Northside Church - Sydney
Open Skies: Dealing With Unanswered Prayer
He'll be listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. My best mate is a surgeon at one of Sydney's top hospitals and we were having a chat over a tie dinner a while ago and I said to him because he'd been admitted into the College of Surgeons. I said to him, "You must feel like you know everything now, now that you're a fully fledged doctor, cutting people open." And he said, "No, the more and more I get into this profession, the more I go, I don't know anything." He says, "There are times in which I see people who logically have absolutely no reason to be moving on and living inextricably be brought back from nothing." And then I see people who are on just an amazing plane and they should be at a hospital and in a couple of days and they take a term for the worst. He says, "Man, I don't know anything." And as a non-believer, as a non-Christian, it's what he said next that struck me. He said, "Sam, you know what, I've either got to be totally stupid or utterly naive not to think that there is some greater power behind what we see in this universe." Prayer. Prayer is a window into the origin of your soul, whether you like my best mate, you don't believe in God tonight, whether you do believe in God. Have you ever found that you've watched the stories on the news, someone's been trapped under a whole pile of rubble for a week and they could be the most atheistic person that you've ever met in your life. And they come out saying, "I prayed every night. I prayed desperately that God would save me." And he saved me. Why is that? Maybe it's because in those times of crisis, part of our soul, the very heart of who we are, is finally revealed. And it's that part that is revealed in the first couple of verses of the Psalm that we're going to read tonight from the Psalmist here. He says, "I cried out to God for help. I cried out to God to hear me." And when I was in distress, I sought the Lord. At night, I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted. Then in the next verse, get this, he says, "You kept my eyes from closing. I was too troubled to speak." You know, what he's saying there is he's saying, "I'm not only in distress. I'm in so much distress that I think I lack even the capacity or even the want to pray to God." Have you ever felt like that? I'll side note, I love how real the Bible is, how raw the Bible is. And so tonight, guys, my heart is burdened when I share this message with you because some of you, I know, are praying for that third job interview and still yet that prayer remains unanswered. Some of you here tonight are praying for relationships, "Where's my husband, where's my wife?" and still that prayer remains unanswered. Some of you are praying for a loved one and are recovering their health and still that prayer remains unanswered. Some of you are praying for children and still that prayer remains unanswered. Some of you got a health concern that nags you and still that prayer remains unanswered. And I know for a fact in my own life, there was many a prayer beside the bed in a hospital of 800 meters up the road when I was with my dying mother that I must have prayed a thousand prayers and I must have had that many claim in the name of Jesus and that many different incantations of ways in which I think I could pray right and get through to God and still that prayer remained unanswered. So in my relatively short time as a Christian compared to some here in this room tonight, what I've come to realize is that unanswered prayer is simply a part of the Christian life. So what do we do with that? In that rawness, we ask the question, "Can I keep believing even when my prayers go unanswered?" Can I still have faith in God when my prayers go unanswered? And every prayer, and I don't know if you felt the same way, when every prayer almost feels like a nudge towards a cliff face in your faith and you think, "God, if it's just one more that you don't shout for me on this one, that's it, it's over, it's done, I'm out." What do we do with that? And I've got two answers tonight. I've got a short answer and I've got a longer answer. My short answer tonight is, "I don't know." My longer answer, whenever I don't know, goes to this. And maybe it's James' approach, my best mate, that whether you believe in God or not tonight, you could either be stupid or totally naive if you're not to acknowledge that there's a greater force in this universe. And if we approach prayer that way, then maybe just maybe then we are going to be able to do with ourselves what the great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon said. He said that unanswered prayer is the search warrant for the human soul. And so we see a search warrant carried out in Psalm 77 that we're going to read from now, verses 1 through to 10. The Psalmist Asaph, he was a worship leader for King David. He wrote this Psalm, and he said, "I cried out to God for help. I cried out to God to hear me, and when I was in distress I sought the Lord. At night I stretched out untiring hands, and my soul refused to be comforted. I remembered you, O God, and I groaned. I mused in my spirit group faint. You kept my eyes from closing. I was too troubled to speak. I thought about the former days, the years of long ago, I remembered my songs in the night, my heart mused and my spirit inquired, will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has the promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?" And then I thought, "To this I will appeal the years of the right hand of the most high. I will remember the deeds of the Lord." Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all of your works and consider all of your mighty deeds. How do we execute a search warrant for the human soul? First we see, first point tonight, is that unanswered prayer offers you perspective. That's what verses seven and nine here of Psalm 77 say. It says, "Will the Lord reject forever, will he never show his favor again? Will his unfailing love vanish? Will his promise fail for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?" Listen to the words there, "Favor, unfailing love, promise, mercy, compassion." You see what unanswered prayer did to the psalmist? He goes straight to a sense of perspective. Perspective on who he is praying to. You see, the psalmist is saying they're the very thing that we always say when we face unanswered prayer. And the first question we're really saying deep down is, "Are my prayers even working?" It's like when the TV remote runs out of batteries, is this thing on? That's what we're asking them, "Are my prayers even getting through to you, God?" But it's really a question of how do you see who you're praying to? It's not whether or not these prayers are working. You see, because unanswered prayer shows us that our deepest needs are on the inside, not the outside, that our deepest problem is actually with our perspective, not our circumstances. And so as a result, it's our perspective that's the reason that we're worried. It's our perspective that the reason where we're anxious. It's our perspectives that's the reason that we are burdened. It's our perspective that's the reason that we're upset. And so there has to be this healing of our perspective on the needs that you have before you ever ask for them in the first place, right? Now, what do you mean a healing of perspective? I call it the Fisher and Piker to Piker principle. Fisher and Piker principle, or the washing machine principle, one or the other. But I've got a Fisher and Piker and there are times in my household where it sounds like a 6.9 magnitude earthquake has gone off in the right-hand corner of our townhouse. And I rush in there, and it's like this thing that has a life of its own. It's like a beast has possessed this thing as it continues to shake and to rumble and all sorts of crazy things are happening and it's beeping at me and it's brr-r-r-r-r-r-r. And it's like a merge. It's like this thing is going to self-destruct. What's going on? I open up the lid. I shut the whole thing down. I kill the power on the whole house. I used to be safe and I look inside and I realize that my laundry is off center and it went to do the spin cycle. Have you guys ever had that situation? All right. The laundry was off center. What I'm getting at when I'm saying that there has to be a healing of perspective, there actually has to be a de-centering of your laundry. And so when the Bible says, you know, when that you're worried and you're deeply worried about something and you want to run away and say, "God, give me this in order to fix this." What it's actually showing you is that your laundry's off center. You see, there has to be a de-centering and you need a fresh perspective on the one that you pray to. You need a fresh perspective on God. And look, we can have all sorts of different perspectives on God, right? Some people think, for example, they think God's a vending machine. And so you come to church and all the good deeds that you've done for the week are like your $2 coin and you just put your coin, prayer request into the vending machine and you know, let's have F3 and out comes the busy prayer request, that's the way you should work, right? Or others think that God is your boss, that he's your employer, and that all the great things that you've done and your diligence in all you do and all the great things that you've worked up and the prayer that you've gotten to allow that, all the hard work is accounting for something because your boss is watching and your request to God almost becomes like your timesheet. And you say, look God, look at all the stuff that I've done, give me my paycheck. Or some people think of God like a hard drive. God, I told you about that request 15 years ago. You should remember it. I should only have to tell you once because you're a computer, you're a supercomputer in the sky and you should have locked that into your brain associated with the file type called Sam Hatton and you should remember that request. You know, that's like, you know, for those who are a little bit older here, that's like saying that, well, I told my wife I loved once back in 1955, and it doesn't work that way, doesn't it? I guess it doesn't work that way, I'm still trying to figure it out. You see, that gives us an insight into terms of the right perspective on God and how it works. He can't work like that and here's the reason why, because in James 1, there are wonderful passages there that says every good thing comes from God, your heavenly Father. And that in James 1, it's saying that God liberally wants to give you every good thing that is in line with His will and His purposes, which means that there's never a good thing that you've asked for, a good thing in God terms that you've asked for that He hasn't given to you in life. And even in Isaiah 65, it says, "Before they call, I will answer." Before they call, I will answer. That's an incredible picture here. Can you see the picture that we've got here? Got this incredible picture of God as this heavenly Father who's always been away on this overseas trip, running into the front door as these kids come up to Him, and He's just desperately hiding all these wonderful goodies and presents behind His back, just waiting for them to stare up into His eyes and said, "Daddy, what did you bring us?" "Can I have a present?" And He just wants to lavish it upon them, "Why?" Because not only is the joy increased for them, but the joys increased for Him to see the wonder of the stunning good gifts upon His children. You are God's child. That's the truth of the Bible. And so you must see, perspective-wise, God is your loving Father who wants nothing more than to bestow good gifts upon you, to answer your prayer requests, which shows us a prayer works. Prayer really does work. And C.S. Lewis put it this way in his essay, a chapter in one of his essays called The Efficacy of Prayer. He says this, "For up until now, we have been tackling the whole question in the wrong way and on the wrong level. The very question does prayer work, puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. Work, as if it were magic or machine, something that functions automatically. Now, prayer is either a sheer illusion or personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons ourselves and the utterly concrete person God. Prayer in the sense of petition asking for things is a small part of it, but confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration, its sanctuary. The presence and vision and enjoyment of God is bread and wine. In prayer, God shows himself to us. That he answers prayer is an overflow, not necessarily the most important one from that revelation, and here's what I love. What he does is learned from what he is. What he does is learn from what he is. You need perspective on who you pray to. Unanswered prayer in the first instance, like the Psalmist, you've got to go back to look at the one who you're praying to, who God is. Wow, that's a smack in the face, isn't it? Particularly when you're in the middle of an unanswered prayer. But in fact, unanswered prayer is one of the best ways for you to get perspective on who you are and who God is. And so if you're the sort of person that's saying, "Hey, look God, it's not what I wanted, you haven't answered yet, and that's fine, I'll go with you," that's one thing. If you're a person coming to God and saying, "Lord, why haven't you answered my prayer?" Because you haven't answered my prayer, I'm not going to become a Christian and I'm not going to go to church, and I'm not going to do what you want me to do, and that's it, I've had enough. If that's the case, you know what he's doing, that's your soul screaming that your laundry is off center. You need perspective first, when you come to unanswered prayer. He's a loving father desperate to give you good gifts. Here's the other thing when you are executed, a search warrant for your soul in the middle of unanswered prayers, you'll actually see that prayer is a paradox. Prayer actually makes no logical sense at all, because what we're learning, if we see here that prayer gives us perspective on God, the prayer works, that a prayer is powerful, that God is a good and loving father that wants to bestow gifts upon you. If we get that, then we see that actually our prayers do change the world around us, and yet the paradox of prayer is this, that prayer changes the world around us, so you're supposed to ask God for things, but on the other hand, prayer doesn't change the world around us every time, and I'm sure you've experienced that, right? The prayer does change things, but it doesn't change things, but it does change, but it makes no sense. Which way is it? And I think part of the travel is that some people want it one way or the other, they go, "If God is sovereign, and He's controlling everything, and His hands in everything, and He is determined everything," then there's no reason to pray, because, well, He knows what He needs to do anyway. But then on the other hand, if I want my prayers answered, I want to mark it on demand, and yet I like the capacity and the wisdom to know what is best at the time. So we want it both ways, and that's where the paradox comes down, both truths are true. It makes no sense. And so I can pray knowing, you can pray knowing that your prayer will change the course of history, because there's way too many examples of that. You know, like Joshua, Joshua prays outside the walls of Jericho when they come falling down. King Hezekiah finds out that he's about to die, and he prays to God in 2 Kings, and God gives him another 15 years. You know, Daniel prays to God, and the lions in the den decide to go on a diet for the night. Jesus prays, and He's B-F-F, that means best friend for anyone over the age of 30, His B-F-F Lazarus comes out of the tomb, admittedly a little bit smellyer than when He went in a couple of days before. The disciples pray, and a man gets his hand healed on the steps of the synagogue, and all hell breaks loose. There are way too many examples to say that when we pray stuff happens, and yet on the other side of it, we see that there are lots of reasons why God might say no to your prayers, that for example, you're not even asking God, Matthew 4 says you don't receive, because you're not asking, ask, seek, and knock, and it'll be given to you. Half the time we're not asking God to answer our prayers. Maybe your relationship with your wife is not right. First Peter 3 says that if you're not submitted to your wife, then it actually hinders your prayers. Maybe there is a hidden sin deep within you. Psalm 66 verse 18 says, "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened to me." Faith may be lacking. James chapter 1, if any of you doubts, you're like a reed blown around in the wind. Maybe you're a baby, maybe you lack the spiritual maturity, even though you're good intentioned, to receive the very thing that you're praying for. Maybe you're praying for off higher hose and you're a paper bag. You lack the capacity to even receive the prayer, if God answered it for you, or maybe you ask with impure motives in James chapter 4, maybe you want to pray that God will make you win the lottery or something. Now look, I skip over these deliberately, and here's why just as a quick side note, those different things, the lack of faith and the sin in your life and the impure motive, you know, that would make up the five point sermon of most churches in Mid-West America when it comes to unanswered prayer. The reason that your prayers unanswered is because you've got sin in your life and you lacked faith and you're asking with impure motives. And look, I'm not trying to be smarmy here. We must hold this intention because it is biblical. And so when we execute this search warrant for the soul, you do need to go to those places, don't get me wrong, but I think it's deeper than that. I think it's more nuanced than that. You see, because the paradox of prayer is that we see that our prayers actually have a safety catch on them. They've got a safety catch on them, you know, what do you mean safety catch? There was this comedy sketch on Comedy Central, you know that show on Foxtell, running all the skits, and it's this skit of this father and his son at an American gun show convention. And this kid absolutely loses it, he's so upset with his dad, because his dad won't buy him armor-piercing bullets at the gun show for his gun. The fact that he had a gun in the first place is half what's funny, but what I thought was funny is coming. And so this kid's like, he's just robo-able, he's like, "Dad, why won't you buy me armor-piercing bullets?" And the father says, "Well, no, son, not until you're at least 10." And it's funny, here's why it's totally irresponsible. And the principle is this, at all mechanisms of great power, must come with a safety catch. And why have we got nuclear launch codes? Why do you have to get a driver's license? Why are there those frustrating child safety caps on medicine models that some of us still can't open, even when we're 30? It's because all powerful things, even good powerful things, have placed in the wrong hands that the wrong time can hurt people. And if prayer, if we're learning from a biblical perspective, is an infinitely powerful thing, if prayer, just an ounce of prayer from your heavenly Father is like a million atom bombs going off at once, then wouldn't it stand a reason that God would be just as irresponsible as the gun showed at if He placed every prayer request that you threw up to Him in your hands at the moment that you demanded it? I mean, practically, think to yourself, if you've ever had a moment in your life where you've looked back and you've seen a time and you've had the most sincere of motives and you prayed so hard and you were so diligent, you were so well behaved and you just begged God to answer a particular prayer that if you look back on now, you say, "Thank heavens," He didn't answer that for me. There's a safety catch. There's a safety catch. And if we look at the paradox of prayer biblically, last example here, but classic example is that John the Baptist is in prison and his disciples pray desperately that he gets his freedom and he gets beheaded. And then on the other hand, Peter, another one of the disciples, he's also sitting in prison and his friends are praying for him in the house, this is in Acts, and they're praying so fervently that he gets busted out of prison and he even knocks on the door whilst they're still praying. One of the little girls runs to the door and she, it's like settle down, it's me. It's good. The prayer worked. Both have exactly the same prayer. Lord, please help my friend get out of prison. One of them gets beheaded, the other one busts open the bars. What is with that? And the principle is, is sometimes God sends his angels and sometimes he doesn't. And the great paradox of prayer is that, yes, it really does change thing. At the same time, God says, "Don't worry, you ain't going to stuff up my creation." That what you pray for will change the course of history, but you can't stuff up what I'm doing. I'm God. I don't remember. But sometimes he sends his angels and sometimes he doesn't, and you'll say, "Great." That is so comforting, so well-thought out, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. That's why finally we see that unanswered prayer, it not only gives you perspective, it's not only a paradox, but it's also backed up by a promise. It comes with a promise tonight, particularly if you've got unanswered prayers tonight. It's the Terminator II principle. I know it's been a while, but I had to use it. Sarah Connor has a terrifying dream. It was called judgment day-a-day in which the cyborgs, these machines that were created would rise up and wipe out the human race. As a result, her son John Connor sends a good cyborg back in time to go and protect him as a young boy because he would one day be the leader of the future human resistance that would defeat the cyborgs. This good cyborg goes back, Arnold Schwarzenegger gets shot up, gets beat up, protects John Connor, and he carries out his mission to ensure that John is brought to safety because he was being attacked by another cyborg that had come back to hunt him down. At the very end of the movie, I'll never forget it, I was in George Street, and you guys know I get a bit emotional every time I think about this, but the good cyborg, Arnold Schwarzenegger realizes that there is one chip that remains in the world for this future race of machines that could wipe out humanity and it lies within him, and it's at that point that every pimply-faced teenager, an 18-year-old and all those that snuck into that MA15+ movie at the time were in tears, as Arnold Schwarzenegger stands upon a hook above a pool of molten metal and commands John to press the button and send him down and to obliterate him. It's moving, very moving. Can you imagine, can you imagine a situation in which the very course of history itself hangs on the requirement that a bad thing happened to a good person or a good cyborg for that matter? Can you imagine, a situation where the very course of history hinges on a bad thing happening to a good person, and I'm getting cheeky, because you know where I'm going, you know where I'm going, you see, we must remember that there is one who had an unanswered prayer in the Bible as well, and in a garden that still is outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem today, in that garden dark at night, Jesus Christ, God Himself, had an unanswered prayer, and He said, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me, Dad." What do you mean if it's possible? He said, "If there's a possibility, if there's some other way to do this salvation, if there's some other way for me not to have to go through the pain, if there's some other way for me not to go through the anxiety, please," he said, "I'd like to get out of this, Dad." And he was turned down. Why? Why was point number one of the Midwest Sermon on answered prayer? Was it a lack of faith? Was it a lack of faith? Faith was his job. He had perfect faith. It wasn't a lack of faith. Was it? Oh, okay. Well, was it some hidden sin in him that the Scriptures never quite got. You know, he did look at a woman the wrong way, somewhere along the line. Now, come on, Paul says, "He who had no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God." Was it because he was still a spiritual baby, there was just a paper bag and he couldn't cop the firehose, and so therefore, you know, that that's why his prayer wasn't answered. "Come on." The guy was so spiritually mature that time and time again through our John's gospel, he says, "The very work that I'm doing is the Father working through me, that's how connected I am. That's how mature I am." Or was you asking with the wrong motive, James, chapter four style, you know, where it says, "When you ask, you don't receive because you ask for the wrong motives." Of course not. He said, "Not why will, but your will be done." You see, Jesus was praying the same way that we might pray. He's praying the same way that you might be praying tonight. If it is possible, God, if it is possible, Dad, let this horrid situation pass. If there's some other way, please show me, I'm begging you, and it didn't. What is that? What's going on? Now, I think my perspective is, could it be that in his humanity, Jesus didn't have full knowledge of what he was about to go through? That in his humanity, Jesus, at that moment in the garden, in the darkness, in the loneliness, had no idea that in three days a glory and a power and a history-changing event would explode in his life. He didn't fully understand the plan. He didn't know that this horrible thing that was happening to him in the garden would change the very course of history. And in that prayer of submission, not my will, but your will be done. Jesus held on to the promise of unanswered prayer, and here it is, here's the promise, that God will always give to you either, A, what you want, or he'll give you what you would have asked him for if you knew what he knows. Friend, in your desperation, there can be. In your unanswered prayer, there will be resurrection. There will be restoration. There will be light into the darkness that you face. There is a plan in place. I'm always saying, remember Ephesians 1, when I said to you guys that there is an eternal plan that's unstoppable. You can choose to swim whatever direction you want in a tsunami. But God is a spiritual tsunami. The kingdom is coming. The kingdom is coming. The kingdom is washing in. There is power, and there is a plan that has been in place for your life and for my life and for the world's life, since the world began, a plan that says there will be no more tears and there will be no more pain and there will be no more crying. And as a result, you and I, friends, as the church, we are the community of the now but not yet. The now says in the person of Jesus Christ, it has been modeled to us that there will be victory over our darkest moments, but it's not yet. And in that, in your darkest hour and in your loneliest hour, even though they may overwhelm you, even though you may feel like tonight, you don't even want to cry out to him, it will not last. Are you crying out? There's two applications. There's two nuggets I want you to take away tonight quickly. One's confronting and one's comforting, so I'll get the confronting one over and done with first. That if you're saying, "God, unless you give me X," then I don't know if I can believe in you, but maybe just maybe X is your real God and not God himself. Maybe X for you is your source of peace and your source of comfort and your source of happiness and your source of joy in the world. When all the Bible says, "That is the very things that have been reserved for God and God alone." And you're saying, "Well, how do I make God my peace and my happiness and my joy and my comfort?" No, this is the comforting bit. It's the only thing that can get me through those times of an answered prayer myself and that is that God at least was willing to swallow his own medicine. That God himself and the person of Jesus Christ knows exactly what it feels like to have an answered prayer, to cry out into the darkness and to draw a blank. That may be the only thing that might give you comfort tonight, that in the garden Jesus lived, verse 1 to 3, this Psalm, that Jesus lived that psalmist that said, "I cried out to God for help." Jesus cried out to God to hear me and he says, "When I was in distress, I sought the Lord and at night, I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted." Is that not a prophetic word into what was going to happen at Gethsemane? That Jesus goes to his boys and he says, "My soul is troubled to the point of death. Stay with me. Pray with me in an hour." You see, in the garden Jesus had an unanswered prayer like Asaph, and in the garden Jesus had an unanswered prayer that you might be experiencing tonight. And yet little did he know that in the darkness and in the coldness, in the loneliness and in the lack of the answer, there was a plan for his life and in that we can see that there can be a plan for our lives too. Can I keep believing, can I keep trusting God when my prayers are unanswered? Honestly, I don't know. I don't know. That's a great challenge of the Christian life, is that you're always going to be nudged ever closer to that cliff face where you think that's the end of my faith. But the biblical truth of unanswered prayer tonight is this, that God will always give you either what you want or something far, far better even though it looks far, far worse at the time. [BLANK_AUDIO]