The Help Of Heaven

Real life presents the Jack Hibb's podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Whatever this world throws at us, you got to understand something. That God is not surprised by what's coming our way. Heaven is listening. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibb's. The world is searching for peace. How do we get that? Number one, by listening. Mark it down if you would. All of what God has designed for us to help us comes in us listening. Heaven is listening. Heaven is listening. I'm listening. You're listening. Why? It's a dialogue. We are to be listening to God speaking. And God listens to us as well. He hears from us as believers. But the stress here is the fact that Heaven is listening. Look at verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit Himself, the Holy Spirit, this is the Spirit of God. Also helps our weaknesses. This is an amazing thing because the word prayer. You ought to write that down. Please write this. Pray. Prayer. To pray. The root word of to pray is proscanale. And it simply means this. Proscanale means to lick or to kiss the hand. It's referred to in 1st century Greek as a puppy. You know what a puppy just automatically licks your hand. He'll lick your face if you can get to you. They just lick. That's the word proscanale. Guess what? The word proscanale was also in the New Testament used for the word worship. Did you know that prayer is a form of worship? Did you ever think about that? I find it extremely interesting that people have a tendency to avoid worship and prayer. But God's people will pray and they will worship. For example, there are those who say to themselves, we're okay. We're not late for church. They're only worshiping right now. We're not all translation. It's all right. We're just ripping God off. We're not giving what's due to Him. We'll get there later. You're stiffing God when you just blow it off like that. Listen, the root believer must proscanale. The root believer must experience a relationship with God. And it's worshipful by nature. And prayer is not a labor. We can labor in prayer, but it's always worship. But prayer as an opportunity is not a labor. It's an open door. It's an opportunity. And God's children will pray. Listen, mom and dad, you've got little kids. You've got little kids. I understand. I already hear you in your head saying to me, yes, I've got little kids. And what I'm about to say is don't you love it when they speak to you. It depends. You need to be able to quiet them down sometimes. But let's be honest. Parents love when the little kid comes up and says something, I need help with this. Dad, can you, dad, mom, can you? And it warms your heart. It's part of being that parent where it's so meaningful. The child comes and asks for help. Did you know that when you go to ask God for help or when you ask God to listen or when you ask God to answer or when you ask God to hear, you are actually worshiping him. Did you know that? You're going to him with your need. Wouldn't it be terrible if your kid went to the neighbors to ask for help in their day of trouble? Boy, what does that say about you? God wants you to come to him. Heaven is listening. And rarely do we often think as a believer that God is as it were, cupped his ear, he's waiting to hear from us. You know, you and I are the same. We get so busy in life and things are going on. And then there's times when I realize, oh my goodness, God, you're so good. I haven't talked to you in a while. You know, I love you and you're amazing. And then there's times when it drags on a little longer. And I'm convinced he's in this. I'll stub my toe. I'll do something. Something I, whatever it might be. And I'll say, oh, Lord, and he'll say, Jack, it's so great to hear from you again. Heaven is listening. The question is how often is heaven receiving from us? Request tears crying out and asking him to instruct us and to lead us and to give us guidance. Heaven's listening. He's not abandon us. He's not way up there and we're down here. Oh, no, that's what the Holy Spirit is all about in the indwelling of the believer. But the Spirit also helps our weaknesses. And that word, weakness is an amazing word. It's the coming from weakness. Listen, you and I are weak because we come from the origin of weak. It means to come from the origin of frailty, ailments. You and I were born into a world. This word means of diseases, illnesses, infirmities, sicknesses, distress, depression, physical ailments, mental, emotional ailments. Be honest, this world hurts. And it inflicts upon us. And the word, weakness, stands for all of human weakness. General weakness of a human. And the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit has come to help us. For those of you who don't know the Bible, this is the Bible I'm talking about. It's the Bible that says, God has come to help you. It is the God of the Bible. After last service, somebody was talking to me about how messed up their marriage is. And this woman was saying something about her husband who was standing right there. And the first thing I said was, I looked at them and I said, where's your Bibles? So we don't have any Bibles. And that's why your life is messed up. No, I did. You don't want to counsel with me. I don't have to give the counseling. I just told them, your life's messed up. When's the last time you guys were in the Bible? They were silent. And they said, we use pray for us. And I said, no. Why? Why should I pray? I said, why should I pray for you? Why should I pray for you when you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing? What do you want me to do? You want me to just put a pastor's prayer on it? They say, there you go. And what are you going to do about it? Because you're not seeking God out of your own hearts. My prayer is not magic. This is not some sort of a fortune cookie thing. And I said, you go seek God on your own. I'll pray for that. God. And I did. I said, God, cause them to seek you. And I gave them some homework. Now if they do the homework, praise the Lord. I gave them a Bible study to do. And let's see if they do it. But the point is this. They weren't even calling out to God. They said they're at the brink of divorce. And they never went up in prayer to God. How many people live like that? When the Holy Spirit is standing ready to help you, to help me. Jesus said in John 14 verse 16, I love this. John 14 16, Jesus says, I will pray the Father and He shall give you another comforter or helper that He may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive. Because it's seeeth them not, neither knoweth him. But you know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. The Holy Spirit. John 14 verse 26, Jesus continued. But the comforter, paracletos, pera, come alongside, clitos to comfort, the Holy Spirit will come alongside you and be your comforter. We all need comfort as a believer, but the comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Is that awesome or what? He brings all things to remembrance if God has reminded you of something deal with it. But listen, on the positive, God will remind you. I love you. I have loved you within everlasting love. God says, I've drawn you to myself. I will never leave you or forsake you. The comforter comes alongside. And it's a beautiful statement because it's the comforter coming alongside you and I. And what is implied is not only daily, the word is constant, but it's most stressed in the time of need. Are you in a time of need? Jesus says the Spirit of God is there. Are you hurting? He says he'll be there. He's always with us as believers, but when the going gets tough, the Spirit of God shows up and He'll minister to you to the Word of God. That's why Bible reading, you guys get tired of hearing about it, but we're always talking to you about reading your Bible, reading your Bible. Why? You want to know? Listen, you read the Bible because in the day of need, the Spirit of God brings the Bible up out of you and He uses it for the moment. It's like fuel going into your tank and it's eventually burned out and the vehicle is moved forward. It's used. The Holy Spirit uses the Bible in your life and the Word of God being hidden in you to a remarkable statement. And that word help, the Spirit of God helps us in our weakness. The word help means to take hold. Listen, everybody. It means the Spirit of God takes hold and the Word implies one end of the log. So think of a big log. And the Bible is telling us here that the Spirit of God will take hold of the log on this end. Now, if you're thinking right now, you're thinking, what about the other end? That would be a normal conclusion. Okay, that's great for that end. What about this end? Oh, this end answers to, I am called to daily pick up my cross and follow him. So the issues of our lives, the Holy Spirit carries, but I've got to go with him. That's called discipleship. That's called living in this world right now. Well, why is it so tough? Don't worry about it. God's got this thing. He's carrying the heavier part. I'm certain the end that I'm carrying is probably the size of a toothpick. The part he's carrying is probably the size of General Sherman tree, you know. I'm sure he carries the heavy part. But what he's doing is that he's helping me. He's helping you carry the load of life. None of us are to do this on our own. We're not to go through this life on our own. And we think about that. Think about that as a believer. Don't answer, but do you know and do you name the name of Christ? Well, the next thing should be, are you listening for heaven's command, for heaven's leading, for heaven's guiding? Because listen, heaven is listening, heaven is waiting to hear from you. Oh, God help me, we would say. Peter is out walking on the water. Remember this. He's walking on the water. And he cries out to Jesus. Lord help. Shortest prayer in the Bible, by the way. You don't have much time when you're about two feet from drowning. Lord help in the Bible says he immediately Christ scooped him up. We need to cry out to him more. Why? Because it's an act of worship. Yes, he's promised to be there in our time of need. In church family, listen, whatever this world throws it as you got to understand something, that God is not surprised by what's coming our way. Heaven is listening. And verse 26 goes on to say for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. Okay, this gets interesting. The Bible says we do not always know what we ought or should pray for. Did you know that? Our prayers at best are veiled or ignorant. Listen everybody. Are we to pray? Yes. Well, but if they're ignorant, prayer is what's the point? Because listen, the Bible has a key for us. In John chapter 15 verse 7, Jesus said, if my word abides in you, you may ask what you will and it shall be done unto you for hearing is my father glorified. What's the answer to prayer? The Bible. Pray the Bible. When you read your Bible, pray it. People say, man, I pray, I don't know what to pray about. Read your Bible. And by the way, we all go through that. We have all of the thousand things to pray for. And then we go to prayer and it's like, hmm, what do I pray for? When you read the Bible, you'll be able to take those verses and make them into your prayer and it's such a powerful truth. But we don't always know how to pray. So people will often say, listen, this is going to sting. Christians have a bad habit of saying things like this. Well, you know, I don't know what happens. I mean, we met at church and we got married. I prayed about it. And this guy turned out to be a nut or she. And I prayed about it. Notice when we say things like that. Oh, wow. I got this job and it's turned out to be horrible. I prayed about it. Do you want to do it? Are you listening to what you're saying? What are you implying? Well, somebody messed up. It wasn't me. Are you here? What are you implying? I prayed about it. Listen, when something goes south, we don't know what to do. So we tell people, I prayed about it and we throw this blanket on it trying to Christianize it when God was never in it. But I prayed. Let me ask did you wait for the answer? Watch. If you say yes, then I get to ask you just like you would ask me then what did he show you? Show me what he showed you when he answered you. Psalm 107 verse 20 says, behold, I've sent them my word and healed them of all their destructions. See, we say we pray as a Christian. But we don't wait long enough to listen to what he's saying. We assume because we want it. That's what we want. And that's a scary thing. That's a dangerous thing. You know, I'm going there. It's James chapter 4 verse 1. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? Wow. Okay, your body parts are screaming to do the naughty stuff. But the new you is saying, I shouldn't do that anymore. And now you have a war going on. You lust and you do not have. You murder. The word is more hate. You hate and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war yet. You do not have because you do not ask. Is that amazing? You want this thing, but God has sent, excuse me, you're going about it your way. Why don't you ask me? Because heaven is listening. God wants to hear from us. And verse 3 he says, you ask and you do not receive because you ask a miss that you may spend it on your own pleasures. When we pray, we need to pray Bible church. And we need to be willing to wait when we pray. Let's be honest, everybody. When you pray, when you're really seeking God, let's be honest. Most often, if not always, the first response by God is wait. And it drives us crazy, which is why it's always God's first response. We don't do good at waiting. But that's what he's asked us to do. Listen to 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 6, 1 Peter 1 6. In this you greatly rejoice. Listen, in this you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been greed by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, the difficulties of our lives, may be found to praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see him yet believing you rejoice with joy and expressible in full of glory. That's the mark of the believer. When somebody asks you, how are you doing in that thing? I don't know. I'm just hanging on to God. I'm waiting upon God. Over and over again, the Bible says, wait upon the Lord. He'll renew your strength. Wait upon God. So Christian, listen, if somebody's pressuring you, you've got to make a decision. You've got to do this now. Don't do it. It's a pastor. I wish you would hurry up because that salesman at the car lot said, I had to be there by 1137 or else he's going to give it to somebody else. Let him give it to somebody else. And if you show up two hours later and that car is still there, then maybe it's from God. But God is never brought under the pressure of a car salesman or anybody else. Are you hearing me? This is very important because people get into a panic or they'll manipulate us and we think, we've got to jump. Where are we jumping? I don't know. Just jump. God is never in that. Wait. Wait. Oh, it's a hard thing to do, though. Wait. But it is good. Again, there's hope for you young people. The older you get, the more we walk with Jesus, it's like, okay, we're going to wait this out. And it's fun now to be at the age I am and what I do in life, people will say, why doesn't he do something? Why doesn't he do something about that? He's known about that for months. I haven't gotten an answer yet. I'm waiting. What'd you do something? Like what? Like jump from the frying pan into the fire? Is that what you want to say? And every time, listen, you can never say today. You know what? I waited upon God so long. It didn't work out. Listen, you cannot outweigh God. And listen, be willing to wait and wait. And then God will see to it that he'll bring it to pass. This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener-supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.