Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, welcome to cc midweek. How's everyone doing?
I have this verse tonight that is on my heart. It says, come and see what God has done. He is awesome in deeds towards the children of man. Tonight we have a very special guest preacher in the house. It's her first time ever preaching.
And this beautiful girl, she is the kind of soul that when she comes into this space, things get better. She's the kind of girl that. She's my ride or die. Like I say, we put a stake on this hill and a stake in this church, and we're going to do it together for the rest of our life. And it is my honor to introduce to you tonight Rachel Wellman. Come on up.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Thank you, guys.
I'm so glad it's here. I'm so glad.
Okay, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Rachel Wellman and I've been on staff here for 13 years. It's been one of the biggest blessings of my life. But I've been at this church my entire life and so I have a picture of me and my family. I had to go back to the church directory of 1989. Sorry, family.
Look how cute we are.
But an even bigger blessing is being able to raise my family in this church.
That's us. That's my husband Ed, and my daughter Claire.
My son Jack.
And I would be absolutely nothing without them. But I do want to say thank you to every single person that is not only here, but who has been loving me and supporting me through all of this. The amount of text messages that I have gotten in the last 48 hours.
The church isn't a building. The church is us. And the church is people. And I'm just so, so grateful for every single one of you. So thank you. Okay, let me pray. Heavenly Father, I love you. I thank you for this moment. I thank you for giving me these words to speak, and I pray that these words are your words and not mine. I pray that I can communicate this invitation of prayer and all that you want us to learn from it. Please help us and bless us in your name. We pray. Amen.
Okay, so when you pray, what do you pray for? Just think about it. Don't tell the person next to you. Just think about it. Lifeweight research did a survey and it said that 48% of Americans pray every single day. 74% pray for their own needs and difficulties. 42% pray for the wrong that they've done. 82% are praying for their friends and their family. 38% are praying for people who have experienced natural disasters.
A whopping 12% are praying for politicians and 5% are praying for celebrities.
7% of people are praying that they find a really good parking spot, and another 7% are praying that they don't get pulled over for speeding. Well, then they did another survey, and these completely shocked me.
4% of people prayed that other people would fail.
5% of people prayed that other people would get fired. And the most shocking one of all, 9% of people prayed that something bad would happen to another person.
I mean, it's one thing to think it, but to lift it up in prayer is another thing. What's interesting about this survey is that it tells me that people believe in the power of prayer.
And what is prayer? Prayer is an invitation from God to live as the children.
And Jesus gives us some really good instruction to what a good prayer life is.
Matthew seven is where we're going to be tonight. And Matthew seven is part of Jesus Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus Sermon on the mount were his most famous teachings. Thousands of people were there, and it said that when he was done preaching, that they were amazed because he preached with such authority.
Beginning in verse seven, it says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and the one who seeks, finds. And the one who knocks, the door will be open.
Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?
Prayer is an invitation from God to live as his children.
We are a church that believes in prayer.
We pray at the beginning of every staff meeting. We pray at the end of every staff meeting. We pray during the day when we're frustrated. We pray when people call in for help. We pray so much that I'll be at a parent teacher conference years ago, and they'd be like, let's get started. And I'd be like.
And I'd be like, oh, sorry. Okay. But we are a church and people that believe in prayer. Now, this phrase, ask, seek and knock, in the Greek, it's what you would call an imperative, which means it's a command. Jesus was commanding the disciples. He was commanding the people that were listening that day. And he's commanding us to ask, seek, and knock.
Prayer gives us access to the father.
So why do we pray?
Why does Christ ask us to pray. He already knows what we want. He knows what we're thinking. It's not to inform him, it's not to instruct him. So why?
He wants to be invited into our lives. Have you ever wanted to be invited somewhere? Sunday afternoon, you all are rushing out of here to go get tacos and queso and a brunch. But the problem is you guys leave and I'm like, I like mimosas. I like queso. And you guys leave now?
Yes. Do I want the queso mimosas? Yes. However, it's not about the food, it's not about where we're going. It's about who we're going with. Who wouldn't want to be with their friends, who wouldn't want to spend time with the people that they love. And in the same way, God wants to be invited in. And Christ had a beautiful prayer life. So many times throughout the gospels, you will see him praying with people, him praying for people, and a lot of the times he'd be going away to pray by himself. Christ is our ultimate example, because if he needed prayer, how much more do we need it?
Verse eight kind of goes on, but it kind of repeats itself a little bit for everyone who asks, receives, and the one who seeks, finds. And the one who knocks will be open.
God is approachable. He's approachable because he commands us to pray.
I believe that we don't have unanswered prayers. I believe that we have unoffered prayers.
What stops you from praying for me? It can be pride, God, you can have this part of my life, but you can't have this part. I trust you with this, but I can't trust you with this part. And here's the thing. The devil can't stop God from answering your prayers, but he can stop you from asking them.
My parents told me very early on when I was frustrated or overwhelmed, and they'd say, pray about it. And I'd be like, pray about it.
But it was true.
As soon as I invited God in, everything changed. I invited him in. My circumstances didn't change. What was going on around me wasn't changing, but inviting God in changed my, my heart.
There was a season of my life where I was a brand new mom, and motherhood just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It was so much harder. And all the other moms made it look so easy, and I just didn't know what God was doing in my life through it.
And I remember praying the most ridiculous prayer. I said, would you please fast forward my life. And I didn't really know what that meant because I knew that God wasn't going to fast forward my life, but it was more of a plea. I don't know what to do, and I'm just feeling stuck.
Well, then years later, I was talking with a girlfriend, and she was telling me about her life with motherhood. And it was me. Everything she was saying, I was like, that was me. The only difference was she was brave enough to say it out loud. I told no one, and I was able to love her, and I was able to tell her that she was in a season of difficulties, but God was going to see her through.
I had no idea that God was going to use my difficulties for his glory. And I was able to build up my friend. And at one point, I know that she was going to be able to do that for somebody else.
I think you should talk to God until you receive what you want, or the wisdom to know why you didn't get it.
I want to be close enough to him that I'm praying for what he wants, not what I want, because I believe with my whole heart that God's plan for my life is sufficient.
Praying that whether the answer is yes or no or wait, I trust in his will, and I keep on praying.
Timothy Keller says, you should not begin to pray for all you want until you realize that in God you have all that you need.
When my daughter Claire was first born, brought her home from the hospital, and nurse came over to check on us, and they weighed baby Claire, and she had lost over two pounds, ridiculous amount of weight.
And so it was very nerve wracking. So we went to the doctor, and the doctor did not like what she was seeing. And not only was she losing weight, she wasn't keeping food down, and she wasn't eating. And so she said, we need to send her for a test.
But the problem is we were going to have to wait. And I was just, like, sick to my stomach. The prayers that you pray when you're a mom are just different than any other prayer. So we came to church that Sunday, and we sat in the back of this section, and after church, we had asked doc to come over and say a prayer.
Sometimes when you go through difficulties, you just don't think your prayers are reaching heaven. So he came over and I just said, I need you to pray for her. See, doc has been with me my whole life. He's dedicated me, baptized me, married me, and my husband dedicated my children, hired me. He's been a part of my life for so many important moments. And I needed him, so I gave him Claire, and he just stood there, and I closed my eyes, and I'm waiting, and I don't hear anything. So I kind of, like, open my eye, and he was just standing there. And in my head I'm like, pray. I need you. I need you to pray. Does he not know what to say?
And so then he closed his eyes and he said, give me a minute. And he stood there, and then he started to pray.
He taught me something about prayer that day, how we approach God in prayer matters.
He knew the power of the person he was praying to.
Do you know how powerful your prayers are? Our prayers are capable of going outside of this physical realm and hitting the spiritual one. Doc taught me so much about how we just approach God.
It changed everything for me.
He finished praying, and it was a holy moment. It was loud, it was busy, but you could just feel the spirit of God resting on us.
The next day, we went for her test, and she was fine. Her esophagus was fine, her stomach was fine. The girl just had a dairy intolerance.
But what God did in my heart that week when I just kept praying changed everything.
Prayer is an invitation from God to live as his children.
Matthew seven seven continues to go on. It says, seek and you will find.
Hide and seek is one of my favorite games to play with. My kids still play it. We played it two weeks ago. It took my husband ten minutes to find me.
I am the ultimate hider. Well, when I was younger, I would sit on the couch and the kids would run, and I would pretend to find them. So I'd be like, are you behind the curtain? Are you under the couch? But I wasn't getting up and looking.
You can't seek something passively. You have to get up and you have to look.
Because I grew up in church my whole life, I can't really remember a time where God wasn't around.
I was very young when I accepted him into my life, and I loved him so much.
I memorized all the Bible verses. I loved going to church. Shocker.
Do you remember those felt boards in Sunday school? And they'd put up that two dimensional Jesus and the disciples, and if it was a really good day, they'd put up the rainbow and the sunshine.
I loved reading my Bible with my dad every single night. I had that picture Bible that looked like a comic book. Every single night he would read it to me.
You read all the stories that you do as a kid, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Moses on the Red Sea, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
There wasn't a story that I heard that I didn't believe.
But the problem was, I called my children's Bible a sugar coated version of these stories.
They rarely had any bad. There was a little bit of conflict, and Jesus came in and always made it better.
They didn't have a whole lot of hurt, struggle, and pain.
But as I grew up, I kind of held onto these sugar coated stories.
And when life was hard and when struggles came up, I realized that this two dimensional storybook, Jesus, wasn't going to be enough.
He wasn't going to be enough. When I was in school and I had gone to private school my whole life, and walking into a public school was so scary, and I had no idea who I was and what I was going to do. When I struggled with my body image, my future, all my friends were going off to college, and all I wanted to do was get married. I had no idea what God wanted for my life.
I realized that if I wanted a relationship with God, I was going to have to seek after him in a way that I never had before.
And I opened up my un sugar coated bible, and I realized all these stories. There was so much more. There was so much that was left out of my children's book.
There were stories of unlikely heroes and stories of redemption and restoration.
I had to sit in the tension of these stories long enough to know that God used these people for a reason.
I was going to have to actively seek God if I wanted to get to know him more.
How did these stories apply to my life now? What was God telling me right now? And no one could do it for me. It was my job. My relationship with God was my job. No one could do it.
At the end of 2023, I was very.
I was going through such a hard time, and my heart and my mind were so cluttered. And for those of you who know me really, really well, I like to clean and organize my house.
So when I feel anxious, when I feel overwhelmed, I clean my house. But the problem is when you have two kids, you clean it, and ten minutes later, it's a mess again. So I was putting my ability to feel better about life in something that was never going to stay the way it needed to.
I put cleaning my house above my relationship with Christ, and I learned so quickly that it was never going to work.
The thing is, I wanted to be close enough to God that I could feel his blessings, but I wanted to be far enough away from him that I wasn't going to be asked of anything extra.
And it wasn't a life that I wanted to live anymore.
See, I'd said no to Christ too many times, and I said that this year was going to be different.
Does anyone remember what their New Year's resolution was?
Is anyone still doing their New Year's resolution?
Well, I am happy to say that I am not because of what it was, because I don't really do resolutions. I pick a word. I pick a word that I'm going to live by for the next year. It's how I filter everything. I filter everything through this word. And so I decided that my word was going to be joy. And so, yes, I'm a very happy person, but I'm not always joyful. Sometimes my circumstances dictate how I feel. And I said that wasn't how I wanted to live for 2024. But the problem was, it felt like God was calling me this life of obedience, and I was like, no, I don't want to do it. So I was struggling.
But every devotional I opened up, every song on the radio was about obedience.
And I was like, ugh. So I was telling my friends about it, and my beautiful friend Jill says, why can't you have both? And I thought, oh, it's pretty smart.
And I realized that when you have true obedience to God, that's when you have true joy. And I can't tell you how joyful my life has been this year. Not because it's been easy, it's been difficult. Hardest, hardest things I've ever done.
But seeking God changes everything.
Jeremiah 20 913 says, you will seek me and find me. When you search me, search for me with your whole heart.
Christ wants to be found by you, but do you want to be found?
We seek a lot of things in this world. Success, money, love, health.
What's stopping you from seeking God? Because I promise you, he accepts every bit of who you are. He accepts your past, he accepts your present, and he accepts your future, mess and all you are worthy of him. And God's love is absolutely unmatched. I can't communicate any more to you how much Christ loves you. And no matter where you are in your journey with God, you don't mean any less to him.
Prayer is an invitation from God to live as his child.
Matthew seven. Seven ends, and it says, knock, and it will be open to you.
So I was reading a book for school. I'm currently in seminary school, and it's been a lot and so amazing. And I'm in a class called hermeneunics. It took me one month to learn how to say that and I still don't know how to spell it. So thank you for Google. But in the class it's all about how to interpret and understand the scripture the correct way. And it says, one of the things that you can do is look for words that repeat. And it's funny what you notice when you, you know stuff you don't know what you don't know. And so I was preparing for the sermon and I was reading in Matthew six and there were two words that kept repeating, the word reward and the word father.
Now, when you hear the word father, it can be compelling or it can be heartbreak.
Some of you have had a. Some of you have had an earthly father who let you down. He didn't show up when he said he was going to show up. He didn't do what he said he was going to do.
I just want you to hear me for 1 second. You have a heavenly father who loves you.
He sees you.
You brought him satisfaction the minute you were born.
You bear his image and there is nothing you can do that will separate you from his love.
God calls us his sons and daughters not because of us. He calls us that because of Christ. See, we are unpresentable to God and Christ made a way for us.
Now there's a difficult part of prayer and it's this idea of waiting.
Waiting is not something I am good at. I blame Amazon for this same day delivery. It's just, it's not, it's not a good idea.
But the problem is when we pray, we want God to answer our prayers.
And so we get anxious, we get overwhelmed. We did our part, you do your part.
And the problem is every door that we stop knocking on becomes a wall. So we're over here knocking for prayer number one and God isn't answering, so we just stop knocking and we come over here and then we start praying for our second prayer and God isn't answering, so we stop knocking. And now we find ourselves walled in and we're feeling hopeless. We think he's forgotten us. But we have no idea how God is working behind the scenes because we stop knocking, we stop praying and we can't see all what God is doing.
I think sometimes when we pray, we're looking for answers and not action.
And the thing is, God is a God of action.
I want to remind you that Joseph waited 13 years before he was set free.
Abraham waited 25 years to become a dad.
And Moses waited 40 years before Christ would raise him up to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
You are in good company.
You might be in a season of waiting. Keep on knocking.
Now, here's the thing. We like to create little things that make us feel better.
If God wants it to happen, it'll happen.
God doesn't close a door without opening a window. I've said all of these. Like, I'm not. I've said them, but I don't know why. They're stupid.
So four years ago, my husband and I decided that we wanted to buy our first home. We'd been living in a condo for a billion years, and we were done. But the problem was, it was in the middle of COVID Houses were everywhere. Market was insane. The problem was these houses were going for ten and $20,000 over market.
And it just seemed like it was never going to happen for us. We finally found a house. We go in, we're like, okay, we're ready. The house sold. While we stood in the kitchen, I'm like, come on. So then we go to another house. It was beautiful. Had an acre of property. The inside of it was beautiful. It was clean and shiny and white.
And I was like, this is it. This is the house. So we put in an offer, and he said no. And I was just heartbroken. And all this time, I'm praying that God would just lead us to where we need to be. I'm like, I trust you. I want to follow your way. But he just said no to my house.
Well, then the house didn't sell. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, we're going to put another offer. My realtor hated me. I'm so sorry. So we put in another offer, and he said no.
And I said, what he doesn't understand is this is the yard my kids are going to play in. This is the living room they're going to open their Christmas presents in. And this is the kitchen. I'm going to ruin every meal I attempt to cook.
Sister can't cook, so sorry. Thank you, Ed, who's an amazing cook.
And so I just kept praying. I said, this is our house.
Well, then the house drops by $10,000. Everyone was shocked. And I'm like, here's my house. Not only are we going to get this house, but we're going to get this house for cheaper. We put in a third offer, and we got it. Yes.
This house wasn't just a house.
This house was a visual representation of all the hard work that me and my husband had to do to get here. We had been in an ocean of debt, and our marriage was on the rocks, and we just didn't know if we were going to make it. And we got this house, and we got it for cheaper than planned. And it was just God's way of saying, well done, keep going.
And here's the thing. There were so many other houses that we could have looked at. They were everywhere across the street, probably cheaper. They were everywhere.
Is it possible that while we're out there looking for open windows to jump through? Because that's what we think God's plan for us is. He's asking us to stand at the door and knock.
Because if you knew that your answered prayer was on the other side of that door, you wouldn't stop knocking.
The prayer that you can't seem to get through without crying, the prayer that keeps you up at night, if you knew your answered prayer was on the other door, on the other side of that door, you wouldn't stop knocking.
Maybe God is saying no now, so he can say yes later.
Revelations 320 says, behold, I stand at the door and knock.
God isn't asking us to do anything that he hasn't done. He stands at the door of our heart and he knocks. But will you open the door? Will you invite him in?
One of the main reasons we don't have a significant prayer life isn't because we don't want to. It's because we don't plan to.
I have four ways to approach God in prayer. Number one, be intentional.
Prayer is not a passive approach to life. It has to be intentional.
I want you to make time this week to pray.
Instead of fitting God into your daily schedule, plan your schedule around him. Because we plan out our day. I know what time I have to leave the house in order to get my hot chocolate at Dunkin Donuts and get here at work two minutes late. I'm never on time.
I plan out my day.
So we need to incorporate God into our daily routines.
I found a study from radiologist Andrew Newberg, and he did a study, and he found out that normally after the age of 25, your brain doesn't grow anymore. It caps out at 25. But what he found out was by praying twelve minutes a day actually rewires your brain. The brain, it blows my mind. It says, the cingulate cortex grew and people became nicer and more forgiving.
It decreases the activation of the amygdala.
I can't believe I said that right the first time. I'm so happy about that. It decreases anxiety, depression, and blood pressure. It literally helps your body. God designed our brains in such a beautiful way.
I have a prayer partner, my beautiful brandy. We pray every single week together. And we have prayed prayers and gotten answers that I don't think either one of us would have ever expected.
We even have a book, and we keep a book of all of our answered prayers because God just seems to keep showing up.
When you're intentional, God shows up.
Two, be still.
God will not speak above the chaos of your life.
God is a God who doesn't yell. He whispers. And anything that God wants to whisper to me, I want to be quiet enough that I hear him.
Three, be persistent.
Have faith. I've seen miracles in this world, in this church.
We have the week of prayer two times a year, and I can't tell you the answered prayers that have been answered in the 40 some years that we've been doing it. I like to call them the running miracles because they're children and they run up and down the the stairs of this church because of prayer.
Doctors said, it's just not in the cards for you.
But with God, all things are possible.
And these kids that used to be babies are now teenagers. And it's just so crazy to see what prayer does.
Four, be specific.
There's something so unbelievably cool when you pray a specific prayer.
I have prayed something so specific that it almost freaked me out when I got the answer that I got. And it was yes. Like it was the most ridiculous thing ever.
I think a lot of people say it was just a coincidence.
I find that I experience more coincidences when I pray than when I don't pray.
So how do you pray to the God of the universe?
It can be intimidating.
We talk about how powerful and how majestic he is, and I forget that we can approach him in a very personal way.
I'm sure you're all wondering what this empty chair is about.
What I've been doing lately is when I have my quiet time, I will intentionally sit next to an empty chair, and I picture Jesus sitting in the chair with me.
And when I'm struggling and I say, I just don't know how to do this, I just don't get what your plan is.
I imagine him looking at me and saying, I got you.
Three weeks ago. I almost texted Sarah and said, I'm dropping out of school, and I'm not preaching.
I picked up the phone to call her, and instead I got on my knees next to an empty chair. And I just said, if this is what you want for me, I need to know.
And it's changed everything for me.
When I'm in the car and I've dropped my kids off at school and they walk in crying because I was an evil mom this morning, and I look over at the chair next to me and he says, you're a good mom.
I gave you them for a reason, and I love you.
I wasn't planning on having a chair up here.
I was just going to talk about it. And then I realized that as I was preparing for the sermon, I literally needed this chair up here because I needed to picture Jesus up here with me.
Because the fact is, I can stand up here and entertain you for half an hour. But if Christ doesn't show up in this space, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter if the worship team sings your favorite song. If Christ doesn't show up, it doesn't matter.
Matthew 7911 goes on, and it says this.
Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent.
If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more?
How much more will your father, who is in heaven, give good gifts to those who ask him?
Now, it's an odd verse. It's really weird talking about fish and a serpent and stone. It's odd.
This verse tells me that God is not going to bait and switch you.
You're not going to pray for this, and he's going to give you something complete opposite.
As humans, we're broken.
We screw up. We can't seem to get it right. And if we're able to give our children good things, how much more will our Father in heaven give to us?
He's perfect in every single way, and he knows us.
I don't pray to change God. I pray to change me because I want more of him and less of me.
The cool thing about this idea of ask, seeking, and knocking is they're all actions, and they're all actions that come with a response.
So ask, receive, seek and find.
Knock, and it will be open.
I believe with my whole heart that God isn't going to tell you to ask and not receive.
He's not going to tell you seek and then hide from us, and he's not going to tell you to knock and never answer the door.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You're saying, rach, this sounds great, but I prayed to God. When I needed him the most, when I needed him to show up, when I needed the answer to be yes.
And he said no.
There's gonna be a moment in your life where Christ says no to you if he hasn't already.
There was a moment in Jesus life where he was in the garden of Gethsemane and he was praying his heart out.
His friends had fallen asleep on him, and he simply prayed that God would allow this cup to pass before him.
And God said no.
And Jesus went on to save us from our sins, the punishment that we so rightly deserved.
When the answer is no, that's when you need God the most.
Christ is our example. What did he do when the answer was no? He stayed and he prayed.
He didn't leave. He didn't run away. He stayed and he prayed.
And then he ended his prayer with, may it not be my will, but your will be done.
I believe that God doesn't do anything that doesn't contribute to his own glory.
When the answer is no. In my life, I look for his glory to be shown, because that's who he is. His glory is shown. You just have to look for it. And it might take a long time, but I promise you, his glory will be shown.
Philip Brooks says nothing lies outside the reach of prayer except that which lies outside the will of God.
If my prayers aren't part of God, I want no part of them.
Do you believe his will is best for you?
Friends, I think today is the day that you say, enough is enough.
And you need to ask and you need to seek, and you need to be persistent in prayer. After a God who loves you so much, he calls you by name.
It's an invitation. But will you accept?
Invite him in and see what he will do. Because here's the thing. God took the ugliness of me and he gave me his beauty.
This is the kind of God that I want to seek.
This is the God that I want to seek with my whole heart.
Because, friends, when you pray, you have nothing to lose. And you have everything to gain.
Heavenly Father, I love you and I thank you for these words.
You are good and you are awesome. And I believe that every single person that is here and watching online that they needed to hear this message.
I have been praying since I knew I was going to be up here. People that needed to hear this message would be here.
And I pray that you would cultivate something in every single person's heart and that your name would be glorified through it all, no matter where they are in their walk with you. I just pray that they would want to be more connected to you.
We bear your image because of the sacrifice that you made.
I love you and I thank you for who you are and all that you do. And may your name be glorified through it all. In your name we pray. Amen.
