The Year of Deepening Devotion IV, Hi-Impact Prayerobics, The Mystery of Unanswered Prayers

If you would, right away to Isaiah 55, Isaiah 55, and I'll begin reading at verse 8, Isaiah 55 and verse 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. How many of you have heard that verse before? Are you glad it's there or does it cause you consternation? I expect as I begin this morning, this is one of those messages where we all start on level ground. How many people here have had at least one prayer that has not seemingly been answered? Lift your hand up. If you see a hand not lifted, just ask them how they've done it. How did you do that? Think for just a moment, if you're writing down notes, think for just a moment, what prayer right now are you asking that hasn't been answered? Is there a loved one for whom you're praying? Is there a need in your life that you've been praying and it just hasn't happened? There's probably no more common experience in this room than unanswered prayer. Every week I look into the eyes of someone who says, I'm still believing, but I haven't seen it happen. Worse yet, I hear the word from someone saying, well, the divorce was final this week, I lost the job we were praying for. I'll hear some statement like, well, my son ran away from home anyhow. And I knew that something had happened that week that kind of shattered the dreams of the people that the prayer that they'd been holding onto would be answered. Inevitably, some of these folks eventually slip into a despair or depression and some even leave the faith because they say, if I can't trust God to answer that, how can I trust Him for my eternal life? Others go on, but they're far less positive, far less prayerful, far less hopeful and expectant. And dear ones, let me just say to you that I awakened this morning about a quarter to five, which is a little later than I normally get up for prayer. And I'm just kidding. I woke up at a quarter to five because the Lord quickened my heart to pray. And you know what He spoke to my heart? He said, in my heart, He was saying, there are many people that will be here today for whom this is a very important message. Because if your prayers aren't answered and you let it become a stumbling block, it will. And you'll begin to grow hard in your heart to God and you'll begin to want to ignore the things of God. So I implore you today, there are some people for whom this is a life and death message. That's what the Lord really impressed me with earlier this morning. It's a serious message because God wants to answer our prayers. I want you to know more than anything, God is a loving God. And He wants to answer prayer. Last Sunday morning, I don't remember if it was this service, I know in the first, we prayed for Herman Sayre, whose little grandson was born with a hole in his heart just last week. Very serious condition. Doctors didn't know if he would make it. They had a seven-hour open-heart surgery operation. We prayed. And Herman came in this week and said, God's heard our prayer. The baby's doing much better. He's now nursing with his mom. He's out of ICU. God's answering prayer. We love those stories, but sometimes we don't get those stories. And what is the Lord doing then? What is He saying at those times? Well, let me start by declaring a ground rule. And here it is. You've got to believe this to start, that God is a loving Father who wants to answer your prayers. He wants you to call to Him and He wants to answer. Listen to what Jesus said. Whatever you ask in My name, I will do it that the Father may be glorified. You see, the reason why God wants to answer prayer is because He wants everyone to know through you that He's God. And when you can stand in front of some people who don't believe in God and say, well, I know God's alive because... then you've got something to say. Jesus said, if you then who are evil would give good gifts as parents to your kids, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him? Or these words in 1 John 5, verse 14. And this is the confidence which we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we've obtained the request we've made of Him. God wants to answer prayer. Do you believe that today? He wants to do it. So He's not looking for a way to make you jump through certain hoops. He's yearning to answer prayer today. He wants you to walk out of here expecting that prayer that you prayed earlier this morning to be answered for His glory. But I heard a simple little outline that I want to share with you that will help you know how to get through those obstacles when prayer isn't answered. And I know we're all there. Now, these may not be profound. In fact, I said earlier, it's like a junior high outline. But how many of you know that sometimes the junior high stuff's the best that's out there? I had one of the youth staff say, that's the best, Jay. None's even close to that. This is a simple little thing, but I want to share it with you. And I'm going to hand you this outline at the end of the service, but you may want to write this down anyhow. When prayer is not answered, if the request is wrong, then the Lord may be saying, no, no. If the timing is wrong, then the Lord may be saying, slow, slow down, wait a minute, not yet. If you are the problem, the Lord may be saying, grow, grow up. But if those three things are being dealt with, if those three things are right, then the Lord, when it comes to unanswered prayer, will turn things around and say, go, go for it, do it. I want to answer prayer. In the middle of the week, I handed our North Way staff a little questionnaire that said, give me the two reasons why you think your prayers aren't answered. And I can't think of a more illustrious cross-section than the North Way staff, can you? And all the secretaries and all the pastors and all the support people. The number one reason why they said their prayers weren't answered is they work too much. That's what they all said. No, they didn't. You're going to find, as I share, what I thought was true. That they have the same questions that you have. You see, these are things that we all wrestle with. The beginning point is, if the request is wrong, then the Lord just may say no. Now, these may be well-intentioned requests, but nonetheless, they may still be somewhat selfish. Remember James and John? I love these two guys. They were disciples after my own heart. In Matthew 20, 23, they said, Jesus, we want you to do something for us. And what did Jesus say? Sure, what is it? What was their request, you remember? He said, Lord, let us sit in your right hand and on your left. Now, you've got to love those guys, right? I mean, they're thinking about heaven. They're not even messing around with this world. They're saying, God, we want heaven. We want to be on the right and on the left. We want to be, you know, hit man one and hit man two in heaven. And Jesus said, wait a minute. What was his answer? No. He said, that's not for me to give. He said, you can't have that. That's not a right request. Now, can you think of one time when you prayed a prayer something like this? Oh, Lord, let me demolish this guy in the tennis court tonight. You know? Lord, let me lead the fastest growing home group in America. I want to be the, you know, I want to be out there. And, you know, we tend to sometimes consciously or unconsciously pray things that are for our own benefit, regardless of what it may mean to others around us. That's what James and John were doing. They never thought that maybe God had other ideas about who would sit on his right hand and on his left. Sometimes these requests are positive, but the motives are wrong. They're not, they wouldn't be pure motives. James and John again, remember those? That time when they were going on to Jerusalem and they stopped in this village and the people didn't want to talk to Jesus, and what did they say to him in Luke 9? Lord, can we call down fire on these people? I mean, can we burn them up, you know? Real compassion pouring out of their spirit. And what did Jesus say? No. I didn't come to burn people up. I came to love people, you know. And sometimes our motives, it may sound even right. Have you ever prayed, Lord, I want peace in my marriage? So change my husband, you know, or change my wife. And it sounds good, but you see, the motive isn't right because what you want is control. Lord, bless our business so that we can give more to Christ, more to the kingdom of God. But underneath, maybe the motive is so that we can have a little more power and control and influence too. Sometimes the request is wrong because it may not be God's will. And here's where we get a little sticky. How do you know if it's God's will for you to transfer to Chicago? How do you know if it's God's will for you to marry the person you're sitting beside hoping that he's going to ask you? Now you're getting personal again. How do you know if it's God's will that you're going to go to this college or accept this offer to do something new in life? You see, not everything is all that clear all the time. Remember Paul's thorn in the flesh? Remember that he describes it in 2 Corinthians 12? He said, I had this thing, this terrible thorn. In fact, the Bible records that it was so bad that when he went into cities, people wouldn't give him any authority because they saw this thing. They said, well, if you're an apostle, you wouldn't have this thing hanging on you. And he said he prayed three times for the Lord to remove it, and God didn't remove it. It wasn't God's will. So how do you know when it's God's will, and what do you do in those cases? Very often we have to come to terms with this. Let me just try to clarify the mystery a bit. My own conviction is this, and I know I'll have some who maybe won't agree, but I have found that 95% of the things I need to know about God's will are right in here. I'm holding this up so you can all see it. This is God's will. God's word is His will. If you need to know whether or not God wants you to be healed, read about it in here. If you need to know whether or not God wants your loved one to come to Christ and to have a relationship with God, read about it in here. The Bible says, for example, He wants no one to perish, that all could have eternal life. Most of the things we need to know about are in here. Most of the gray areas even get in here. Does it glorify God to do what you're going to do? Then you'll know if it's God's will or not. But those things that are choices, maybe between two good things. Well, I have a job offer to go to Boston and a job offer to go to Dallas. Where do I go? Well, that 5% falls into the category where what you need to do is make the best possible decision you can make. Put all the circumstances in order and say, Well, this, this, and this, and this is the pay, and this is the benefits, and these are the people I'll be with, and all those things. And then say this, Lord, this is what I believe I'm to do, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. Nevertheless, Lord. I mean, this is what I think I'm to do, and I'm going to proceed this way. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. Who prayed a prayer like that? Jesus Christ at the garden knew what He wanted to do, but He said, Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. Now, dear ones, that is a very, very important thing. Because if you insist on your will, sometimes you'll get second best. I remember just about four years ago, we were seated in a cold auditorium just down the road called St. Teresa's Church. How many of you were not here then? Okay. Most of you. That's what I figured. That's true. We were a much smaller church then. And it was cold, and I remember that first time we couldn't get the temperature above 50 in the sanctuary that first Sunday. We worshipped with our parkas on and our down jackets and stuff. Well, but we didn't know what we were to do, and we started praying, Well, Lord, maybe this is the building. And I know some people felt that the Lord had shown them this is what we were to have. And so they said, Well, let's pray for this building. We started praying for St. Teresa's to be our home church facility. Well, every time we took a step to try to get that property and to take ownership, the Lord closed the door. He kept saying, No, no, no. Well, we finally got the message. Okay, Lord, no. Why did He do that? Because He wanted us to be here. You see, four months after we started praying that prayer, someone picked up the newspaper, and here was this building for sale again. And the Lord said, Yes. Now, dear ones, I don't know about you, but I'd much rather be right here than down there. How about you say amen to that? You see, that's the truth. Why? Because the Lord was saying, No, because He didn't love us. He was saying, No, because He had something better. He had something better. And many times, that's just why He's doing it. Now, there may be cases where He says, No, and you never understand why. But He wants to see in that time, will you trust Him even when you don't understand? Will you trust Him? Will you trust His character and His Father heart and His love? I know a businessman that's here today who was seeking after a job, had pursued it, had interviews, and all. He said, Pray that I get this job. Pray that I get this job. We prayed. He called me up one day. He said, I didn't get the job. He was heartbroken. He was angry with God. He said, You know, God doesn't love me. My family isn't making it. Six weeks later, the company folded. And he was spared. He was spared all the grief of going through the whole thing, being cast back out, and the Lord supplied a different job, a better job for him. So, if your request isn't right, the Lord will say, No. Number two, if the timing isn't right, let's put that overhead up again. If the timing isn't right, the Lord will say, Slow. Let's all say it. Slow. That's a word that we don't find very easy to say in our culture. As I've said on a number of occasions, even in the computer age, there's relative speeds. I have people in the office say, This computer is so slow. It's only doing two billion calculations a second. It would take them 14 weeks to type this document over again, but the computer does it in five minutes, and it's too slow. Well, it's all getting relative anymore. But I know this. When I hear the words, Not yet. How about your little ones? When they hear the words, Not yet. Oh, they hate those words. Mommy, is dinner ready? Not yet. Oh, I'm so hungry. Ever go on a trip? Three miles from home. Are we there yet? Not yet. Oh, there's a moaning. You're going to Philadelphia. It's like, Oh. The whole trip's going to be moaning and groaning. We're just like kids when it comes to prayer. Many times we're saying, Lord, is it coming today? And it's good to have a posture of faith. But let's be careful not to tell God when He's got to deliver. It's not a wise prayer to say, Lord, I want it now. I want it now. Have you ever found yourself saying, Come on, Lord. Come on, Lord. I thought about it. What a ridiculous thing to say to God. Come on, Lord. Like He needs encouragement to get off His duff or something. I say that. I mean, come on, Lord. Ridiculous thing. God's timing in our lives is very, very important. It's so important to be able to trust Him. Remember when Jesus was at the wedding and His mother came to Him and said, They're having trouble here. They don't have any wine. What did He say? He said, Oh, dear woman, what have you to do with me? My time, my hour has not yet come. It's not the right time. It's not the right time. Paul wanted to go on into Asia and the Holy Spirit forbade him to go. Why? Because he didn't want those people to be saved. No, it just wasn't God's time. Timing is so important in our lives and God is the one who decides, Yes, you'll get that answer or not yet. But listen, dear ones, God's delays are not necessarily His denials. I'll say that again. God's delays are not necessarily God's denials. Well, how do I know then? How do I know if He's really said? Because two things. Number one, your spirit will keep coming back and saying, Oh, Lord, this seems so right. You'll keep wanting to come back to the Lord with that same request. And number two, circumstantially, God will sometimes make it, He'll seal it shut. I'll just use an illustration off the top of my head. I have people who pray to be reconciled to a separated spouse. Well, then the spouse goes off, moves to the other side of the country, gets married again, has three kids, and this woman's still back here praying for God to reconcile their marriage. Well, that's a good time to take a hint that God's saying, No, I'm not going to do that. And that's the difference. On the other hand, I've had people pray for reconciliation, and it's taken months or years, and then in God's time, He unites them back together. Now, this raises a very important issue, church, and this was the number two reason why our illustrious staff said that their prayers weren't answered, and it's this simple word, lack of persistence. Lack of persistence. Lack of hanging in there until the answer came. Oh, tell you what, we're good at giving things up. We are not what I call a highly disciplined spiritual outfit. We're not necessarily willing to hang in there, and yet Jesus said, Knock and keep on knocking. Ask and keep on asking. In fact, the Greek New Testament word there, in those phrases, is in the present tense. Those verbs are in the present tense in the Greek, which means keep doing it. Keep the present action. Keep doing it. Keep knocking. Keep asking. Keep seeking, and you'll find. Remember the story in Luke 18 of the widow? I don't have time to tell you the whole story, but this widow just wouldn't let this judge rest until he gave her justice. And really what it is, it's a contrast. We have a widow who's a nag, and a judge who hates God and man, and the judge finally gives the widow justice. And Jesus says, How much more will your heavenly Father give you justice if you just keep coming? But my favorite one, and I just mark it down so you'll look it up later, is in Daniel 10. Listen to this. Daniel had this request to be delivered from his enemies, and here's what the angel said to him in Daniel 10 verse 12. Church, many times the moment you pray a prayer, God hears it, and God sends the answer. But listen. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days before I could be here. There are answers to your prayers that God has sent from the throne of heaven that are on their way. But there's resistance. And the question for many of us today is will we give up? If it's 21 days, or 21 months, or 21 years, if God keeps it in your spirit, don't give up. Don't give up. I know of a person who prayed 40 years for their spouse to come to Christ. When he was 65 years old, he came to the Lord. If the Lord puts that in your heart, that's a godly request. Don't give up. You're praying for your parents today, young people. Don't quit praying for them. Persistence. That's the number two reason why our prayers don't get answered, is because we just give up too quickly. We get soft. S.D. Gordon, a great man of God of another generation, wrote these words which I think really say it well. Prayer is a fiercely contested conflict. Satan is a trained strategist and an obstinate fighter. He refuses to acknowledge defeat until he must. It is the fight for his life. He only yields when he must. And he only yields then what is taken from him. Therefore, the ground must be taken step by step by step. You see, sometimes God says, Not yet. Because He's going to see if your character will withstand the test of waiting for that answer to come. Remember in John 11 when Lazarus was sick and the people came to Jesus and said, Come heal Lazarus, he's dying. And what did Jesus say? No, not yet. Now that must have seemed awful callous. It must have seemed like Jesus didn't care. If you're out here today and God hasn't answered your prayer, don't believe the lie that God doesn't care. Jesus said, I've got to wait. He waited four days, then he went to Lazarus. The man was dead. Dead for four days. And the greatest miracle of the New Testament, God spoke, Jesus spoke into that tomb and out walked this man four days dead. Four days dead. I don't know about you, every funeral I go to I think of what that must have been like. I mean, I just, I think of what it must have been like to watch that stone roll over and watch this guy walk out with all these bandages on. Why did Jesus wait? Because he wanted to do a greater thing. A greater thing. In your life, if it hasn't come yet, it may be because God wants to do a greater thing. About four years ago, Carol and I were praying about, we had a small house and we had moved into a rented house and we were praying, is this where the Lord wanted us to be or not? And we looked and started looking at pieces of land and houses and every place we looked it just kept saying, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. No answer. Nothing. Nothing was happening. Finally we gave up. We said, well Lord, we'll just stay here. Just stay here. We're not going to force it. And about two and a half years after that, circumstances changed all around. The Lord opened a marvelous door and we were able to build a much nicer home than we would have had we pushed it four years ago. You see, God knows. How many believe he knows better than we do? And if he's saying wait, then just trust him and wait. But we don't like those character building times. We want it now. We want the convenience. We don't want the 7-11 prayers. God's saying just wait and I'll show you greater things. And even if it doesn't come, listen, God said my grace will be worth it. My grace will be sufficient. My character, my revelation of who I am will be worth it for you. Sometimes there's sweeter things than answered prayer and that's a revelation of God. Number three, your prayers may not be answered because you are wrong and if you are wrong, the Lord may say to you, grow. Grow. It's time to grow up. It's time to get past the childish things. On my staff survey, this was the number one reason that the staff said their prayers weren't answered. Me. No, not me. You. No, all of you. Them. Them. I mean, y'all don't give me much grace here. They were just saying that their own lives were the obstacle and I have to commend them for that because most people won't admit that. Most counseling that I do when people don't have their prayers answered, they have a shaking fist attitude. God. God. They're mad at God. The church. More often than not, it's us. We're the ones that are in the way. Probably the greatest sin attitude that we have is the sin of prayerlessness. James 4-2, the brother of Jesus, you have not because you ask not. How often do you really pray for something? I mean, you know, we think about it. Oh, you know, we really need to pray about that. You know, it comes out of our mouth one time and then we forget about it. Have you ever told someone when they shared a request with you and you said, hey, I'll be praying for you. You ever done that? Then they come to you a week later and they say, oh, man, God answered my prayer. You haven't prayed for them at all. You know, you say, oh, that's great. Man, I was really, you know. Seriously, how many of you have said, sure, I'll pray for you, but you forget. Very seriously. I don't know of anything that is more concerned to me than the fact that the church, even here in Pittsburgh, is not praying. The greatest power in all the universe is available to the church and we're not tapping into it. And folks, it isn't the place of a pastor or prophet or anyone else to stand up on a platform and beg people to pray. God Almighty has got to put a conviction in your heart that when He said in His Word that He would do anything we ask Him to do, He meant it. That when He said in His Word He's given us all authority in heaven and on earth for the sake of the church, that He meant it. I've got pastor friends here now for 15 years in this city and I hear of prayer meetings that start out with a bang and end up with three people and finally die because nobody comes. And we'll not take this city. We'll not see the change we desire until we all sense something new of the spirit of prayer. You want to know why Korea is seeing such incredible revival with millions of people coming to Christ? Because they're praying. And I don't know why that is. I don't know why God just... But there they are, 500,000 in one church. Can you imagine that? It's just tremendous when people set themselves to pray. Why? Because they're praying every morning for a couple of hours, praying Friday night all night. They're going up to these retreat centers in the mountains to pray. And you say, well, boy, I could never do that. Well, I don't know about that because I think, you know, we're just not hungry enough. We have so much stuff. We have so much to occupy ourselves with. We have, you know, late night television so that we can't get up early in the morning. I'm sharing my own heart. These are struggles that I have but I know you must have them too. But I believe God is saying something to us. Prayerlessness won't be tolerated. And it's so linked to the other sin, the sin of unbelief. We don't believe it. I mean, if you really believe that God's Word would not be broken, you'd pray it and you'd see it happen. When the disciples came to Jesus, they had this little guy that was epileptic and he was taking seizure and falling into water and falling onto rocks and falling into fire. And they said, why can't we help this little guy? Why can't we cast this thing out of him? Not that all epilepsy is demonic, by the way. That's not the case. And Jesus said, because of your unbelief, you don't believe that I'm going to do it. Honestly, people, do we pray sometimes and it just goes up there but it hits the ceiling and comes down again? Because we don't believe that God's going to do anything. Well, it's time to take Him at His Word and to see that His Word is not going to fail us. Jesus said, the Scripture cannot be broken. What a great promise. The Scripture cannot be broken. I think it's John 10.35. He said, well, I would look foolish in the eyes of the world if I prayed and God didn't come through. I usually say to that, well, you look foolish anyhow if you're a believer. They always think you're foolish. You might as well go the whole route. I had lunch the other day at one of the local restaurants and a man came by that I know. I count as a friend who used to come to this church pretty regularly. At a time, his business was at the bottom and he thought he might lose his home and everything else. I was saying, well, how's it going? He said, well, you know, it's going great. I just started another business. Things are really booming. And I looked right up and in the eye he said, well, I count that as an answer to prayer. And he kind of garbled a little bit. You know what I believe happened? I believe inside his spirit he realized that it was. And I might have looked foolish for just a moment because I associated prayer with his success. But I think the Holy Spirit did something inside of him to remind him that we all think that we go out and do our own thing and God says, I'm the one that gives you the power. I'm the one that does it for you. There may be sin in our lives that we are kind of protecting. Psalm 66, 18 says, If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened to me. Well, how about this one, folks? Just in case you're wondering if our relationships matter. Peter says, Likewise, you husbands, live considerably with your wives, bestowing honor on the women as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered. Men, if you're neglecting your wife, if you're abusing your wife verbally or any other way, if you're living inconsiderately with her, the Bible says, you're going to have a hard time getting your prayers answered. And women, if you are not honoring your husbands and not submitting to them as the Bible teaches, then your prayers are not going to be answered. They're going to be hindered. You see, in Malachi, and I'm ready to conclude with this, in Malachi, interestingly, the people say, Well, God, we need deliverance. We need help. We need you to come through for us. And God says this, in Malachi 1, He says, You've cheated me with your sacrifices. You've brought me these lousy lambs, blind, spotted, ugly. In Malachi 2, He said, You've cheated me with your marriages. You're unfaithful to your wives. In Malachi 3, He says, You've cheated me and withhold your tithes. You're not paying your tithes and honoring me with your resources. And God looks them right in the eye, and I can hear the Lord saying, And you want me to answer your prayers? You expect me to come through and show you great and mighty things when you won't even keep your covenant with me? Where's the integrity of that? Be not deceived. The Bible says, God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. If you're sowing into sin, you're going to reap it. And I grieve for the people who cry out to God after having all kinds of indulgences and sin, and then they say, God didn't answer me. Mercifully. How many of you know, you've prayed more than once when you didn't deserve it and God came through? And I say, God's desire, if we change our requests, if we're waiting for His timing, and if we're willing to grow up, number four, His desire is that we go. That we receive the requests that we have before Him. God wants to answer prayer. And I want to end today just with this affirmation. I believe we're going to see more prayer answered here in the month of February than we've seen in the last 12 months. I'm going to ask you in this church, when God answers a prayer for you, I want you to write it down and pass it in. I don't want just prayer requests. I want prayer answered on the board. I want to hear stories of how God has come through because we've gotten our lives in order. We've been willing to wait. And you may even hear the Lord say, you know, the Lord spoke to me. It's not going to be now, but it's coming. We want those kinds of reports too. And in a couple of weeks, two weeks, I'm going to be bringing the last message in this series on mountain-moving prayer, the kind of prayer that's different than just, you know, these requests, but real intense prayer that changes the tough situations. Next week, Pastor Scott's going to be bringing a message on the joyful life that prayer brings. And those will be the last two messages. And when we're done, second weekend of February, I believe we're going to be a different church when it comes to praying because we serve a God who wants to hear our prayers, who wants to answer them, so that an unanswered prayer is no longer a mystery, but just an opportunity to trust God and to show His character as being what it is, faithful, holy, and loving. I believe Him, don't you? I believe He's going to do it for us. Let's stand as we pray together.