A CRY FROM OUR HEART: “Why wasn’t my prayer answered?”
- Mark 9:17-18.
- We look at our situation, whatever it may be, and wonder why our prayer wasn’t answered.
- We really wanted that job, but we didn’t get it.
- We really wanted to get pregnant this month, but it didn’t happen.
- We really wanted to find that person to share our life with, but it was just another lousy date.
- We really wanted to quit getting bullied in the lunchroom, but it happened again.
- We really wanted to get a good test result back, but it wasn’t.
- And in the wake, we ask: “Why wasn’t my prayer answered?”
THEN ADD SOME GUILT TO MY CONFUSION: Jesus seems to say that the problem is that I don’t have enough faith.
- Mark 9:23.
- As though it wasn’t bad enough that I’m unsure why my prayer wasn’t answered, Jesus then seems to pile on by proclaiming this seemingly open-ended promise about faith. We read it and feel like saying, “Great, it’s not bad enough that I’m disappointed and confused that my prayer wasn’t answered, but now I’m supposed to feel guilty that everything would have worked out perfectly if only I’d had more faith.”
THE BIG IDEA - HOW CAN I HAVE MORE FAITH? Familiarity breeds faith.
- Mark 9:28-29.
- Our focus in these verses tends to be v. 23 with the great promise that Jesus gives. For us, though, it is these closing verses that give the insight we need.
- The disciples get Jesus alone and ask the question that’s on our hearts as well: “Why didn’t our faith bring the answer we wanted?”
- Jesus responds by saying, “This kind of situation can only be handled with prayer and fasting.” There is some question among translators whether the phrase “and fasting” authentically belongs there, but that question is really irrelevant for our discussion today.
- Jesus is not saying, “In the moment of your problem, when you are faced with that child in need, you should have prayed. Why didn’t you all think to pray? You should have asked My Father for help?”
- That’s not the problem. Undoubtedly when the disciples were trying to cast out the demon, they appealed to God. Undoubtedly they prayed fervently. Undoubtedly they called on God’s name.
- The problem isn’t that they failed to pray in that moment of crisis.
- The problem is that they hadn’t adequately prayed in preparation for that moment of crisis.
- What Jesus is saying here is that what the disciples lacked was a close relationship with their Father in heaven. What Jesus is saying is that the answers to these situations come to those who have prayed regularly and intimately and have therefore built up a closer relationship to God.
- Why does it work like that? Because familiarity breeds faith.
- We want faith to be something we can just conjure up in a moment of need, but true faith is based on trust and experience.
- Trust:
- I have faith in you because I have trust in you. I have talked to you countless times. I have seen your faithfulness and your consistency. I know that you can be trusted. Therefore, when I ask in faith, my familiarity with you has created a trust in you that allows me to have great faith in you.
- It’s true in our earthly relationships. I hope you have at least one really good friend. Let’s say you’ve been friends for over 10 years now. You know if you call them with a problem, they’re going to faithfully listen. . . because that’s what they’ve done for 10 years now. You know if you tell them a secret, they’re going to keep it private. . . because that’s what they’ve done for 10 years now. You know that if you need them in a crisis, they’ll drop what they’ve got going on and be at your side. . . because that’s what they’ve done for 10 years now.
- It’s also true in our relationship with God. As you walk with Him, trust is built up. As you see Him come through for you, trust is built up. As you see Him come through for you, trust is built up.
- Experience:
- Every time that those positive things happen, that experience increases our faith.
- When we went to the doctor last Wednesday in Lexington, Dr. Temprano came in to talk to us. Now we obviously have relatively little knowledge of medical things since we’re not doctors (although we’ve been reading up on this stuff). She, though, deals with these very situations all-week-every-week and has for years and years. She knew the right questions to ask. She knew the right answers to offer. Why? Because of her experience.
- The issue of having the amount of faith that we want to comes back to the depth of our relationship with God. Faith is not something you can fake on the fly. Faith is the accumulated trust and experience of knowing God.
- I recognize that this answer is going to be disappointing for some of you. This is not a “four-easy-steps-and-you-have-your-answer-in-less-than-a-week.” This not something that can be fixed on the cheap.
- This is a call to a deep relationship. That takes time to build. It takes time to sustain. It takes heart to built. It takes heart to sustain.
- If you’re sitting there thinking, “just tell me a quick secret to increasing my faith and getting the answer I want,” I’ve got nothing for you this morning.
- In the golfing world now, the advance in technology can allow you to go and spend $500 and buy a longer drive. You can probably add 30 yards to your tee shot if you’ve got cash to spend. It’s a quick and easy answer.
- That’s what we want in our prayer lives as well. “What’s the secret that I can buy that’ll dramatically increase my faith?” Sorry, it just doesn’t work that way.
- This also dovetails into the seemingly open-ended nature of the promise that Jesus makes in v. 23.
- Many folks have read that and thought, “Great - give me a half-million-dollar house and a top-of-the-line BMW.” It’s not too hard to figure out that those are not God’s priorities and that that prayer is not going to get answered.
- How do you reconcile those absurd requests and the open-ended nature of the promise that Jesus makes here? They come together in just what we’ve been talking about: familiarity. The Father does desire to put enormous power in our hands through prayer. He does desire to be able to simply say, “Whatever he or she wants done, I’ll do it.” But that comes out of that close relationship with Him. Someone He can trust with that kind of power.
- God is offering us amazing power here. But you wouldn’t put a Wagner power painter in the hands of a toddler. You would put a chain saw in the hands of an infant. Those tools are powerful and can do great work, but in immature hands they can do untold damage to property and the person holding them.
- So too with the power of prayer. God is offering us amazing power here. But putting that power in the hands of someone without a closer relationship to the Father is an invitation to damage to property and people.
- James 4:3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
WHY CAN’T I CLOSE MY EYES AND JUST WISH REAL HARD? Because “Peter Pan” faith says with words that God is awesome while saying with actions that God is optional.
- The problem with most of our efforts at “faith” is that they’re really just empty wishing.
- Here’s how it normally works. We don’t pray very much. Occasionally when we have a problem, but not with any regularity. Then we have a significant problem where we need God to move in a big way. So we pray and we try to conjure up “faith” by saying how awesome and worthy and powerful God is.
- The problem is that our words drip of hypocrisy.
- Why do they drip of hypocrisy? Let me give you an example.
- If I tell you that my wife is wonderful and beautiful and charming and funny, you might respond by saying, “Man, you must really enjoy your evenings together with her.” I respond, “Nah, I usually go golfing or bowling.” You’d really question the sincerity of my praise for her and the authenticity of how closer I am to her.
- There’s something similar happening in the “faith” that we display in those moments of crisis. Our words say that we believe that God is all-powerful, but our actions indicate that we’ve been handling all our situations ourselves for weeks. Our words say that we believe is God is loving, but our actions indicate that we haven’t trusted any of our problems to Him in weeks. Our words say that we believe that God is worthy of praise, but our actions say that we haven’t even been bothering to show up for church with any regularity, let along any passion.
- Our words say God is almighty, loving, caring, worthy, and all-powerful, but our actions say He is unnecessary, marginal, burdensome, and optional.
- Talk all you want - it’s your actions that show what you really believe.
- You can’t claim with your words to be a person of great faith and expect to have any significant results. Your actions are screaming that you’re just blowing smoke.
WHY IT’S CRUCIAL: This is an opportunity from God, but it is also an expectation of Jesus.
- Mark 9:19.
- Why is this an expectation?
- Jesus says in this verse “How long shall I bear with you?” That speaks of His exasperation with the disciples and the others there. That certainly is true, but that’s not the whole verse.
- Notice that before that Jesus says “How long shall I be with you?” This is a different issue. I believe the point is that He’s not going to be here for forever. At His departure, it will be up to us to point people to genuine and deep faith.
- I believe that is a big part of His frustration at this point. He knows He will be leaving this world before too long and He needs people of deep faith to be able to point people to God the way that He is.
- It’s an expectation because we’re the only Jesus people see today.
- The way our faith is shown is the way many people will think of faith. When it’s scrawny and ineffective, that’s the way they’ll think their faith has to be. They won’t envision greater and better things.
- We need to understand that as great as an opportunity that this is, it’s not something that’s optional for us as Christians. It is the expectation of Jesus that we be people of great faith.
- As a believer, we need to step forward boldly in this area. This is an area where Jesus expects much of us.
OUR NEXT STEP: God understands if you’re wavering this morning, but realize it’s time to quit wishing.
- Mark 9:24.
- The father in this story here speaks the words that echo our heart: “I believe, help my unbelief.” That’s exactly where so many of us are this morning. We do believe in God, we want to have great faith in Him, but we also recognize that we’re not as full of faith as we’d like to be.
- The key for us this morning is to understand what Jesus is teaching here. It’s not “Feel guilty because you couldn’t conjure up more faith.” It’s not “Dig in and make more faith appear.”
- The key for us are those words of explanation that Jesus offers to the disciples privately. It is there that He reveals the problem. It is there that He reveals the pathway to greater faith. Familiarity breeds faith.
- Many of you here this morning are dealing with situations where you need to have more faith in what God is going to do. These are not auxiliary issues, these are problems that strike deep in your heart and involve major life decisions and people you love deeply.
- The invitation this morning is to come talk to your Father, to tell Him that you recognize that familiarity breeds faith, and that starting this morning you want to begin a closer day-by-day walk with Him where your faith grows as your closeness to Him grows.
- It may be that you’re still wavering back and forth in your faith. That’s where you are. You just need to quit believing that wishing harder is going to move you from wavering to faith.
