Northside Church - Sydney
Anchor Points Week 2: God Answers Every Prayer
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, here's a random, a random speculative kind of question. Did Jesus Christ have a sense of humor? Was he the kind of guy who could have a laugh with his family and friends? Was he the sort of guy who could see the funny side of events and situations? Was Jesus Christ like that? Did he have a sense of humor or was he like the Jesus depicted in so many of the religious movies about his life where he's shown as like permanently pensive or very intense, super serious, the type of guy who, rather than laugh at something, would just stare at those who were laughing until they kind of settled down. Do you have teachers like that? I think it's part of the role of teaching, isn't it? Just the stare people have to get too excited. I recall how disappointed I was at the release of the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told. It was released in 1965. Okay, I was six but I still remember it and, okay, please don't try and calculate. I've just tried to wipe ten years off my life without success. Don't do the calculations. But that movie, it starred Max von Seidel as Jesus. And it depicted Jesus that really disappointed me. It depicted him as a brooding, enigmatic, esoteric, unknowable mystic. So intense, it never laughed and so serious that you were left wondering if this character had the capacity to express any emotion at all. It's in your DVD shop, check it out, it's in color, and yes, there is sound. I don't go back that far. Great movie, greatest story ever told, but just a little heavy to say the least. That's not the Jesus I imagine, and I'm sure it's not the Jesus that you see depicted in the Gospels. I think Jesus had a sense of humor and would have been able to have a good laugh with his family and friends about all kinds of things. I'm not suggesting you would have got a gig at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, although he has mentioned there a lot, sadly, in a not so acceptable way. But Jesus Christ was not incapable of appreciating a good joke and a funny story. I say that because if we look closely at some of his parables, we will see little glimpses of his sense of humor coming through, certainly not the sort of humor that will make us roll in the aisles and think it's all fantastic. But given the historical context of the ancient world and the particular forms of humor that were expressed in those days, some of Jesus' stories would have been regarded as funny, quite humorous, like the one in Luke 11, the one that was just read to us by Nick Kie. Jesus tells the story of two neighbours. One neighbour gets a visit from a friend at midnight. Now that in itself would have caused a bit of a little bit of mirth because what kind of friend rolled up at midnight and the neighbour finds he's got, this guy finds he got no food in the house, this friend's arrived, he's on a journey, no food at all. So he goes to his neighbour, knocks on the door, "Mate, I need help, we've got no food" and the neighbour cries out from within the house, "My family and I are all in bed." Now if it didn't mean to say they're all in bed together, it means that in the ancient world among the poverty-stricken people like it is today in developing nations, families live in the one room. Many of you have seen that. It wasn't the case of sort of sneaking past the kid's bedrooms to go to the front door. This was the one, this was everybody's in the one room. So the neighbour's saying, "Look, where is, where is sleep, man, just forget it, get out of here." But the neighbour keeps knocking, "Look man, I'm really, come on, I've helped you, you've got to help me." So eventually he gets his bread, now here's the punch line, this is what G, I'm putting it in colloquial terms, what Jesus would have said or was trying to say was, "Look, the guy got his bread, not because he was such a great neighbour, oh, I must help Bob, such a great guy, but just because he was so persistent and the neighbour's thinking, "Get this guy out of here, here's your bread, just live us alone, we don't want to hear you knocking any more." To put the story in a modern comedy framework, it's sort of like a boisterous, obnoxious Homer Simpson, bagging on the door of a pious, puritanical Ned Flanders, that kind of scenario, you know? So here's Jesus using a story that would have created a few smiles, maybe even a few sniggas among his ancient audience, as he tries to make a point about prayer, and what is the point? Here's the point. The parable of the two neighbours is a call to persistence and confidence in prayer. Jesus concluded by saying, "Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be open." Now, guys, lest we get carried away and use this story to justify us asking for everything we want, Jesus adds a further touch of humor when he talks about a child asking his dad for a fish and being given a snake, or asking for an egg and being given a scorpion, Jesus says, "Who would disrespect their kids like that? Who would do that? What in their right mind would show such contempt for their kids?" And Jesus concludes this parable, and look at what he says. He says, "Bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will the Father in heaven give what? Everything you ask for? No. How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" So it's about persistence, it's about confidence in prayer, but it's also about praying for the right things. And it's about the realization that God in his infinite wisdom and as part of his eternal plan distinguishes between what we may want and what we need. It's his prerogative to make that sort of distinction. Well, back to the central theme of this message, and I believe we can confidently assert that God answers every prayer. And friends, our quest as people who hopefully are maturing in Christ, our quest is to develop the ability to accept his answers to the surname's answers, first of all, especially when they differ from our expectations. It was Dr. Robert Schuller, who many years ago, came up with a sort of a simple explanation as to how God answers every prayer. I'm sure some of you who are from that era would have been helped by this. He said this, "When the request is not right," God says no. You know, if the request is contrary to the teachings of the Bible, contrary to the teachings of Jesus, well, God can't answer that prayer. He went on and he said, "If we are not right," God says grow. Sometimes our readiness to receive that which we're praying for is not where it should be. Our readiness is just not quite there. We need to grow. We need to develop more spiritually, emotionally, and in some other ways as well before we can handle the responsibility of what we're praying for. And then Shilla went on when the timing is not right, God says slow. You know, those times when you look back on your life, and in light of what you know now, and in light of what's happened, you kind of begin to understand the reason for the delay in a certain prayer being answered. I'm sure you've got like I have many examples of that from your life. And then Shilla concluded, "When everything is right, God says go." Now in many respects, this is a fairly simple and some would say maybe even simplistic explanation as to the challenges of prayer, in particularly unanswered prayer. But when you make the assertion as I am today that God answers every prayer, we need to take the discussion a little a step further because friends, it really is tremendous power and blessing in being able to rely on God's involvement and interest in every facet of our lives, every facet of our lives. There's just great freedom in knowing he's intensely and intimately interested in every aspect of our lives. I believe it's essential to feel that way if we are to be vital and victorious in our Christian journey. Now here's the thing, confidence in the belief God answers every prayer requires us to do several things. First of all, to understand the nature of prayer as the first thing. To understand the nature of the true nature of prayer, I never cease to be amazed how many of us, myself included, forget what's involved in Christ-honoring faith-stretching prayer. You see, it starts with our little children and it's okay, it's not a criticism, we all parents will do it. It starts with a little children, but we give the kids the idea that prayer is all about asking for things. God give me this, a bike for Christmas or a pony or whatever. Don't get me out of this, that was one of my favorites. God help me with this, you know, this is all sort of request, request. Now while it's true, of course, prayer does involve asking. It does involve asking for things, of course, but the primary purpose of prayer is to align ourselves with the will and the plan and the purposes of God. As someone has said, the objective of prayer is not to change the will of God, to sort of like bend it over in the direction of what we want, of how we want things to go. That's not the idea of prayer. No, the objective of prayer is to bring our hearts and wills into submission with his heart and his will, to ascertain through prayer, through reading the Scriptures, through meditation, through talking with friends, whatever, to discern and ascertain what it is he wants us to do and say in a particular situation, and what he may want to do and say independently of us in the situation. All of these, that's a very different understanding of prayer to what most people have, but friends when we are able to grasp the significance of this point and apply it in our lives, the whole notion of prayer takes on a brand new dimension, I know many of you know this and experience this, it's fantastic. Prayer is no longer a long list of requests. It's a response to an invitation from God to accept his power and guidance and direction in our lives, it's a response to an invitation. That's what prayer is. As we said a few months ago, we'd seen to help a lot of people, it's a question of not Lord, give something to me, rather, Lord, give me to something and it just changes the whole paradigm. And once we're aware of the nature of prayer, we're more likely to pray the appropriate prayers and appropriate prayers are the ones that declare the sovereignty of God, appropriate prayers are the ones that bring honor and glory to God, the ones that acknowledge our dependence on him, not my will, but thine be done, that's an appropriate prayer. We will give you the praise and the glory, Lord, that's an appropriate prayer. I want to honor you in this situation, Lord, that's an appropriate prayer. Prayers for healing are appropriate because they indicate our belief in the amazing miraculous power of God and our ultimately our dependence upon him, their appropriate prayers. Prayers to expand the reign and the influence of God's kingdom, their appropriate prayers because all of these prayers are expressing our desire to become part of God's action in the world and not merely requests to have him bless what we've already decided to do anyway. It's a big difference. Now friends, before you start thinking, "Oh gosh, are my prayers appropriate?" Oh gosh, maybe I'm not, look, all prayers are appropriate. We pray about all kinds of things up the back there in the ministry time. You pray about every facet of your life and God wants you to do that. All prayers are appropriate. We're not talking about the type of prayer as we're talking about the attitude to prayer, the attitude here and the attitude there. That's where the appropriateness kicks in. It's not about the subject matter, it's about the heart and it's about the head and heart conviction in relation to prayer. That's what distinguishes appropriate prayers from inappropriate prayers. There's one more thing, confidence in the belief that God answers every prayer requires us to accept the outcome of our prayers. Ah, says somebody. Is this where we let God off the hook? You know, you pray your heart out. Nothing happens. Oh well, I guess we just got to accept that. Lord, you know, you must have missed that one or you've fallen asleep or something. Is this where we let God off the hook? Well, not exactly. Let's remember one thing, acceptance of His will is not passive. It's not sort of some situation of ambivalence. No way. Like Paul. Like when Paul prayed for the removal of his thorn in the flesh. And for some reason, the answer came back, no, God says, not going to do that. But it was conditional on a very important writer, my grace will be sufficient for you. Paul, I'll get you through this. Your impediment will be, and the way you operate, the spite your impediment will be seen as a tremendous demonstration of my power. See friends, this is where the powerful realities, oh boy, this is where the powerful realities of Romans 8 really come to the fore. Look at this. Romans 8, verses 37 to 38, in all these things, we have complete victory through Him who loved us. For I am certain nothing can separate us from His love. Now, if you've had any direct pastoral contact from Graham Agnes, you know, the situation of me, you're thinking, oh yeah, I've heard this before. This is it. Paul, what's Paul referring to when he says in all these things? I've deliberately just sort of chosen a little bit of this passage. What's he referring to when he says in all these things, we have complete victory? Is he referring to amazing miracles? Wow, I think I could experience victory in that situation. Is he referring to fantastic breakthroughs? Is he referring to spectacular answers to prayer? Boy, I could be victorious in the midst of all that. No, we know the passage. We know he's talking about trouble. He's talking about hardship. He's talking about hunger. He's talking about poverty, danger. He's talking about death. And he's saying, it's when these things happen, we have complete victory. Now we're hitting pay to it. Like the old saying, you know, if our preachers don't hit oil in 20 minutes, we stop boring. Well, now we're really hitting pay to it right here. We've hit it right here. If you've been brought up till now, this is the climax, friends, here is the irrefutable proof that God answers all prayers. Because even when things appear to be going wrong, as though prayers aren't being answered, and then God is assuring us, we will get through. People say, well, why are you a Christian Graham? You know, you've been at it for a lot. This is one of the reasons. See, this is the reality in which I live all the time as a pastor. I move with people. I meet with people. I talk with people. Our people. You. I talk with you guys and others. And we talk about your ongoing faith and trust in God, despite your circumstances. And things have happened to some of you that make no sense. It just don't make sense at all. But you are making sense of the situation because of your victory in Him who loves you. You see? And you're believing that you're going to get through and that ultimately it's going to be OK. No matter what. And I just draw such inspiration from people who live that out, and so many of you do. See, these people, like so many of you, believe, really believe the writer to the Hebrews when he says this, look at this, Hebrews 4, verse 16, "Let us have confidence then and approach God's throne where there is grace, there we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it. Just when we need it." Is that your story, guys? Oh, I know it's my story. I've been down and out. I've been wondering where we're going here, Lord. Just when you need it. It's there. Oh, God, answer every prayer, sure does. Are there some answers which appear to be no answer that we'll need to do? Do some serious unpacking on when we meet him? Oh, yes. I've got to stagger those. Now, come on, Lord, I just need to understand why that was because it seemed to me like it was a great idea. I've got to stagger those, so have you. But here's the point, guys. Never think that God has forsaken you or has refused to hear your prayer. As I said the other month, when you can't trace the hand of God, trust the heart of God, and his heart is to never leave us or forsake us and to bring us ultimately into a situation of victory. In that sense, he does answer every prayer that's his heart. Trust him. Live in it. Be victorious this week. That's where he wants you to be. Like a list of unanswered prayer, that's like a confidence in prayer. He's working. He's working. He's giving you the strength to get through in ways that you may not even give credit for. Let's be impressed, shall we? Heavenly Father, we don't want to in any way underestimate the level of hurt and pain some of your people are feeling here right now. Well, there are vocational issues unfolding for some of our people. There are financial issues unfolding for some of our people here right now. There are deep relationship, marital problems unfolding right here. And Lord, we don't wish to reduce or in some way deny the severity of some of these issues. But we stand before you, Lord, this morning as your people, and we can assert that you do answer every prayer. And may we never be tempted to think that you have gone to sleep on us or that you have left us or abandoned us. Help us to realize, Lord, that even when all these things are happening, your plan for us is to have victory, complete victory, in that in the knowledge that we will get through and you are carrying us through these tough times. So remind every person, bowed in your presence of that reality, through Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray, Amen. (upbeat music)