right where we parked the car. And these kids are like from 11 to 14 years old at my best guess. And I walk up to these kids and I walk up and I give them some church invitations. I'm kind of, you know, feeling out if they'll listen or not. And right away they're kind of like, all right, strange guy talking to me. Strange. Likewise they should be, you know. So I go up and they don't really want to talk. I give them some church invitations. But then I walk across the street with my soul winning partner, brother Victor and brother Victor starts giving the gospel in Spanish to this guy. And I noticed these kids, they're just like locked on us. And they're watching us for like 10 minutes. So I send Jacob across the street to like tell the ladies, hey, make sure that the ladies talk to those kids. Because guess what? The ladies, especially, you know, young ladies and, you know, well dressed ladies walking down the street in a bunch of dresses, you know, just like, that's like the least intimidating thing. People look at that and they're just like, there can be nothing but good here. And guess what? The ladies end up giving the gospel to like five kids. And they wouldn't talk to, you know, a guy, which is great. But here's the thing. This is just a great adventure out soul winning. Something cool happens all the time. And why? Because it's God working with us. That's why. It's God working with us. We're out there doing things and just these great miracles happen all the time. These divine appointments happen all the time. So I mean that's just, I mean, do you love doing that? Do you like coming to church? These are tests. You need to give yourself these tests every now and then. You know, here's the importance, by the way, here's an important thing of like Bible, daily Bible time, daily prayer time, daily Bible time. It's so important to have that daily time with the Bible, with the Lord when you're praying. Because, you know, obviously we should learn the Bible. We should be reading the Bible. I mean, so that's the first benefit. But the first thing, the next thing is this. It's kind of like a line of defense. It's kind of like a first line of defense in your life. All of a sudden something starts happening in your life. It's like you start skipping Bible time. You start skipping that personal time that you have with the Lord. You start not doing that as much anymore. That should set off red flags in your head. Something's not right here. Maybe, hey, maybe you just got busy. Maybe there's a crazy day or two at work or whatever happened. And all of a sudden you just kind of maybe got into something else and you start skipping that time. It's kind of a first sign of trouble in your life. Because let me tell you something. You don't want to get to the point where like you don't like coming to church. You don't want to get to the point where you're like, ah, man, I got to go to church because pastor says I should go to church three times a week. Boy, I hope that you're never, you know, nobody gets to that point. I mean, look, I love if you come to church every single time the church doors are open. I love that. But you shouldn't be coming here for me. You shouldn't be coming here, you know, to make me happy. I'm just here to tell you what the Bible says. And you know, you should come, you know, you should go soul winning out of obedience. That's the first reason I go soul winning. But look, I really enjoy it. Even when it's 105 degrees on the harder days, even the days I've even gotten to the point where even the days where I don't really feel right, if I get up, and I go and I'm tired or whatever, I'm like, I still I'm going to go because something good is going to happen. And I've noticed that when a lot of when it when when I was being attacked, or maybe I wasn't feeling right or something, you know, it's kind of doubting whether I should go. And I just go anyway, those are when the really cool things happen. And you'll you'll see that in your life as well. But here's the thing. You got to have that personal time with the Lord. Because you should be reading the Bible, you should be reading God's wisdom. So you don't forget it, as the Bible says in Proverbs chapter four, but it's also a good first line of defense. The search skipping that stuff, you need to start realizing, the minute you get in that mode, where you start just even just a little bit, start not liking the spiritual things as much. You need to figure out what's going on. Because it's a serious thing. Look, it's a serious thing, get to the point where you don't like church. There's probably major trouble there. If you get to the point where you just say, I don't like going to church. Okay, so look, you have to actively manage this Christian life. Yeah, that's what you have to realize, you know, you have to actively manage this Christian life. If you're in a place where you don't desire spiritual things, start walking in that direction, start walking in the spirit, and let the spiritual life take over the flesh life. And then you will desire those spiritual things, and then stay in those spiritual things. And guess what? Pray for them. Pray for those spiritual things. And that'll keep you once you're in the spirit, you're in that spiritual life, you're walking that spiritual life, and then you're praying, you're obedient, and then you're praying for that spiritual life, it'll lock you in, it'll hold you in that spiritual life, because guess what, there's all kinds of stuff trying to pull you away from this spiritual life. There's all kinds of people trying to pull you away. There's all kinds of stuff, there's all kinds of career things, things that could be like pretty tricky stuff. Like, look, God just wants to bless my career. God just wants to bless me financially. God doesn't want me having all this debt, so I just need to work some more. God's given me this opportunity. Look, the devil's putting as many opportunities in front of you as the Lord is. You have to remember that. Anything that goes against your spiritual life is not of the Lord. So get in that spirit, you'll start to want those spiritual things, and then you just have to pray for them. That's it. It's as simple as it is, it's something that we get tripped up on in our lives. And God, look, God will give you these things. Look what he gave Solomon. He didn't just say, okay, here's some judgment. He'd give to you liberally. When you're asking for these things correctly, he will give to you liberally, James says. So look, ask for the right things. So what do we see? Let's just recap this whole sermon series in a couple minutes here. What do we see from all these people that we saw praying? From Hezekiah, from Hannah, from Nehemiah, from Solomon. What do we see from these people? We saw that they came to the Lord with respect. It was like, hey God. And I have this now. They came to the Lord with respect. They gave God credit for everything. They never took a blessing that they didn't just dump the credit on the Lord. They gave the Lord glory for everything. They were super thankful, Hannah. They were super thankful for everything that the Lord did in it. And they were always very careful to put in their prayer what was in it for the Lord. What was in it for the kingdom of God. Because look, I got news for you. Your career doesn't matter. You know, your success in this life outside of your spiritual life, it doesn't matter. What matters is the kingdom of God. You're supposed to do things. You're supposed to support your family. You're supposed to work hard. But you are supposed to live this life for the kingdom of God. So why would God want to increase anything in your life that didn't further that goal, which is the kingdom of God on earth. That is what we are after. That's what God's after. We need to be in line with Him with those things. And then we ask for those things and everything will be great. And look, that's how you become a prayer warrior right there. You get these things straight and you just start asking for God to help you just plow harder and harder and harder for the kingdom of God in this life. And He's just going to, He's going to give to you liberally. He'll give to you more than you would even have thought to ask for. Just like He gave to Solomon. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.