Introduction
1. Does God answer prayer? As good Christians, we would expect each person here to say, "Of course He does." After all, He promises to answer prayer in His Word and God keeps His Word. Yes, God does answer prayer.
2.And yet I ask you again, "Does God answer prayer!" And I ask you to consider some of the prayers and petitions that you have presented to God in the past. Has God answered each of your prayers? Has he provided healing when you asked Him to? Has He saved those for whom you have asked salvation? Has he sent the rain to earth when we asked, as we did a couple of Sundays ago. We prayed specifically and in confidence, but the 1.2 inches never came in the 24 hours that we asked it to.
3. To be honest, each of us does struggle somewhat with the question "Does God answer prayer?" He does but...
4. This evening we consider this dilemma that many of us have. Does God answer prayer?
5. First ask: "What does it mean to answer prayer?" Does it mean -"ask and you shall receive?" Does it mean that we can come to God like a child with (what was a penny) a quarter which he places in the candy machine and is guaranteed to receive a candy. It comes out automatically and immediately. Can we say that God only answers us by giving what we ask for?
6. We know it does not always work that way. We know that God gives us those things that are for our God and that it has to be according to His will.
7. But still, we may wonder why then ask God? If He is going to do what He has already determined is His will and what is best for us?
8. Well, the problem lies in how we expect God to answer us? We see prayer as something in which we ask and in which God gives.
9. This evening I ask that we consider God’s answer to our prayer in a somewhat different way. Rather than seeing God’s answer as something He always does in response to our petition, let us look at His answers in what He says to us. Walter Wangerin, in his book "Whole Prayer" says that prayer is communication. That it is not speaking to God but with God.
10. And as such there are four activities to prayer. - first - we speak, second - God listens, third - God speaks, fourth - we listen.
11. I find it interesting how we think our words are more important that God’s. How we spend more time speaking to God than listening to Him. And then we wonder WHY He has not answered us? Perhaps He has, but we did not hear him?.
12. And so this evening we consider that God does speak to us in response to our prayers. And we consider how He does (so we can listen).
Teaching
1. Psalm 20 is a prayer of the people, probably as they assembled before David and his army which was about to go out in battle. They begin and end the prayer with a call for God to answer not just this prayer, but future calls for help as well.
2. The Hebrew word for answer is anah. It means "to eye or to heed, i.e. pay attention; to respond; to begin to speak; to sing, shout, testify, announce: -give account, afflict, bring low, cry, hear, lift up, say, speak, testify, utter, (bear) witness. To answer is to pay attention, to respond with words and/or with action.
3. The ultimate request is that the Lord protect them and give them victory. That their plans will succeed. That He will save them from their enemies. That is the answer they are looking for. That He give them the desire of David’s heart. That all their requests be granted.
4. But they have deeper needs, as we do. Even deeper than the need for victory or the desires of our heart is the need to know that God has heard us and that we come to know God and His perfect will for our lives. We need to hear Him and to know Him.
5. It is in that way that he is not a candy dispenser or need dispenser, but rather one whom we come to know and trust. To trust His answer even more than we do our requests. We need to hear His voice. To hear Him comfort us, console us, explain to us, and teach us.
6. And so we consider not just the answer to our request but how God speaks in return to our request. To let us know He has heard us.
7. As parents we do not want our children to just ask for things and leave and expect us to give in time what they ask. We want to discuss with them why they want what they do. We want to communicate our love and why we might their request may be wrong and bad for them. We want to talk about their desires and what they are based on. And so God wants to speak to us. And He does.
8. Even in this Psalm we see two ways by which God speaks to us.
9. In verse two, the people say "May He send help from the sanctuary."This could mean send help from heaven. Or it could refer to God Himself since He is found in the sanctuary, His house.
10. But the sanctuary is also the place where people worshipped and where God spoke to His people. In the Psalms, the sanctuary is always a picture of the place where we meet with God. In Israel it was the temple, the place where the Israelite came to get his thoughts straightened out, to get his thinking corrected. There he met with God, there he heard the word of God, the mind and the thoughts of God.
11. In the seventy-third psalm the psalmist is deeply troubled by the prosperity of the wicked, that perennial problem which can still bother us. Why do the ungodly prosper, while the righteous seem to be downtrodden all the time? Why do the wicked strut their way through the earth so that nothing ever seems to go wrong for them, etc. This had upset him -- until he finally went into the sanctuary. There he began to perceive their end. There he began to see the whole story, he began to see the full picture, and his thoughts were corrected. This is what the sanctuary does.
12. For us the sanctuary can be the church or the Scriptures. It is there that God speaks to us. Our minds are illuminated, that we begin to see the world through God’s eyes, not the way it appears to your heart cry for somebody to tell you the truth, to tell you the way things really are, to open. When we need help, we need to listen to God.
13. And yet do we listen to His word? God speaks to us through His word and many of the answers to prayer are already given to us. What we should do. T that we should trust Him. That our hope is not in this world but the next. We pray for peace - God’s word provides peace.
2 Tim 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
14. The people also pray that God would grant them support from Zion. Zion represents God’s rule. God’s through is in a heavenly Zion or Jerusalem and the earthly Jerusalem is sometimes referred to as Zion. God sometimes answers prayer, He speaks to us by ministering to us. He sent His ministering angels to Elijah after Mt. Carmel and to Jesus in Gethsemane. In each case they prayed to God for help in distress.
15. Although God did not answer by changing their circumstances, He spoke to them to see His plan and His will. So to God speaks to us through angels, through the Holy Spirit, by enabling us to see things from his perspective.
16. In fact, as we pray, if we listen, we will see God’s comfort and presence. We could spend time going through Psalms. Many begin with cries for help, with anger to God, or with despair. But God, as the Psalmist listens, draws him to end the psalm or prayer with hope and peace and victory. eg. Psalm 13
Psa 13:1 For the director of music. A psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
Psa 13:6 I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.
17. There are ways God answers us and speaks to us that are not in this psalm. God speaks to us through our experiences. God is a sovereign God. He can open and close doors for us. We may want something so much and yet we do not know if it is God’s will. Try and see. To go into ministry - for me. Spoke through opening doors, circumstances.
18. God also spoke through counsel of other believers. Not from Oprah or gang at work, but from those who know the Lord and who care. Through ministers and priests.
Psa 13:1-6 For the director of music. A psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.
19. Nathan to David after David had sinned.
20. God provides answers for all our prayers. Do we listen? Do we hear?
21. Do we pray. Tony Evans - spend 30 seconds praying and 3 hours woryying - better other way around. But as we pray, listen to God. Take time to listen.
