Don’t Forget to Ask

Text: John 4:31-38

Vs. 32 “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
• In other words, my soul is filled with a delight beyond physical gratification.

The disciples didn’t get what Jesus was talking about. This was the first year of Jesus’s ministry. But in the second year they began to get the picture.

Luke 10:1-2 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

Jesus recognized the harvest was bigger than the number of disciples, that some of the harvest was beyond their reach.

Asking the Lord to send workers into his harvest field is one of the ways we involve ourselves in partnership with Him in building His kingdom.

Main Idea: Asking is influence.

There are people who are beyond our reach personally.
• It could be because of geographical barriers..
• Sometimes it’s because they are too relationally close.
• Sometimes they just travel in different socioeconomic circles.

So, ask the Lord, be intentional and focused in your asking God to send someone into their life to present Christ.
• He has every kind of person to be able to relate to any kind of person.
• Pray for those you love. Pray for those you don’t even like. Pray for your enemies.
• We cannot pray for everybody every day, but we can pray for somebody every day.

The benefits to us in praying for God to send a gospel rep into the life of someone also help are:

1. God hears our prayer and God answers our prayers.

2. It orients us to eternity.
• Colossians 3:2 instructs us to set our minds on things above. Praying for other is a way to do that.

3. It’s a fellowship opportunity.
• Like Jesus, it gives us food to eat that others know nothing about.

Psalm 73 – The Psalmist, Asaph, may have been observing a slightly different crowd than us, but we have the same feeling in common: People who aren’t pursuing God seem to be doing all right. Which leads us to drift into the waters of this question: What good is God if God is not going to give me what I want?

Asaph’s conclusion was the goodness of God Himself is better than anything else you can want.
• God gives us many things to make life enjoyable and convenient, but the Supreme factor in what determines the highest quality of life is our relationship with God Himself. And it is through the privilege of our partnership with Him that we experience that goodness with greater depth.

Don’t think praying for people is the limited version of evangelism but neither must you think that God’s ability to use you is limited to prayer.
• We’re never too old for God to do something new in our lives.

Don’t forget to ask. Asking is influence,