Questions on Prayer II
November 23, 2003
Joke:
An elderly man in Phoenix calls his son in New York and says, "I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; 45 years of misery is enough."
"Pop, what are you talking about?" the son screams.
"We can’t stand the sight of each other any longer," the old man says. "We’re sick of each other, and I’m sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her." Then he hangs up.
Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. "Like heck they’re getting divorced," she shouts, "I’ll take care of this." She calls Phoenix immediately, and screams at the old man, "You are NOT getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?"
The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. "Okay," he says, "They’re coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own fares."
There was very positive feedback last week on the topic “Questions on Prayer.” My hope is that you will be encouraged to seek God’s face and talk to Him more and more as a result. If all we accomplish is the satisfaction of curiosity, I will have failed, but if you are inspired to pray more, to know Him better, then we will have succeeded.
There were a couple of questions submitted last week, the most challenging one that you submitted was “Does God only hear the prayer of the Christian?”
I found that one particularly interesting, because I had begun to research that topic even before the question had been asked. I would like to take a different path to answering that question, because the more I read scripture, the more I realized that you and I have generally been spoon fed baby food answers to this particular question.
By “spoon fed” I mean we have taken the “pat answers” that the radio and television evangelists give us. And by “spoon fed” I also mean to say that it is these oversimplified answers that we repeat to others without really digging for the answers ourselves.
1. Why wouldn’t God hear a man’s prayers?
a. We need to start with this foundation. God is holy. He is perfect.
i. Man, that is you and I, are not.
ii. We have rebelled against God, chosen our own way.
iii. Adam & Eve’s rebellion is exhibited in every human being alive.
iv. The bible says that you and I are born “spiritually dead.”
v. Dead doesn’t mean non-existant. It means we are born relationally “separated” from God. Just as a person is described as “dead” when the life or soul leaves their body, so are we spiritually dead, when we are relationally separated from God.
b. As a result, we have no right to approach God.
i. We don’t deserve anything from Him.
ii. The bible says that you and I deserve only one thing. We have earned the wages of our sin…death.
1. We do not deserve life, a relationship with God, or our prayers to be answered.
2. We deserve to be allowed to perish. We are the ones who moved away. Not God. We rebelled.
c. But God did something extraordinary. First of all, He set aside the nation of Israel as His own special possession, and He purposely redeemed Israel and set them apart from all of the other peoples of the earth.
i. Not because of anything they did.
ii. But rather, because they were the least deserving.
iii. He made a promise to a man named Abraham, and promised to be His God and his descendents would be His people.
iv. And it was His plan, that through this nation of Israel, that God would work a plan to restore men and women everywhere to a relationship with Himself.
1. His plan was for at the right point in time, for His son to come and take on flesh, and to experience a supernatural birth.
2. Jesus, would be born sinless, and then bear the sins of all mankind, so that all who place their trust in him might have everlasting life.
a. That is, they would be reborn spiritually, made alive again, and have the rights and privileges of a relationship with God.
b. That God’s original plan, in the garden of Eden, which was thwarted by rebellion, would be restored, and that men and women would know Him in the way He designed us.
Why does God hear us?
2. Because Jesus purchased for us, a restored relationship with rights and privileges. Lets look at some of them.
a. The Right of Citizenship
i. Colonialism:
1. Philipi was a colony of Rome, and the colonists were citizens of Rome, so they endeavored to make Philipi to be just like Rome, even though it was hundreds of miles away! Those who settled there worked to make it just like the territory they had come from. The culture, practices, laws, and conduct of the citizens was identical to those of Rome, even though Rome was far away.
2. Ephesians 2:19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
3. Philippians 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven
4. If you recognize the analogy, the bible is saying that you and I are citizens of heaven. We live here in a colony, far away from heaven. We must endeavor to make our conduct and lives identical to what they would be like if we were at home!
ii. Rights:
1. Now a citizen possesses certain rights that a foreigner or alien does not have.
a. A citizen can vote, they have the rights to courts, to constitutional rights, we have access to our rulers.
b. A non citizen does not have these rights.
i. Foreigners that live in other countries do not have these rights.
ii. It is one of the reasons that millions of people try to sneak across our borders every year.
iii. They want to become citizens of our country to have the rights you and I take for granted.
2. In the same way, you and I are citizens of heaven.
a. We have rights that non-citizens do not have.
b. Jesus makes it clear that we have the rights to approach God and expect answers to our prayers.
c. We have unhindered access to God.
d. And unlike a human ruler, our God has no limitations. We can ask the impossible from Him and expect answers.
e. It is our right as citizens to ask and expect such answers.
b. The Rights of Son-Ship
i. Now, I wonder if you can imagine President Bush. He is busy in his office. You wish to see him, so you call and make an appointment, right?
1. Not too likely. He is a busy person and has time for only those with needs that are appropriate to his office.
2. But there is someone who holds no official titles, has no needs of a head of state or governing official, who has instant and unbridled access to the president? Do you know who that is?
3. It is his daughters! His children! They can call and he will instantly put aside all that is on his desk to speak to them and to attend to their needs!
ii. Such it is for you and I. God is the head of the state of heaven and earth.
1. Imagine, you ask Him for something and you get the reply…who are you? I don’t know you!
2. The bible says that many will get that reply.
3. But you and I have a special relationship with God, if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ.
4. The bible says that “"To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, not of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God" (John 1:12, 13)..”
5. We have the rights of access to God because of this relationship that Jesus made for us.
a. We have been adopted as sons and daughters of God and we have unhindered access to God.
b. He will not say, “I do not know you.”
c. Because Jesus paid the price for our sins, He knows us.
c. The rights found “In Christ”
i. This phrase occurs 165 times in the 13 letters of Paul.
ii. The phrase describes something to be known and experienced by all Christians.
1. The phrase "in Christ" describes the essence of the Christian life of every Christian.
2. If you recall, last week I shared a story about a mountain in Australia, upon which its owners labored year after year, barely eking out a living. They were unaware of the riches that were just below their feet…the largest, richest vein of Gold in the world.
3. The phrase “in Christ” is used to describe the riches and the fullness of privilege that is ours as a result of what Jesus has done at the Cross on our behalf.
a. You see, We were described as being “in Adam” before we placed our trust in Jesus Christ.
i. We were his “descendants” and inherited everything that Adam had.
ii. We inherited his death, his sin, his failures and his weakness.
iii. So while Adam was originally “made in the image of God,” his sin broke and marred that image, so that his descendants would be in Adam’s image, not God’s image.
b. But, God in His love for man has sent His Son into the world to become a man -- Jesus Christ.
i. He is the image of God, the perfect man.
ii. But He came not just to be what man should have been or to give man a perfect example but to give them life and restore them to the image of God.
iii. He did this by entering into their condition of spiritual and physical death on the cross.
iv. So that as Christ was raised from the dead, they might be made alive with Him in His resurrection.
v. That is, Christ’s death was their death and His resurrection is their resurrection.
vi. When a man responds to this revelation by turning from his false gods (repentance) and turning to the true God, acknowledging Jesus as his Lord (by faith) he is saved from sin.
c. This process of placing one’s faith in Christ moves us from to a place where we are “dead” to our lives in Adam and alive to our life in Christ.
i. We are no longer “in Adam” because we have died with Christ. We died when he died.
ii. To illustrate this, imagine this dollar bill as you or I.
1. If I put it in my bible, you can say, it is “in my bible”…right?
2. The best part of that is, whatever happens to my bible happens to it.
3. If my bible is tossed into a fire, what happens to the dollar bill?
4. It shares the same fate as my bible.
5. So also, it is with us in Christ.
6. What happened to Him has happened to us, because we have been placed in Christ by faith.
7. So when Christ has been raised to heavenly places, so have we. We are “in Christ.”
8. All that is his is ours as well.
d. "I have been crucified with Christ: and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2:20)
iii. These riches of Christ are yours! Just like the gold mine beneath your feet. These riches of God are ours IN CHRIST.
1. (John 16:15) "All that belongs to the Father is mine...the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you"
2. Philippians 4:19 “my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
3. Ephesians 2:6-7 “and He raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly {places} in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
4.
3. Anyone can cry out to God for mercy.
a. Anyone can cry out to God for forgiveness.
i. If it were not so, no one would be saved.
ii. But answered prayer is is not based upon what we have done but what Christ has done.
iii. If it is up to us, then we control God.
1. If performing just the right rituals, actions, right words, body position, formula, language could get God to answer our prayers, then we would have control over Him.
2. But God is sovereign and controlled by noone.
4. Entering the Presence of God:
a. Prayer is more than a cry for help. Prayer is entering God’s very presence with the needs of your heart.
i. Perhaps we have desensitized our hearts to the real meaning of prayer, and have made it a laundry list that we email to God and expect an answer.
ii. I am guilty of this as well. Too often in prayer meetings, I am in a hurry to “speak our prayers to God” and spend too little time trying to become aware of the Great and wonderful God I am speaking to!
iii. When we try to “email God” our needs, without dwelling and spending time in His presence, we become like impetuous teenagers whose only words to their parents are, “can I borrow the car” or “Dad, do you have 10 bucks I can borrow for my date tonight?”
iv. Imagine how ready our Heavenly Father is to give us the needs of our hearts, when we stop to talk and listen and enjoy His presence?
v. Imagine how much more you would be willing to give your children (or teens) if they took the time to talk and listen and nurture their relationship with you?
vi. Imagine what thanksgiving does to you…when your children acknowledge your sacrifices with thanksgiving…are you not ready to give them all the more because of that?
vii. These responses are similar in our Father in Heaven. He isn’t interested in being our sugar daddy, he wants to have a relationship with us. An intimate relationship with us. But we must be willing to devote ourselves to that relationship.
b. The role of Faith
i. Mentioned over 200 times in the New Testament.
ii. Faith is a key component of answered prayer.
1. Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please {Him,} for he who comes to God must believe that He is and {that} He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
iii. We should ask, can an unbeliever have the faith to ask God for something?
1. Which God are they asking for this thing from? Zeus? Athena? Gaia? Allah?
a. You see, faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed.
i. One can have great faith in an unreliable object, and that faith is worthless.
ii. There are those who place their faith in idols, others believe in religions, others still believe that they themselves are god.
iii. Of all the millions in India living in the bondage of Hinduism, none may pray except the Brahmins! A millionaire merchant of any other caste must perforce get a Brahmin -- often a mere boy at school! -- to say his prayers for him.
iv. The Mohammedan cannot pray unless he has learned a few phrases in Arabic, for his "god" only hears prayers offered in what they believe to be the holy language.
v. But just as flowing water can only rise as high as its source, their belief will never be any better than the object that they place it in.
2. So can an unbeliever get anything from God? Can a non-Christian?
a. The answer is yes, but to a limited degree.
b. God often hears and answers prayer even from those who have no legal right to pray -- from those who are not His "children," and may even deny that He exists!
c. The Gospels tell us of not a few unbelievers who came to Christ for healing; and He never sent one away without the coveted blessing -- never.
i. They came as "beggars," not as "children." And even if "the children must first be fed," these others received the crumbs -- yea, and more than crumbs -- that were freely given
ii. We should look at an example of a woman, outside of the covenant, before the Gentiles had been added to the list of those to be saved…
d. Matthew 15:21-28 - 21 Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon 22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and {began} to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed." 23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us." 24 But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25 But she came and {began} to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" 26 And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs." 27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table." 28 Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.
e. This woman was not under the covenant. She was not a citizen or a child of the promises of God. And Jesus plainly told her so. In verse 24, he tells her that He came ONLY to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. He wasn’t there to answer the needs (at that time) of those outside of the covenant. But she persists. Look at a few elements of her faith:
i. She acknowledges that Jesus is the Messiah. That is, she expresses her faith in him, despite being outside of the promise.
ii. She further refuses to take no for an answer, recognizing that she has no “legal” rights to have her prayer answer, she instead defers to the lowly rights of pets. That is, the rights of simply being a creature dependent upon God. She acknowledges that though she is outside of the covenant, she still asks because she recognizes that God does in fact send rain to both the just and the unjust.
iii. There is a play on words in the woman’s reply. Christ used the word "dogs"; but the woman came back with another word (also translated "dogs" but with a slightly different meaning). The word she used means "little dogs" or "puppies." It is as though she said, "Yes, Lord, I am indeed a dog, but not a very big one, only a tiny one; and since the little dogs stay under the master’s table and eat the crumbs the children drop, surely you must be able to help me. It is only a crumb that I ask."
iv. God listens to desperate people, people who come to Him in faith. God isn’t numb or deaf to people’s needs, because we must remember His purposes. 1 Timothy 2:3-6 :“God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, {and} one mediator also between God and men, {the} man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all,.”
v. That is God’s mission statement. He desires that all come to Christ and be saved.
vi. The non-Christian does not have the rights, the citizenship that the Christian has because of what Christ has bought, but God desires that he have them.
1. But God desires that the non-Christian look to Him.
vii. I used to think “Touched by an angel” was bad theology, because it did not promote Jesus Christ, but rather promoted a Christless God. I recognize that anything that puts a hunger in a person for God will also ultimately, put a hunger in them for the person of Jesus Christ.
1. God places a hunger, a hole in our hearts that only He can fill.
2. We spend our lives looking for ways to fill that hole.
3. We try to fill it with stuff, with pleasure, with achievements, with relationships…and we still find ourselves empty.
4. Because only God can fill this need.
f. Perhaps you have been treating God as a genie in a jar. You haven’t known Him as the Savior and Lord. You haven’t entered a relationship with Him that reflects the nature of a child.
i. You can today.
ii. God is asking and seeking you. He wants you to stop running, to stop making up your own rules and to seek Him.
iii. He paid for you, an incredible price. He has even offered to rescue you on more than one occasion. You didn’t deserve it. But He is reaching out to you. Won’t you stop running today?
iv. With every head bowed and every eye closed, I would like to lead you in a prayer that God will hear. It can change your life and lead you to know that every prayer you will ever pray will be heard from now own:
1. Dear Jesus, I am a sinner. I have run from you. I have led my life on my own terms. I don’t want to run anymore. I don’t want to live apart from you any longer. Forgive me. I trust in what Jesus did on the cross to pay for my sins. I believe I am forgiven, right now, for all that I have ever done or will ever do, because of what Jesus did for me. I want to be “in Christ.” Beginning now. Today. Enter in my life and take control. In Jesus name, Amen.
2. If that was the prayer of your heart and you prayed that prayer today, slip your hand up. I am not going to embarrass you today. Just slip your hand up to make a physical action that acknowledges what you have done today. Thank you.
v. We will close with a time of ministry. Perhaps you have a prayer need that you need met. You haven’t had the confidence to ask by yourself. If you wish, you can come forward and I will pray with you and we will agree on it in the name of Jesus.
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