Heaven Is Listening

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to your prayers when they leave your heart and your lips, today’s message is for you. Our heavenly Father stands with rapt attention to hear the prayers of His children. Be encouraged to pray sincerely, fervently, and honestly as you watch today’s episode of Real Life TV.

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Have you ever wondered that when you pray, where does the prayer go? Where does it go?
When it leaves your heart, when it leaves your mouth, where does that prayer go?
Well, here’s the great news from the Bible. Heaven’s listening.
There’s actually a living, true, eternal, holy, righteous, and awesome God that wants to hear from you.
He wants to hear from us.
Listen, isn’t it amazing that when you open up the bible, he’s the one that tells us to call him father?
He didn’t say call me king, despot, ruler, president, head honcho. He said call me father, Abba.
The the word for father in Hebrew is Abba. Isn’t that beautiful? Abba. It sounds awesome.
If you’re in Italy, you hear the kids running through the street saying papa. It’s the same meaning, same word.
Why? Because God wants to commune with you and I in fellowship with him. We are his children.
He calls us his children, and we enjoy him as father.
Now listen, one of the things that you and I are gonna need to get over is thinking that God is just a big version of our earthly father.
Not at all. God in heaven is a father that is the perfect father, and he wants you to be very specific when you pray.
When you pray and talk to him, don’t be generic. Be specific like you would with any relationship.
Talk specifically. Share specifically what’s on your heart. He already knows.
Jesus said, my father knows before you ask, but ask.
And so it’s beautiful to realize that the windows of heaven are open to your prayer.
Daniel opened the windows back in Babylon, and he prayed.
But listen, even if Daniel didn’t have windows, God would have heard him.
Because the prayer comes from the heart to the God who is listening and all of heaven is waiting to hear from you.
So let’s grab our bibles and dive into this message, heaven is listening.
Psalm 46 verse 1, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear, even though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountain shake with its swelling.
Look at that last word is.
The word means there in Hebrew to wait, ponder, think about this, slow down.
The Bible warns us, we do not know how we ought to pray always.
Listen to what William Barclay wrote in his commentary, and he’s quoting by the way, someone else.
So this is Barclay quoting Xenophon.
He says, From history, we learn that Xenophon of Athens wrote that Socrates taught his disciples simply to pray for good things and do not attempt to be so specify or specific, I would think he’s saying, but leave God to decide what the best things are.
Isn’t that wise? That’s good. People And I’m grateful.
People often ask me, Pastor, how can we pray for you? And they think I’m joking when I tell them.
I simply say this, all you need to know is this prayer for me and my family and for this church is pray for God’s favor.
So well, it sounds kind of That’s it? Are you kidding? That’s all you need.
Because listen, God’s favor takes care of my health. God’s favor takes care of my marriage.
God’s favor takes care of you. God’s favor takes care of my grandkids and my kids. Are you with me?
You get that. God’s favor is the greatest request you could ever ask.
And I think that’s an extravagant prayer, to have the favor of God?
And listen, I so often pinch myself, I can’t believe the things that happened in my life, and it’s none other than your prayers being answered by the favor of God.
So remarkable. He’s so good.
In Matthew chapter 6 verse 8, Jesus says, For your father knows the things that you have need of before you ask.
Now, this is fun. See, Jack, you just said to ask because heaven’s listening, and now you tell me that Jesus says, the father knows what I have need of before I ask, so why ask?
He doesn’t give anything unless you ask.
He knows what you have need of before you ask. Right?
He knows what you should ask.
For example, let’s say God wants to do a deep work in your life regarding your faith.
He needs to take you to the next level.
Hope you know that your spiritual development upward is always preceded first by a trip downward.
If you wanna grow up in Jesus, you’re gonna get cut off at the knees.
That’s how we go up. It’s an opposite thing.
You wanna be in the front of the line?
You gotta go to the back of the line. You wanna be in the back of the line?
You go to the front line. You want him to increase, we decrease.
So watch this. If God knows what I have needed before I ask, then what’s the purpose of me asking?
And yet the Bible says, You have not because you asked not. So is this a game? Not at all.
It’s for your faith. And by the way, when you pray, I want to encourage all of you, pray specific.
Start praying specific.
And the more specific you’ll pray, the more sensitive you’ll be to when God answers your prayer.
Listen, young ladies in here, are you looking for a man? You better pray.
Ask God, Lord, I want a man who loves you. How about this?
Be specific. I want a man who loves you more than he loves me.
That will be the man for me.
And show me a man whose spiritual leadership is something that I can applaud, that I am impressed by.
Young ladies, don’t be satisfied with some guy. Yeah. Yeah. I believe in God.
But his biceps are like 19 inches and he you know.
So, seriously, this goes both ways. Don’t Listen.
Don’t don’t even get interested in people that you’re not impressed by their spiritual maturity.
And you don’t have to be old to have spiritual maturity.
That was free. It’s not even in my notes. You can have that.
But you know that sometimes we get everything jumbled up by our pursuits.
And instead of calling out to God and praying and seeking his face, Heaven is listening and we don’t take as much advantage of that as we ought.
If you’re a Christian today, church if you’re a Christian today, the Bible says in 1st John 19, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of all of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That’s written to the Christian, not the non Christian, only to the Christian.
But the Bible says to the non Christian that you need to repent of your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So what do we have going on here?
Number 1, the non believer who’s becoming the believer must hear this first, repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
And the word repent means change your mind.
Lot of changing of the mind needs to happen in our world today. Don’t you agree? My goodness.
Change your mind. Change the way you think. You’ve changed your mind on other things. Change your mind on this.
God is who he says he is, and you’re alienated from God, and you need his salvation.
He died on the cross once, rose again from the dead once, and you need to run to Him now while you still have a breath.
That’s to the non believer, because what Jesus did is He took away the power of sin and death at the cross.
And look, God died on the cross for your sins, God the Son, and it had to be him because he knew that when he Just think about this, there have been 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of people that have lived since Adam and Eve.
And when Christ went to the cross, it had to be God. It couldn’t have been a good man.
God at the cross literally thought about every individual.
He loved them, and every one of their sins, he paid their that price.
And you and I have no clue what that means. It’s beyond our imagination, it’s beyond our scope to comprehend.
There’s no sin that Christ did not pay for And he says, come to me.
Heaven or hell, you decide, but come to me. And I love you, come.
But to the believer, we’re already in the family.
We’re secured, we’re in him.
And when God says to us, you need to repent.
When we go to, watch, when the Christian goes to pray and it feels like you’re hitting a block wall, don’t be surprised when God says things like this.
Listen, you’re still at odds with your husband or you’re still at odds with your kids.
I I don’t wanna hear from you.
Go set it straight, and you come back to me later.
You know, he says that in the scriptures.
Go set it straight, and then I’ll tell you, I’m not gonna listen to you right now.
Did you know that? It should be a surprise to us.
You know, if you have kids, think about think about your kid. Your kid does something terribly wrong.
You say, no, just stay home. I’ll be back in 5 minutes.
You come home and they’ve painted the garage door pink or something. So what what what are you doing?
Go to your room. Your kid goes to the room.
When your kid is in his room, is he still your kid? He’s still your kid.
But you hear the door open up, and he comes down the hallway and he says, Well, I’ve been in my room, I went online and I saw what I want for Christmas.
What are you going to say to him? Back to the room.
Get back to that. We’re not talking about Christmas, we’re talking about punishment, not blessings.
Get back to the room. Our fellowship is Get back there. Our fellowship has been broken.
But dad, do I belong to the family? Yes. Get back there. Are you gonna throw me out?
No. Get back there, come to me when your heart is humble, when you’ve repented.
And then when they come. I’m sorry that I did that. What what what happens?
Fellowship’s restored. That’s true in the Christian life.
Many prayers are not being heard because you’ve had it out with your family, friend, neighbor, husband, wife, whatever it is.
And God is saying to you, I’m not talking to you right now, you gotta go fix that.
Lay your gift at the altar, go settle the score with your friend, with your enemy, with whoever it is, and you come to me.
Our God is good.
Isaiah 59:1, Isaiah 59:1 says, Behold, the Lord’s hand is not short, that he cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that he cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.
And I cannot help but think that lived out Friends, my mind jumps to a moment in time 2000 years ago, when I believe was the fulfillment of Habakkuk 1 13, when the Bible says, God’s eyes are too pure to behold evil, he cannot look upon wickedness.
2000 years ago, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ, Yeshua, Meshia, Jesus the messiah went to the cross and died, fulfilling the old testament prophecies in our place on that Passover weekend.
And when you think about that, you know as a gentile believer that one of the things that Jesus cried out from the cross are those funny words you have written in your new testament that you can’t quite make out.
It’s a foreign language of some sorts, but you have learned that it means, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Eloi, Eloi, lama shabbaththani? Jesus Christ from the cross.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Which is a fascinating statement, because number 1, Jesus had done nothing wrong.
Number 2, Jesus had shown everyone the way of the Father.
Number 3, Jesus had ministered under the power of the Holy Spirit, and no one could bring an accusation against him.
Everybody scrutinized him and came up with nothing.
And he says, why have you forsaken me?
Did you know that that was an incredible announcement to the Jews that were there? That’s Psalm 22, people.
And every Jew would have known it. They would have recognized the messianic Psalm of Psalm 22.
Listen to this, everyone. Psalm 22, verse 1. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me? Do you know what that is? That’s Psalm 22.
It’s also Mark 1534. What about Psalm 22 verse 6?
I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised by people.
All those who see me ridicule me. They shoot out the lip.
They shake their heads saying, ‘He trusted in the Lord, let him rescue him.
Let him deliver him since he delights in him.
Friends, that is Matthew 27 verse 42 and Isaiah 53 verse 3.
Because you can now be forgiven, heaven is listening, you can have your sins taken away if you recognize who was on the cross and what he was doing for you, what he was doing for me.
The holy spirit dwells in you as a believer.
Psalm 22:31, they will come and declare his righteousness to a people yet unborn that he has done this.
Well, that would be Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul and Mary, including you.
That’s the New Testament account. And then we’ll end at this, heaven is speaking.
I’m convinced of it. Heaven is speaking. So, Jack, I’d love to hear the voice of God.
Answer, pick up his word. I don’t understand it, church. I can’t explain it to you.
Those of you who know what I mean, you know what I mean.
But how is it that you pick up the Bible and you read it, and how is it that the words that he wants to speak to you will somehow jump up almost as though they are done by a graphic artist?
They’ll pop they’ll lift up off the page to announce to you, this is the answer.
And you’ll put it down and you’ll fall to your knees and you say, God, thank you.
Thank you for that answer. That makes perfect sense.
And you can go in confidence, you can be rest assured and people will attack you and people will give you alternate ideas.
You don’t have to worry, you got the answer from God, because heaven is speaking.
In Luke chapter 22 verse 31, you wanna see how practical heaven can speak?
The Bible says in Luke 22:31, and the Lord said to Simon Peter, Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you.
Notice, I, Jesus, have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith should not fail. Isn’t that amazing?
You guys, if you’ve heard me comment on this before, to me this is absolutely fascinating.
I can’t see it happening in any other way.
In fact, if you read the context, all the guys are there, all the disciples, they’re all hanging out, they’re all talking.
And Jesus just says, Peter, Satan has been asking me to have you. Can you imagine?
He’s been asking me, by name, Satan wants to rip you 1.
He wants to lay into you and destroy you, Peter.
Just like I mean, I don’t know what he was doing.
Was he mending a net at the moment? Was he doing his nails? What was he doing?
So Jesus says, Peter, Satan has asked me if he could have you to tear you to shreds.
Woah. Really? James, did you hear that? Satan’s not asking for you.
No, Peter. Satan’s been asking you by name. Yeah. That’s crazy. Right?
You told him no. I’m sure. Right? No, Peter. You’re not hearing me.
Satan has been asking for you by name, And I’ve prayed that your faith not fail.
What does that mean?
That means, uh, he asked for you and I’m gonna allow it.
So wait a minute, we didn’t I don’t know if we signed up for this.
Friends, listen. Would Are you okay with God using you any way he wants to?
That was kinda weak. And so it should. Think about it. Christian Yeah. Yeah. Jesus.
I love Jesus. Yes, I do. I love Jesus. How about you? Hey, how about this?
How about Jesus saying, tell you what, Jack, Satan has been asking me for you by name.
So here’s the deal. When you return, strengthen your brothers and sisters.
That’s what he told Peter.
What if the pink slip from your doctor means you have to go to the radiologist and they find a lump?
What if the blood draw shows an incredibly high amount of white blood cells?
What’s hap what what happens if the job that you are supposed to have tomorrow, by the time you pull up there’s somebody else’s car on the spot?
I prayed about it.
Is it possible that all of these fiery trials of life, God is literally using you, His tool, his instrument to communicate the gospel of God has to speak to a radiologist or someone otherwise would never tune into a Billy Graham podcast or go to a church, but God will allow you to go through this, to get the gospel to that nurse or to that copilot.
Are you hearing me? Oh, Lord, I’ll follow you anywhere. Listen, let’s be honest.
Lord, I’ll follow you anywhere so long as you give me the grace and the ability to follow you, because I can’t follow you.
I’ll run so fast away from you if I get a chance, because I don’t trust me.
So, God hook me up. Don’t let me go.
And so, as long as we understand that, I’ll follow you wherever you go because I don’t trust me.
And he says, I will not allow you to be tested beyond that which you are able.
Well, listen, what an encouraging word that is, that heaven itself is listening, which means, of course, God is listening.
And here’s a little something for you to know, uh, before Christ, my world was, uh, kind of an ugly place.
I was filled with anger, confusion. Um, I stuttered very very bad.
I had a temper problem and I grew up in a home that was moral.
It was a moral home, but it had no God.
And I had no hope And so because of that, being somebody who didn’t fit in, somebody who stuttered, having no faith background, I became a very angry young man.
And, uh, long story fast forwarded, I wasn’t born in front of a camera or I wasn’t born with a Bible.
I had a life that’s rough like your life. Okay? Let’s just deal with that right now.
All of the setbacks and hardships and fears and and, um, intimidations, Yours is so unique to you, but you think you’re the only one going through it when in reality every single one of us are so different but with the same struggles like a snowflake.
It’s a snowflake, but it’s different than all others. So is your life and mine.
And yet God’s the same healing, loving father. He wants to touch your life.
And here’s the point of what we’re talking about.
He wants to make you an instrument of his power and of his grace to proclaim the name of Jesus in light of all those hardships in life.
In fact, he wants to use those difficulties to make you an effective witness. Friends, listen. No more excuses.
I’ve already tried them all. He doesn’t listen to that. But he listens to this, Lord, here I am.
Send me. Lord, I’ll do whatever you wanna do. Surrender.
Listen, you may be a Christian, but you haven’t yet surrendered. I’m calling upon you today to give up.
Quit. Give up. Hand your life to Jesus and say, I’m prone to worry or I’m anxious about this.
I’ve got a temper. I’ve got these addictions or these struggles. I hate them. I wanna be somebody brand new.
I know who you are, Jesus, and I’m calling out to you. Please do that.
And if you do that, get a hold of us. Jackibbs.com. Tell us your story.
You are watching Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
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