Believing Prayer
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Mark 11:22-25
Mark 11:22-25
22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
The power of prayer has subdued the strength of fire, bridled the rage of lions, silenced anarchy, extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, enlarged the gates of heaven, relieved diseases, averted frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt. - John Chrysostom
We live in an era of impatience. We can’t abide waiting at a set of traffic lights for longer than a minute or two. We want our takeaway food ready in 15 minutes or we cancel. We hate waiting, we hate feeling out of control. Often when faced with an obstacle or a difficulty we don’t consider prayer as a practical solution to the problem. Oh sure, we’ll send up a few prayers as a last resort, or as insurance in case our more practical solution doesn’t pan out. But Jesus saw prayer, and not just any prayer but believing prayer, as an eminently practical solution to even the most mountainous of problems.
23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.
Many of us if faced with a mountain are on the phone with the earth removal contracters before we’ve even considered prayer! Why? Maybe on some level we don’t trust God to answer us. Maybe we struggle because we think our problem is too big, or too small or perhaps we think we’re the problem, we’re not good enough or that maybe we’re not in God’s good books, so we’d better press on without His help. But Jesus is at pains to encourage us that when He is with us, our prayers get answered and in miraculous ways.
13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
These are blank cheque promises! How would you act if a cheque arrived in the mail from the world’s richest person. The cheque was signed, made out to you for £1 billion and a covering note explaining that you were the lucky recipient of this money and that you could do what you liked with it. You would be straight down the bank to deposit that money!
But in prayer, Jesus says, we are given a blank cheque. And yet we so often neglect prayer.
Oh God, thou hast given us a mighty weapon, and we have permitted it to rust. - Spurgeon
There’s nothing that’s too big for prayer, nothing that’s out of the reach of our prayers. Because God is God. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the whole universe is His, the earth is His footstool. If our prayers were cheques, there’s no amount that He isn’t good for.
We can have confidence in prayer, because of Who we are praying to. Our faith is not in the prayers themselves, but in the One to whom we pray.
But God’s omnipotence alone isn’t cause for us to have confidence that He will answer our requests. We wouldn’t expect that Elon Musk would respond to our email asking him to pay off our mortgage. Just because he is technically able to pay off our mortgage doesn’t mean that he is likely to. There’s no relationship. You see, even the demons know that God is omnipotent, but do you think that He answers their prayers? Listen to how Jesus instructs us to pray in Matt 6:9
9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Our confidence isn’t just in God’s sovereign omnipotence, in His power, but it’s also in knowing that through Christ He is our Father. These promises concerning answered prayer are for God’s covenant people, they are for His Church, for His children.
If you abide in me and my words abide in you ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. - John 15:7
And there is one more condition that is required of us in prayer - we must have faith.
22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.
What Jesus says to His disciples in verse 22 isn’t a suggestion, it’s a command. Have faith in God! Having faith in God is differrent from simply believing in God. The devil believes in God, but he doesn’t have faith in Him. Faith is believing, but it goes beyond believing.
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains 31.85 πιστεύω; πίστις, εως
31.85 πιστεύωb; πίστιςb, εως f: to believe to the extent of complete trust and reliance
So faith is trust. And so what is it to have faith in God, it’s more than just believing in God, it’s believing Him at His word, trusting in Him and in His promises.
When we pray our faith isn’t supposed to rest in the prayer itself, as though we use prayer to manipulate God into giving us what we want, but our faith is in God Himself. Prayer is just the means that God has ordained for us to communicate with Him. Nor is our faith in ourselves, in our ability to pray in the right way, with all the big words, or in our own worthiness to receive an answer to prayer, Our faith is in God through Christ.
“Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you.” - JC Ryle
Nor is our faith to rest in our faith. Many Christians struggle to maintain a genuine sense of peace or joy because their faith is actually anchored in their faith and not in God. They are always looking inward, focussing on their faith, their emotions, their love for Jesus rather than His love for them! Our faith in prayer needs to be on God, if we look to the cross rather than at ourselves our faith will grow.
“Charles Spurgeon once said: ‘I looked at Christ, and the dove of peace flew into my heart. I looked at the dove, and it flew away.”
Jews’ faith was deeply connected to the temple. How could they believe that God would answer prayers if the temple was going to be destroyed? Jesus is pointing to Himself as that answer. He is going to build a new temple.
Once we have settled our eyes on Him our faith will grow, and as our faith grows so will our prayer life.
“Faith gives birth to prayer, and grows stronger, strikes deeper, rises higher, in the struggles and wrestlings of mighty petitioning.” - EM Bounds
Believing prayer wrestles with the impossible - believing prayer tells the mountain to move. It’s easy sometimes to go through the motions in prayer - we pray for ourselves, for the family, maybe for one or two others, or maybe we rush through the Lord’s prayer. Or maybe we start praying but then kind of run out of steam. Sometimes it helps to visualise the mountain before we start praying. What mountain am I going to come up against in prayer today? The salvation of an unbelieving friend? For revival in our city? For our family member to be healed of cancer? Sometimes we aren’t seeing answers in prayer because we’re not actually really sure what we’re praying for!
You are like a man who should go to a shop and not know what articles he would procure. He may perhaps make a happy purchase when he is there, but certainly it is not a wise plan to adopt. - Spurgeon
Believing prayer knows it can leave the request with God. That doesn’t mean we don’t pray more than once for the same thing - sometimes we must persist even for a long time in prayer over something but when we are praying from faith we’re confident that God’s got it - whatever his answer might be, and whenever he might choose to answer He has got it.
Our prayer life is like a train, held on track by the rails of God’s omnipotence and of His sovereignty. He can do all things, and yet He does all things according to His own sovereign timing. He knows best, and therefore believing prayers trust His timing as well as His power to act. Sometimes His answer is yes, sometimes it’s no, sometimes it’s not yet.
Paul prayed time and time and time again for a particular mountain in his life to be removed - But God said no.
2 cor 12:7-8
7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Jesus prayed for the cup of suffering to be taken from Him in the garden, but it wasn’t.
35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Believing prayer doesn’t command God to do x, y or z. It asks Him, it petitions Him, it pleads with Him, passionately even desperately sometimes but it also acknowledges His sovereign plan - yet not what I will but what you will.
Forgive
Prayer must come not only from a believing heart, but also from a forgiving heart. There are certain things which the Bible actually says hinder our prayers from being answered -
7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
15 When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
The Good news of the gospel is that we were rebels against God, but we have been profoundly forgiven in Christ. A Christian isn’t a good person, a Christian is a rebel who has been forgiven and transformed by the grace of God.
“if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him. For you are worse than he thinks you to be.” - Spurgeon
Do you know you need forgiveness today? Do you know that there is grace enough to deal with all your sin?
The likelihood is that if we’re holding on to unforgiveness, if we’re holding a grudge it’s that we have forgotten just how much we have been forgiven. We’re not acting like Christ does towards us.
When we get a sense of just how much we have been forgiven it becomes increasingly difficult to hold unforgiveness towards others. It’s not that we obtain the grace of God through being forgiving, but rather that the grace of God works in us so that we become forgiving.
Is there some forgiving that you might need to do today? Forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation, it doesn’t mean you have to go and be friends with that person again, but it does mean that you afford them the same treatment that you received from Christ.
So when we pray and believe God mountains move - sometimes God removes the actual mountain, sometimes he moves you, sometimes He does both! What mountains are there in your path? For some of you it might be unbelief, you believe but you still have doubts. For some it might be sickness. For others it might be that you want to see souls saved, revival to come. Let’s believe God, let’s pray and let’s forgive.