Unanswered Prayer

Intro

Unanswered prayer is an issue we all face at one time or another. What do we do when we have prayed and prayed about something, and seemingly there are no results? I have a couple of situations like that going on in my life right now. Some of you may be dealing with the same thing in your life. I don’t know any Christian that has never faced this issue. Paul faced it in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. What do we do with unanswered prayer? Do we just keep praying? Do we commit the matter to the Lord and move on to something more productive? The way we respond to unanswered prayer has profound implications, first in our own lives but also for the lives of those we are praying for. I want to examine Jesus’s teaching about prayer in Luke 11 in search of some answers to these questions. Our text is in Luke 11.

Luke 11:1 gives the setting in which Jesus gave this instruction: “Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’”i I expected the verse to say “they” were praying, but the scripture says “He” was praying. That strikes me as a bit strange. Why weren’t the disciples praying with him? Were they just watching him pray? Perhaps Jesus wanted the solitude with the Father. We don’t know. But we do know that prayer is mostly learned in the doing. It is certainly valid to receive instruction on the subject. It was a wise thing to ask Jesus for that instruction. The instruction we will receive from this passage will help us pray more effectively. But to get the full benefits of that instruction, we will have to develop a lifestyle of prayer. Instruction must be applied for it to yield maximum results. Learning to pray is like learning to ride a bicycle; Doing it is essential to the learning process.

James told some Christians: “You do not have, because you do not ask God” (James 4:2 NIV). The lack of prayer is the first obstacle we must overcome. In Isaiah 56:7, God declared his house to be a “house of prayer.” Churches across America are getting into trouble because they have made God’s house a “house of entertainment”: a lovely song that does not disturb the conscience but simply tickles the ears of lukewarm Christians.ii Many in the audience may not even born again. Some churches have become a “house of commerce,” as was the case with the money changers in Jesus’s day (Matt. 21:12-13).

How many of our problems would be resolved if we would just get back to being a house of prayer, rather than a house of entertainment? Jesus told Peter, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation” (Mark 14:38). Some of the church scandals that are in the news today, might have been avoided if the leaders were praying and the people were praying for them. When we make the church a “house of entertainment” rather than a “house of prayer,” we are bound to get into trouble.iii

In Luke 11, the disciples had watched Jesus pray, and they had seen the results of his prayers. The results were so good, they wanted to know how to pray the way Jesus prayed. We have the same heart. That is why we are studying this passage today. How do we pray effectively? How do we pray in a way that gets results? There is no greater motivation toward prayer than results. When our praying is ineffectual, we lose motivation to continue in prayer. If it is doing no good, why do it? The answer to that question is to learn to do it effectively.

In response to the disciples’ request, Jesus gave them what we typically refer to as the Lord’s Prayer. The first passage every Christian ought to memorize is the Lord’s Prayer. I use it often as a guideline for personal time with the Lord. It is packed with instruction on how to pray effectively. Using the Lord’s Prayer, I want to process FIVE CONDITONS FOR ANSWERED PRAYER.

In Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus cautioned against ineffective praying. He said in Matthew 6:7: “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” They think answered prayer is a matter of volume: You ask it enough times, and God will finally relent and answer the prayer. Many Christians have this mentality about prayer. They just keep repeating the same prayer over and over, hoping that if they ask enough times the answer will finally come. One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing expecting a different result.iv Perseverance in prayer is a biblical principle, and we will talk about that some today. But prayer is a relational interaction with God. When we find ourselves somewhat mindlessly repeating the same prayer over and over, we should pause and ask ourselves some serious questions: questions that revolve around these five conditions for answered prayer. Before we get into the five conditions, I want to ensure we have a biblical perspective on prayer.