Part 2: The Promises of Prayer – Aug 12, 2018
Scripture: Jeremiah 29;11-14, Psalm 63:1-8, Philippians 4:4-7, Matthew 7:7-11
This morning we continue our series on Prayer. We come to prayer with a lot of expectations. We expect God to hear us and we expect the solution we’ve asked for in the timeframe that we’ve laid out.
We come by these expectations honestly, especially when we consider the verses in Scripture that promise that whatever we ask will be granted to us. Five times in the Gospel of John, between chapters 14 and 16, Jesus is recorded as saying some variation of “ask and I will give it to you.”
including this verse from John 15 last week: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
These sweeping, extravagant promises from Jesus about prayer and others like them in scripture set up a real struggle for us – we pray for healing and the person dies; we pray for our team to win and they lose; we pray to get into that college and are denied, we pray to get that new job or that promotion and are passed over. You get the point.
These seemingly unanswered prayers lead some to conclude that prayer doesn’t matter. That Jesus didn’t mean what he said about giving us what we asked for, that God doesn’t keep promises. Why should I pray when my prayer won’t be answered? Clearly, God isn’t listening to me.
We think, maybe if I pray harder, maybe if I get someone else to pray for me, maybe if I was just more faithful, then God would answer my prayers.
When we think, that prayer is about negotiating with God, when we pray things like: God, if you help me get this job then I’ll go to church every Sunday or we say, God if you let my team win then I’ll give you all the thanks. When we pray like this we are living in an if/then relationship with God. If God does this, then I’ll do that or If I do this, then God will do that.
If this is the kind of relationship that God wants with us, then there is no need for grace, no need for mercy. Our prayer life would come down to making sure that we pray in the right way, for God to hear our prayers, for God to answer in the way that we expect. This makes prayer very complicated and sets us up for lots of disappointment.
My friends, when it comes to prayer, maybe, our focus is in the wrong place, maybe instead of focusing on getting the answers we want, we need to acknowledge the mystery of prayer. That God alone is God, and that God, and God’s ways, are beyond our understanding.
You see, I believe that God does indeed answer prayer –
sometimes with a hearty ‘yes,’ answering our prayer just like we’ve asked it to be answered.
sometimes the answer is a hard ‘no’. No, the solution you want is not what is best for you, it’s not what is best for others, it’s not what brings God glory. And yes, even this, even “no” is an answer to prayer.
And sometimes the answer is “not yet” – or maybe or slow down. None of us like to be told: “not yet”. We want everything right now! But sometimes God says, slow down, there might be a solution, an answer that is better than you can imagine now. And yes, even “not yet” is an answer to prayer.
A prayer for healing is always answered – sometimes just not in the way we’ve hoped – the cure, the healing, may not be in our physical bodies, it may not come in this life, but healing will always come on the other side of life, it always comes in Jesus.
Maybe instead of focusing on getting answers to our prayers, we need to focus on God’s invitation, God’s command to “ask.”
The encouragement to ask for what we need, to ask for God’s intervention in our lives is powerful. It means that God is genuinely interested in us – in you and me – it means that God wants to be part of our lives, wants to completely and lovingly shepherd us to streams of living water.
Like Jesus said in the reading from Matthew this morning: 7“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
It sounds so easy, right. Just ask.
We know that there’s a difference between asking and telling. Jesus doesn’t say “tell”; “tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.” Jesus doesn’t say “tell” me your solution and I’ll implement it for you – giving you the results you expect.
No, Jesus says “ask”. In my mind, there’s a difference between asking for your team to win the game, which, by the way, implies that you’re praying for the other team to lose the game, and oh, by the way, they’re also praying to win and therefore for you to lose. What does God do with that?
Anyway, there’s a difference between asking for your team to win the game and praying, asking, that the game will be well-played and that everyone will do their best and that no one will be harmed. This is a prayer that both teams can pray.
This encouragement, to ask, is an invitation to a deeper relationship, an invitation to trust that the Lord is near, as Paul writes in Philippians. The Lord is near, already present in whatever circumstance, whatever situation, you are praying about. This is good news, right? You believe it, right?
Therefore, Paul writes, rejoice always. This was an important message for the church at Philippi that was facing all kinds of hardships, all kinds of struggles, just as it is for us today. We don’t rejoice because life is easy. No, the call to rejoice is the call to acknowledge that the Lord is near, that you, that we, are not going through the difficulty, whatever it may be, alone.
And because the Lord is near, we need not worry about anything. This is not permission to just sit around twiddling your thumbs waiting for God to work everything out, no, knowing, believing, trusting that the Lord is near is an antidote to worry, to the anxiety and fear that can, that does, paralyze us.
Because the Lord is near, actively present in our lives, worry doesn’t have to control us, doesn’t need to consume our thoughts, instead Paul tells us that in EVERYTHING, in the good, the bad, and the ugly, in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
In Everything – no scenario is outside of God’s concern for you. No situation is too small, God wants to receive it all, to be near, is near in all of it, already.
This is the kind of relationship that God has with us. A relationship of presence, of love, of hope, not dependent on how good we are, or the words we use or the way we pray, God longs for you to be free of your burdens, your worry, and so gives to us this gift of prayer.
Paul says, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving –
by prayer, let prayer, let abiding in Jesus, carry you through each moment of every day,
by supplication, a fancy word for asking, asking in everything, in every moment of concern, every moment of hope; every moment of worry, every moment of joy; every moment of sorrow and every moment of delight; every moment of pain and every moment of pleasure – ask.
With Thanksgiving – giving thanks for God’s presence already, giving thanks for the work that God has already done, is doing, and will continue to do
By prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving
Let your requests be made known to God – your requests, that’s a powerful word, a reminder that we’re not in charge, we aren’t in a position to tell God what to do – and so we make our requests known, we ask.
And then we get this beautiful promise, ‘and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.’
When our focus is on the One who gives us the gift of prayer, on the One who is already here, and on the One to whom we pray, God’s peace comes to us.
Notice it’s not, our peace, not my peace, Paul doesn’t say, “and the peace of you, which surpassing all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.’ No Paul doesn’t say that this is my peace or your peace in which we abide, in which we pray.
Instead, Paul is clear – it’s the peace of God, the peace of God which holds us tightly, the peace of God which guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus as we abide in the vine of Jesus, while we wait, while we live, and while we pray.
And so, my friends, The Lord who is near, encourages us to ask, to let our requests be known, and the hope and peace of Christ will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus – these are the promises of prayer.
Let us pray….