Yes, No, Maybe So: Devotional 09/06/23
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· 5 viewsSometimes God answers prayer and sometimes He doesn’t. Why is that? And how can we make sure we are praying the right way?
Notes
Transcript
Prayer Requests:
1. Ben job update
2. Sept 17th Sunday service reminder
3. Update on cussing
Introduction:
God hears all your prayers
4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.
14 And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him.
15 And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.
12 “For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, And His ears attend to their prayer, But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
and, in one sense, he answers all your prayers. But we do not always receive what we ask for. When we ask God for something, the response will be ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or ‘Wait’.
John Stott wrote that God will answer ‘No’ if the things we ask for ‘are either not good in themselves, or not good for us or for others, directly or indirectly, immediately or ultimately’.
We don’t always get to know the reason why the answer is ‘No’. We need to remember that God sees things from an eternal perspective and that there are some things we may never understand in this life.
Here is an example of what we are saying:
Body:
Matthew 20:20-34
A Mother’s Request
²⁰ Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favour of him.²¹ “What is it you want?” he asked.She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”²² “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”“We can,” they answered.²³ Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”²⁴ When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. ²⁵ Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ²⁶ Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ²⁷ and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— ²⁸ just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Two Blind Men Receive Sight
²⁹ As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. ³⁰ Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”³¹ The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”³² Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.³³ “Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.”³⁴ Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.
Commentary
God says ‘no’ to one request, ‘yes’ to another.
Rick Warren writes, ‘When the request is not right, God says “No”. When the timing is not right, God says “Slow”. When you are not right, God says “Grow”. But when the request is right and the timing is right and you are right, God says “Go”.’
In this passage we see two requests. The first receives the answer ‘No’ (vv.20–28) and the second the answer ‘Yes’ (vv.29–34).
Two requests
In both cases Jesus asked, ‘What do you want?’ He said to the mother of Zebedee’s sons, ‘What is it you want?’ (v.21). He said to the two blind men, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ (v.32).
In a way, it must have been obvious what they wanted (in the second instance they were blind, so they must have wanted to see), but God wants us to be actively involved.
The apostle James says, ‘You do not have, because you do not ask God’ (James 4:2).
Jesus says, ‘Ask and it will be given to you... For everyone who asks receives’ (Matthew 7:7–8).
It may seem an obvious point, but the starting point of answered prayer is actually asking.
Two responses
In the case of the request of the blind men, Jesus’ response was ‘Yes’. ‘Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him’ (v.34).
On the other hand, Jesus, in effect, said ‘No’ to the mother of Zebedee’s sons. This response also stemmed from compassion. Her request was for glory, power and promotion for her boys. He points out that she does not seem to understand all the implications of her request.
He said, ‘Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?’ (v.22). The Old Testament prophets spoke in several passages of the ‘cup of his (God’s) wrath’ (for example, Isaiah 51:17–22; Jeremiah 25:15–29).
Shockingly, Jesus speaks of drinking this cup himself. He is going to ‘give his life as a ransom for many’ (Matthew 20:28). The Greek word for ‘for’ (‘anti’), means ‘instead of’. This is the clearest example in the whole New Testament of Jesus explaining his death in terms of substitution.
Both responses were out of compassion!
Two reasons
The apostle James writes, ‘When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives’ (James 4:3)
3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
Behind the requests here lay different motives. Both requests were to do with lordship.
The request of the blind men came from the recognition that Jesus is Lord, and a desire for something good (Matthew 20:30–33). On the other hand, Jesus points out that the mother’s request came from a desire to ‘lord it over’ others (v.25).
True greatness does not come from lording it over others or from what the world regards as success (wealth, position, fame or having a ‘successful’ ministry). Rather, Jesus says that true greatness comes from becoming ‘a servant’ – following his example in choosing ‘to serve, not be served’ (vv.26–28). This is an example of where the disciples were wrong and God said ‘Grow’.
I think I have learnt more in my own life from the times when my prayers have not seemed to be answered than from the times when they have been answered with a ‘Yes’. Certainly the disciples must have learnt a huge amount from this ‘unanswered’ prayer.
Conclusion:
What have you prayed for in the past and the Lord told you “no”, “yes”, and “wait”?
no - looking for a house from West Old Murphy Road
yes - praying for a school for Hannahlynn to go to and she knew the day she walked onto campus that it was where God wanted her to go
wait - starting The Gap/being in ministry together as a family again
What are you praying for now and you may think God has already answered you but it’s not the answer you wanted?
Prayer
Lord, thank you for the lessons that we learn from ‘unanswered’ prayer. Thank you that you showed us true greatness. Help me to devote my life to your service and to the service of others