What We Can Learn from a Dead Fig Tree
(Part 2 – Faith in Prayer)
Matthew 21:18-22
July 6, 2008
NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE FORMAT USED IN MY MESSAGES IS BORROWED FROM ANDY STANLEY’S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE."
Me: My guess is that many of you, especially those of you who grew up in church, prayed really cool prayers grew up.
You probably prayed spiritual things like, “Lord, help me to love Jesus. Help me to be godly. Help to find a good Christian girl with a heart to win people for Jesus.”
I prayed for stuff like puppies and bikes. Anybody else here do that?
I didn’t know much about God, but I knew that He was all-powerful, so I figured, “why not?”
Of course, the trick is to tell your parents you’re praying for these things, in the hopes that God would answer your prayer by having them stop by the store on the way home from work, right?
But on a more serious note, it took me a lot of time to learn some things about prayer that would help me be a person who could pray with confidence, knowing that God hears and understands, and many times actually grants our request.
We: All of us have had times when we really wondered if God hears our prayers and answers them.
What does it take to have our prayers answered?
We see some people who pray and pray, and God just seems to waiting for the opportunity to answer their prayers.
The lady we named after Ellene after, a lady everybody calls “Mrs. J.” is one of those people.
It’s almost like if she’s praying for it, it’s a done deal. Just a matter of time before God grants what she’s asking.
I wish I would have known her when I was asking God for those puppies and bikes!
But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who wonder at times if God is listening and if He cares, and if He’s actually able to do what it is we’re asking of Him?
A lot of times, life just gets overwhelming, doesn’t it? It seems to just beat up on us for no reason, and it leaves us wondering about whether or not God can do anything about it.
Well I hope that today, your faith in God and in His power will be refreshed as we look at these words of Jesus.
God: Last week of Jesus’ life on earth, and Jesus was heading back to Jerusalem after spending the night in Bethany.
Matthew 21:18-22 (p. 698) –
18 Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered.
That’s where we focused last week as we talked about the fact that God expects us to be fruitful for Him – in how we love Him, how we love others, and in how we display the fruit of the Spirit.
Let’s continue to the verses that form the basis of our time together today:
20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked.
21 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ’Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
This is some really great stuff about how God works through prayer.
And before we really get into the meat of what I want to share with you, I want to point out that this isn’t the first time Jesus references the idea of a mountain being tossed into the sea to explain that nothing is too big for God when we come to Him in prayer
He also said the same thing back in chapter 17 when He had healed a demon-possessed boy.
In that passage, Jesus said that if the disciples had faith as small as a mustard seed they could throw the mountain where Jesus was gloriously transfigured into the sea.
Here Jesus says if they have faith and don’t doubt, they can throw this other mountain into the sea. That’s an awful lot of scenic real estate.
And I don’t know about you, but when I see Jesus repeating something, either in what He says or in what He does, I tend to think that He probably felt it was important for us to get a handle on. What do you think?
As I was looking over this passage, asking God to help me get what He was trying to communicate, I noticed that Jesus uses three key phrases in verses 21 and 22 to emphasize what He wants the disciples to get a handle on here:
“If you have faith…”, “do not doubt…” and, “If you believe…”
Do you hear how they’re all connected?
The question becomes, “What is the connection?”
What is it we should have faith in? What should we not doubt? What should we believe in?
The answer lies in the fact that the questions should really be: Who should we have faith in? Who should we not doubt? And, who should we believe in?
You see where I’m going, don’t you? The connecting point of all these phrases is God Himself.
When you realize that the question is “who” and not “what,” you’ve opened yourself up to really getting a handle on what prayer is all about.
You see, prayer isn’t about you or about your circumstances, as small or big and overwhelming as they may be. And believe me, I understand overwhelming circumstances.
The focus of prayer is God and His purposes, not us and our purposes.
Let me share with you two important facts about prayer that we cannot afford to ignore:
> God answers prayer according to His desires for us and our circumstances.
> And He only does so in ways that are consistent with His character and the Scriptures.
What do I mean by saying that He only answers prayer in ways that are consistent with His character and the Scriptures?
Well, first of all, God won’t do anything that goes against what He’s made known about Himself in Scripture.
We don’t know everything about God, but we know some things. For instance:
He is loving. In fact, He is love, according to Scripture. And therefore He answer a prayer in a way that is not loving. He’s not going to arrange a hit on your brother-in-law, no matter how obnoxious he is, okay?
God doesn’t lie. So He’s not going to answer prayers that make Him out to be a liar.
God is holy. So He’s not going to answer prayer that gives someone the green light for sin.
He’s not going to cause someone to want to sleep with you out of wedlock, no matter how much you pray and no matter how hot you think that person is.
I gotta tell you. I’m sickened when I see a person on TV finally get the opportunity to sleep with someone and they look at the sky and whisper “Thank you!”
The audience laughs – I want to throw up. And I’ll bet God does, too.
God won’t answer prayer that gives anyone a pass for their sin. It’s that plain and simple.
God answers prayer out of the fact that He has our best interests at heart, knows what’s best for us, and sees the bigger picture that we can’t see.
And we need to trust that He really is able to meet our needs and the needs of our loved ones.
But what about what Jesus says here –
“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
Is this really what it looks like – a blank check to ask God for whatever we want and just wait for it to happen?
Winning lottery ticket numbers, Ed McMahon and Dick Clark to show up at your door with a check for $10 million, for a certain girl or guy to fall in love with you?
Nope. I’ve already discussed that God answers prayer according to His purposes, not ours.
So why does Jesus say this?
Because as we spend time with God, especially looking at Scripture and allowing the Holy Spirit to make it come alive in our hearts, our hearts become more aligned with the heart of God.
And as that happens, our desires become more aligned with the desires of God, and we find ourselves wanting more of what God wants, and wouldn’t you know it – we find ourselves praying for more of that in our own lives and in the lives of other people.
It’s an amazing thing to see God change peoples’ hearts from being self-centered to being God-centered.
We all have some work to do there, that’s for sure. But it’s a good thing and I pray that God will cause that to happen even more in this church and in the churches in our area.
You: What you can do to make your prayers more effective:
1. Examine the “direction” of your faith.
Is your faith directed toward God instead yourself and your own efforts?
Here’s what I mean by that: Some people have faith in themselves – that God will answer them because they’re so righteous and godly – not to mention humble…
Some people have faith in their faith – they claim to have huge or perfect faith. They say things like, “I pray the prayer of faith…”
Or they have faith in their formula for prayer. They have just the right words, just the right posture, just the right clothes, or whatever.
They think that the mountain will be moved because they’ve got the right kind of faith.
You see the problem? The focus of their prayer isn’t God – it’s them. Their faith isn’t in God, it’s in their efforts and formulas.
And sometimes their faith isn’t in themselves, it’s in their favorite televangelist.
“So and so said that if I’d send my gift of $100 dollars, he’d pray for me, and I just know God’ll answer him because he’s so full of faith! I hope the electric company understands…”
That’s not good, folks.
When we pray, it needs to be with the attitude of, “Okay, God. I’m bringing these requests before You because You say we should do that.
“You’re my hope in these things. I don’t even know really what to pray about some of this stuff, but Your Bible says that Your Spirit’s got that covered, too.
“All I know is that You are all-powerful, and I’m powerless. I pray that it would be Your will to grant these requests.”
A humble attitude that recognizes God as the source of answered prayer is essential.
A second action we can take to make our prayers more effective is to…
2. Examine the “information” of your faith.
Is your faith based on Scripture or Scriptural principle?
How many times have you heard, “God just wants me to be happy?” And so they pray for whatever it may be, thinking that God will grant it because it’ll make them happy.
One of the biggest errors I see people make when it comes to prayer is that they try to force God to do something He hasn’t promised to do, because they’ve been convinced that God only wants their health, wealth, and prosperity.
For instance (and here I go picking on those poor televangelists again), we’re told many times that God wants all of His people to be rich.
But there is absolutely nothing in Scripture that makes that statement or even implies it. Rather, Scripture tells us that God is able to make us content, whether we have a lot or a little.
But the message we’re given is that we’re not supposed to be content until God fills our pocketbooks and bank accounts to overflowing.
And we get the impression that God owes us this kind of thing.
We’re told that God wants everybody to be healthy and if you’re sick, it’s because you’re in sin or because you lack, you guessed it, faith.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Scripture doesn’t promise freedom from sickness or injury. In fact, Jesus promises just the opposite – that if you’re serious about following Him, life’s gonna be hard and some folks aren’t going to like you because you love Jesus, and in some instances, people kill people because they love Jesus.
Folks, if “having the right kind of faith” meant no sickness, Doug Harms wouldn’t be getting ready to have heart surgery on Tuesday.
Folks, God doesn’t promise health and prosperity and only good times. But He does promise to sustain our spirits as we go through the tough times.
Are you getting your information about God and prayer from the Scriptures or from somewhere else?
Get into the Scriptures so you can be informed about God and His heart.
3. Examine the “motivation” of your faith.
Are you looking out for Kingdom interests above your own?
When you’re praying, are you more concerned with God’s plans than your vacation plans?
Jesus was the perfect example of this when He said in the garden just before He was arrested, “Father, I really don’t want to do this. But not my will, but Yours be done.”
In the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples, we read the words, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
It’s saying, “God, here are my requests. I know that you are more than capable of granting them out of your power and love. But Your will be done over my desires.”
I mentioned Mrs. J earlier. You know why God answers her prayers? It’s because she’s kingdom minded, not self-minded. She wants God’s will in every situation, even if that situation doesn’t seem to benefit her at the time.
She’s confident that even when God says no, He is in control and knows what He’s doing.
She’s humble, even in her confidence in the love and power of God to move and act on her behalf.
Folks, let me just end this part of the message by saying that I know how hard it is to take the focus off ourselves and others and put it on God, especially when we’re in the midst of hard times.
When my wife and youngest daughters were in the accident last month, I was praying all the way to Brookings. When my daughter Dani was in an accident eight days later, I didn’t stop praying until I heard from another adult that she was okay.
I understand. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray for ourselves and others.
What I’m saying is that we need to ask God to help us not be selfish in our praying, even during the hard times.
“Father, I want this – but not my will, but Yours be done, in the lives of my loved ones.”
So please don’t get the impression that I’m just trying to be all spiritual and not recognize that when we hurt we need to cry out to God. That’s not my intention at all.
My intention is help you not develop the habit of thinking that prayer is all about you. Remember – it’s all about God.
We: What are you praying for and about?
Does it seem like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling? Do you really wonder if God is hearing you and caring for you?
Let me invite you to examine yourself – right now.
Let’s take a moment right now as I close in prayer to ask God to show us if we’re trusting our “faith” or if we’re misinformed about God, or if maybe, just maybe, you’ve been expecting God just answer your prayers like some sort of heavenly vending machine.
If any of these are the case, then as we close today, confess those to God and ask Him to change your heart.
Ask Him to give you the kind of faith that moves mountains – a faith that is all about God and not about you.
A faith that says, “God, I need you to move in this situation, but I want Your will, even above my own because You know what’s best, and because I want you to be honored above all else.”
Will you do that? Let’s pray.
