A.C.T.S “Thanksgiving” and “Supplication” (2)

Intro:

Good morning everyone are we awake? Are we asleep or are we at?

How many of us are exhausted right now?… Thank you for being here… Thank you for thinking it's important enough to get up brush your teeth and walk all the way down here for a 8 AM Bible study…

Now some of you are thinking that you should have brushed your teeth and I would agree with you, but that's besides the point…

If we don't know each other, my name is Zak. I'm the student Director at our grand Blanc location.

I'm excited to be here with you this morning

If you have a Bible with you this morning, which you should and if you do not, you will tell me we will get you a Bible…

But if you have a Bible this morning, open up to Philippians chapter 4…

And while you're turning there, I wanna ask you a question…

How many of us have a friend who always asks for things but it's never grateful for things?

How many of us know somebody like that they always want something but they never actually are grateful for that thing…

I'm gonna tell you if you don't know someone like that, you might be someone like that so think about that

And I'll be the first to admit most of my life that is who I have been I have expected people to fit into my box…

I have expected people to do everything my way and yet I never would be grateful when they did it my way…

And this is still a daily struggle, but today we're looking at the last two parts of the acronym for the A.C.T.S prayer method

We've looked at adoration and we've looked at confession…

Beginning our prayer, adoring and worshiping God for who he is and then confessing who we are and what we have done to him…

And then we move to this thankfulness and then to supplication

Is anyone willing to read Philippians chapter 4 verse six?

Go ahead and read the next verse as well

Philippians 4:6–7 ESV

6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In Philippians, we see the two words that were talking about this morning… Thanksgiving and supplication…

How many of us have used or understand the word Thanksgiving?

What do you think about when you hear that word????

How would you define Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving is expressing gratitude to God for who He is…, What He has done, And how He has been faithful

who he is

What he has done

and how he is Faithful.

In our world today, I think it is very difficult to be thankful…

I truly believe because of social media news instant gratification gratitude is a lost skill…

Is gratitude, easy for you is thankfulness easy for you

How many of us in this room think it's easy to be grateful or thankful… why or why not?

When is it easy to be grateful or thankful???

In the good times or the bad times???

Often times we think we're only supposed to be grateful in the good times, but according to our passage in the middle of anxiety

We are too have Thanksgiving in our prayers…

In the middle of the storm, we are to have gratitude in our prayers…

So I want to look at where this gratitude… where this thankfulness comes from…

Who God is

what he has done

and how he is faithful

Let's start with

who God is:

Can someone pull up Exodus 34:Starting inverse six.

Exodus 34:6–7 ESV

6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

So who is God?

Merciful

Gracious

Generous with steadfast, love (Unshakable love, unchanging, love)

He has also just… And he will punish the guilty…

Often times whether you grew up in church or not you picture God as this distant person or being

Unfeeling and cold full of anger and wrath…

But God is merciful his gracious he is generous with his love, but he will also punish those who are guilty

And a question you might have is who are the guilty???

How can God be merciful and just?

How can he show grace and kindness, but also punish the guilty…

To understand that We must not only Know who God is, but we must see what he has done…

What has he done?

Ephesians 2:1–5 ESV

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Before we break down this text, let me ask you who are the guilty???

The guilty of those who have committed a crime who have disobeyed the law

Now let me ask you is it right or wrong to lie?

How many of us in this room have lied…

Now I don't have time to go down the list, but I think it's safe to say each and One of us has broken God's law

We have lied we have cheated. We have stolen. We have looked at things that we should not look at things that we should not have said.

And according to the Bible, it takes one law to become a lawbreaker and the punishment for a lawbreaker is what???

Separation from God… Death

Now let's look back at our passage

Ephesians 2:1 ESV

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins

What are passages saying is that we deserved God's justice but Jesus chose to give us mercy and how did he do it?

He lived the perfect life that we could not

He died a brutal and painful death that we deserve deserved… The wrath of God being poured on him

And he Rose again three days later to give us the opportunity for mercy for Grace

What has God done?

he he lived. He bleed and he he died and Rose again so that you and me could be saved if we Repent and believe in him…

He went from heaven and earth to give you the chance the opportunity to believe…

What are God has done reflects who he is…w

so when we pray we are thankful for who He is what He has done… and how he has been faithful.

so i want to ask you how has God been faithful?

what dose faithful mean???

to see Gods faithfulness all we have to do is look at the prodical son…

He ran from home left his father wishing he was dead and he did all the wrong things and yet…

when he hit rock bottom and returned to his fathers house he was welcomed with open arms.

So when we pray, we can now have this framework of Thanksgiving. We can have this adoration this confession and this Thanksgiving, for who God is what he has done and how he continues to be faithful in our lives. Adoration confession Thanksgiving, and we finally arrive at supplication

Supplication:

Now supplication is a big word that I'm not a huge fan of Wright and it's not because I think it's a bad word or I don't think it's biblical. It's obviously in our text but when someone first explained to me this prayer model when I was in youth group.

Adoration confession, Thanksgiving in complication and for me I'm sitting here thinking I don't read that well

I don't read that much. None of those big words made sense to me so I took that information threw it away. So what is supplication? it is saying I need you… Notice I didn't say Lord I need a Ferrari Lord I need a mansion Lord I need a girlfriend or a boyfriend…

It's saying, Lord, I need you… Lord, I need you to provide for this situation. I don't know how I'm gonna get through it.

Lord, I am so lonely and I need you not to comfort me, but to provide me a partner after your own heart

Lord, I need some stability in my life. There is nothing stable around me. I feel like I'm falling apart. I need you.

Supplication is bringing our needs and desires before the Lord

James 4:2–3 ESV

2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

And we're not only supposed to ask for spiritual things we're to ask for everything that we need

The Lord's prayer starts with the physical need that is also parallel with the spiritual need…

But give me my daily bread, both physical food, and spiritual food

We go to the lawyer and ask him to provide what we need for each day…

According to scripture, we are to ask to seek and knock to be persistent with the Lord

And often times we do not have because we have not asked, and we do not have because we have asked wrongly to spend it on our own passions

I remember as a kid I would go to my family reunion and we would do this 50-50 raffle and I would pray Lord I need this money Laura I need this money. Please give it to me.

I never got the money because I didn't want the money to honor the Lord. I wanted the money to buy myself a dirtbike and make myself look cool in front of my friends….

So after we've walked through every single one of these steps, we worshiped God we've repented we've confessed sin confessed our need

And we have given Thanksgiving for who God is what he has done and how he is Faithful…

After all of that, we can humbly make our request known by God

How many of us in this room skip to the last step

How many of us in this room know what to ask for

You're gonna be heading home this is our last Bible study…

I want to encourage you to read your Bible and see what are the things you should be asking for

If you have a Bible look at or write down first kings three specifically versus five through 14...

In first kings three, there's a man named Solomon… He is the son of David, the king of Israel

And God asks him. What shall I give you?

And King Solomon remembers the love that God showed to his father and the faithfulness he showed to his father

And Solomon recognized his need and he didn't ask for more money… He didn't ask for more power he didn't ask for victory over his enemies. He humbly Came before the Lord and asked for wisdom…

That God would give him the gift of wisdom…

And because of this, God did not only give him wisdom, but he gave him all those other things that he didn't ask for…

When I was your age, very rarely, did I ever ask for God's wisdom…

I truthfully don't know if I even asked for God's wisdom until I was 18 years old…

Wisdom is one of the most important things we could ever ask God for it and it's one of the only things we see in the Bible that has a guarantee

In the book of James, it says anyone who acts wisdom ask God and he will give generously without reproach

So today I want to challenge you ask God for wisdom

When you pray, ask the Lord, what do I need? Please give me wisdom to know what to pray for and I promise he'll give it to you….

He is a good God… He is not far off. He is not in personable, but he is close and near and wants to hear from you.

So when you pray, give the Lord adoration and praise

Confess to the Lord your sins

Share with the Lord, all the things you're grateful for… How thankful you are for who he is what he has done and how he remains, faithful

And finally ask him for wisdom ask him for your daily needs both physical and spiritual, and he will take care of you…

Let's pray