He Heard, He’s Holding, It’s Him

He Heard

• 1 John 5:14–15

• The enemy points to what has not happened yet and says God cannot be trusted, but the answer, healing, reconciliation, result, and proof are found in God.

• There is a space between prayed and answered called heard. Knowing that God hears gives confidence.

• 1 John 5:14 says that if we ask anything according to God’s will, he hears us. Verse 15 says that when we know he hears us, we know we have what we asked of him.

• God hears better than any human being or technology. He heard the first time.

• God may leave something in place because he intends to teach us through it. Being heard does not mean the season will be easy or that the requested thing will immediately be removed.

• God hears grief, groaning, pain, tears, fear, sorrow, worry, and anxiety—even what cannot be expressed in words.

• God hears what you did not say, what you still do not know how to say, what others said about you, and what you have said about yourself. He speaks a better word over what is true and what is not true.

He’s Holding

• While waiting for an answer, trust that what God has not answered yet, he is holding.

• God holds tears and prayers like precious things kept before him.

• God may hold one thing in one hand while working on something else with the other. He remains the same whether he seems to be removing a burden or sustaining us through it.

• We cannot control everything, and we are not required to hold everything together. Give God the part you cannot control.

• God can use a problem to answer a prayer. The thing we ask God to remove may become the means through which he gives grace for something we did not yet know how to face.

• The proof that God answered is not always that the problem disappeared. The proof is that he came. He does not merely give the answer; he is the answer.

• “All things work together for the good of them that love the Lord.” God is working second by second, and his mercy endures forever.

• From the Pastor: “What else are you going to do with your kid but give him back to God?”

• From the Pastor: After the death of a father and the death of a son, the only advice available in the moment was, “One job, breathe. Next breath.” That next breath was enough to carry them through the hardest season one millisecond at a time.

• The God of seasons is also the God of seconds and milliseconds.

It’s Him

• John 20:11–18

• Sometimes the answer to prayer is not a changed circumstance but God himself.

• Worship does not guarantee that everything at home will be fixed, every bed will be made, or everyone will support your dreams. Faith must continue in the places where life remains difficult.

• Mary Magdalene came to Jesus’ tomb while it was still dark and found that he was not there. She looked for Jesus in the last place she had seen him, but the absence of his body became the setting for a new revelation of who he was.

• Mary was crying because she did not know where Jesus was or what to do. Jesus was standing near her, but she did not recognize him until he called her by name.

• Jesus speaks the language of tears and meets people in their grief and confusion.

• Jesus’ resurrection means that God in human form died for sin, descended to the grave, defeated death and hell, and rose holding the keys of death, hell, and the grave.

• God is present in life and death, on the mountain and in the valley. He is the one holding tomorrow, giving the next breath, and caring for our needs.

• The renewal of the mind happens moment by moment, not only during a worship service. Faith is tested on the road on Monday as well as in the church on Sunday.

• From the Pastor: After being insulted by another driver, the response changed from retaliation to praising the Lord. Sometimes the Lord calls us to answer a situation differently than we normally would.

• God may reveal himself most clearly in the place where we expected him to be but thought he was absent.