REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Repeat the verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Heb. 10:14)
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
INTRODUCTION
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:5-8)
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. The Problem of the Sweeping Promises
2. The Encouragement of Divine Correctives
REVIEW
LOGIC BEHIND PRAYER
(a) We pray because Jesus prayed.
(b) God is love and yearns for a relationship with mankind. Prayer is the vehicle he has provided to cultivate this relationship.
(c) God chose a partnership as way to run the world and prayer is the means to give us a role in the partnership.
SOME KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL PRAYER
The “Parable of the Persistent Widow” shows us the need to be specific in what we prayer for, to come in total dependence / helpless, to be desperate / passionate, to have confidence that we are being heard and will prevail, and to persistent. We must remember we come to a loving father and not an unrighteous and uncaring judge.
INTRODUCTION FOR TODAY
QUESTION: If God, our dear heavenly Father, is not like the unrighteous, uncaring judge, why do we need to be persistent in prayer before He will answer?
QUESTION: If you pray as passionately and persistently as the widow, will your prayer be answered at all?
QUESTION: Last week Larry asked a question something like this: If a person is a sincere believer, walking with the Lord and is praying in faith, why won’t God answer his prayer?
PROBLEMS WITH THE PROMISES
I. THE PROBLEM OF “SWEEPING PROMISES”
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened (Mt. 7:7-8).
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer (Mt. 21:22).
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours (Mark 11:24).
He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you (Luke 17:6).
Based on these promises it seems there need be no unanswered prayers. In fact John Newton wrote:
Come, my soul, thy suit prepare.
Jesus loves to answer prayer.
He, himself has bid they pray
Therefore will not say thee nay.
ILL: In Of Human Bondage Somerset Maugham recounts an incident from childhood, slightly fictionalized in the novel, an incident from which his faith never recovered. The main character, Philip, has just discovered the verse in Mark which says, “Whatever you ask in my name, believing, you will receive it.” He thinks immediately of his clubfoot: He would be able to play football. His heart leaped as he saw himself running faster than any of the other boys. At the end of Easter term there were sports, and he would be able to go in for the races; he rather fancied himself leaping over the hurdles. It would be splendid to be like everyone else, not to be stared at curiously by new boys who did not know about his deformity. He prayed with all the power in his soul. No doubts assailed him. He was confident in the Word of God. And the night before he was to go back to school he went up to bed tremulous with excitement. There was snow on the ground, and Aunt Louisa had allowed herself the unaccustomed luxury of a fire in her bedroom, but in Philip’s little room it was so cold that his fingers were numb, and he had great difficulty undoing his collar. His teeth chattered. The idea came to him that he must do something more unusual to attract the attention of God, and so he turned back the rug which was in front of his bed so he could kneel on the bare boards. It then struck him that his nightshirt was a softness that might displease his Maker, so he took it off and said his prayers naked. When he got into bed he was so cold that for some time he could not sleep, but when he did, it was so soundly that Mary Ann had to shake him when she brought him water the next morning. She talked to him while she drew the curtains, but he did not answer; he had remembered at once that this was the morning of the miracle. His heart was filled with joy and gratitude. His first instinct was to put down his hand and feel the foot which was whole now, but to do this seemed to doubt the goodness of God. He knew that his foot was well. But at last he made up his mind, and with the toes of his right foot he just touched his left. The he passed his hand over it. He limped downstairs just as Mary Ann was going into the dining room for payers, and then he sat down to breakfast. “You’re very quiet this morning, Philip,” said Aunt Louisa presently. (Prayer, Yancey, Pg. 216-217)
QUESTION: The main question about prayer is not “Does God answer prayer?” but “Why is He so inconsistent?” Especially, in the light of the “Sweeping Promises” why is God so inconsistent?”
WE MUST SYNTHESIZE ALL THE PROMISES(INCLUDING THE CONDITIONAL PROMISES).
Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven (Mt. 18:19).
And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father (John 14:13).
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you (John 15:7).
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him (I John 3:21-22).
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us (I John 5:14).
Synthesizing all of the promises gives us a better idea of how prayer works.
WHY GOD CAN’T ANSWER EVERY PRAYER
QUESTION: What is the truth in the following statement?
“When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.” (Oscar Wilde)
QUESTION: What is the truth in the following statement?]
“A God that should fail to hear, receive, and attend to one single prayer, the feeblest or worst, I cannot believe in; but a God that would grant every request of every man or every company of men would be an evil God – – that is no God, but a demon” (George McDonald in Yancey, Prayer, pg. 152.
QUESTION: Why would absolute success in prayer be equated to magic?
“The essence of a request is that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them. Invariable “success” in prayer would not prove the Christian doctrine at all. It would prove something much more like magic.” (C.S. Lewis in Prayer, Yancey, Pg. 234)
QUESTION: Why would answering every prayer be equivalent to abdicating responsibility for running the world?
“By answering every possible prayer, God would in effect abdicate, turning the world over to us to run.” (Prayer, Yancey, Pg. 228)
Someone asked Mahatma Gandhi, “If you were given the power to remake the world, what would you do first?” He replied, “I would pray for power to renounce that power.” (Prayer, Yancy, Pg. 229.
II. THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF DIVINE CORRECTIVES
REMEMBER…THE TRINITY IS INVOLVED IN PRAYER
“An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. … But if he is a Christian, he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the man who was God – that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening? God is the Being to which he is praying – the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the Being inside him, which is pushing him on – the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers.” (C. S. Lewis)
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:26-27).
ILL: Early in my missionary career I had a translator who did not realize that in most Psalms the little headings, e.g. “For the director of music, or “For Jeduthun, a Psalm of David” is listed in the Indonesian translation as verse 1 in the Psalm. Thus in Psalm 62, vs 1 of the English translation is verse 2 in the Indonesian translation, and verse 2 is verse 3 etc. The translator did not realize this and was continually getting the verse wrong when he was translating for a Western speaker into Indonesian. He was consistently reading the wrong verse. The speaker would say, let’s read verse 7, whereas in Indonesian they should be reading vs. 8 etc.
This is not true of us when we pray. We may be praying out of the will of God, really off track, but God the Holy Spirit translates our prayers, gets them right and communicates them to the Father in heaven.
Is not it wonderful that our loving Father has a built in corrective so that even our most immature prayers are passed on to Him according to His will.
ILL: We are like little children that are praying for a motorbike when the parents know that what is really needed is a three wheel trainer.
ILL: I was married for 30 years to my ex-wife. We had some good times and good years but overall she was very unhappy married to me and as I look back it seems like her life-time goal was to change me. She was often disappointed, frustrated, and angry with me. I often reciprocated with anger and become frustrated. But I did try to change. I read all the books on marriage she gave me, went to seminars on marriage (often alone), memorized verses on marriage, fasted and prayed about our marriage, went to counseling on marriage, with her and alone. And of course prayed and prayed for healing in our marriage. I think I changed a lot over those years. Others said I did but Connie didn’t think I did. Connie was a very frustrated individual. One of our counselors told me that Connie really didn’t know what she wanted in our marriage, in a husband. And of course I was not at all happy. After all of those years of trying I could never really make her happy and believe me I did try. I was really frustrated. Then one day an officer of the court came to our home with a paper saying that I am to appear before the judge and that Connie is filing for a legal separation. I had never dreamed of doing that and never thought she would ever do that. Eventually all of this led to a divorce. Now, why didn’t God answer my prayer? What didn’t he answer Connie’s prayers for I know she prayed for me. Or did God answer my prayer? If she had not got the court to provide a legal separation I would still be married to her. That would not be a solution for her and for me. Was the legal separation, the divorce “a severe mercy,” God’s answer to a human dilemma that two humans could not sort out? Did God see that Connie would eventually have a nervous breakdown married to me? Did He see that I would forever be limited in any kind of ministry married to her? These are difficult questions because God hates divorce. But could God have answered all of my prayers?
So Jesus commands us to pray and we are told to pray in His name. But then when we pray, the Spirit translates our prayers, our requests and fixes them up and presents them to the Father. The whole Trinity is involved in the ministry of prayer.
PRAY BIBLICAL PRAYER REQUESTS
All live worthy of our calling as God’s children [I Thes]
Grasp the extent of God’s love [Eph 3:14-19]
Know what God is calling us to do [Eph. 1:17-19]
Love will flourish [Phil. 1:9]
Extend His Kingdom [Mt. 6:10]
Gospel run and triumph [II Thes. 3:1]
Save unbelievers [Rom. 10:1]
Strategic wisdom [James 1:15]
Strength to persevere [I Thes. 1:11]
All will be good workers for Christ [Col. 1:10]
That the faith of God’s children would not fail [Jesus prayer for Peter]
Boldness in proclamation [Eph. 6:18-19]
Healing of wounded comrades [James 5:14-15]
Greater Faith [Eph. 3:17]
Do good works [Col. 1:10]
When we pray Biblical prayer requests we are aligning ourselves with the purposes of God!!!!
ILL: Send forth laborers [Lk. 10:2] “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” When you pray that God would call and send out workers to work among a specific tribal group or a specific country that needs harvesters you are always praying in the will of God!!!
DELAYS IN ANSWERS CHANGES OUR PERSPECTIVE
“If you want to see God smile, tell Him your plans.”
“Prayer may not always get what we want; but it always gets what God wants.”
“And here’s something I’ve found over the years. The more time I spend in prayer and learning about God from His Word, the more my passions start to conform to His interests and desires. Selfishness is replaced by a real desire for what He wants. And the things that matter most to Him start to matter more to me. And as my interests start to align themselves with God’s interests, the power of prayer becomes more evident and the results from my prayers increase” (David Hoke).
Initially my prayer request may be selfish but as I pray, little by little I come to see things differently. I know a person who always talked about purchasing a Lexus when he had enough money. Now he says that that was wrong and he is focusing on buying a used Honda. God’s not answering our prayers, even good prayers, is an answer to someone else’s prayer, that God may give us a correct perspective.
SO WHAT???
1. When we claim God’s promises it is best to claim them as a group of promises so that we don’t forget the qualifiers.
2. God, because He is love, hears our prayers; God, because He is holy, cannot answer all our prayers.
3. God has called us to reign with Him, to partner with Him in governing the world. If He granted all of our prayer requests He would be abdicating and letting us run the world.
4. We have a hard time praying the will of God but the Holy Spirit prays in and through us, correcting our prayers.
5. Delayed answers to prayers are one of God’s methods of helping us get His perspective.