LORD, HEAR OUR PRAYERS
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Psalm 84:8-12
Psalm 84:8-12
Intro
Reminder about 40 days of prayer and fasting starts Wednesday
Feb 14th-March 24th
Explain the prayer guides and the purpose and power of 500 people praying in unity for the welfare of our cities and our churches.
Remember, the 3 questions
What would you have me fast?
How do you want me specifically to seek the welfare of the city?
Search me, try me and see if there is any grievous ways within me.
Last week, we start Psalm 84 and was praying the prayer, “Lord, teach us to long for you.”
We talked about the lovely dwelling place of the Lord is now within you and me if you are in Christ.
We talked about how the alter of the Lord is a safe place for our most valuable possession, our soul.
And when we find that safety, that love, that strength, we find that our souls long to be with the Lord, yes even faints for Him and His presence.
We talked about the blessing that our hearts and souls receive for those in whose heart are the highways to God...
Lord, teach us to long for you and realize what we have in you.
This morning, we are going to pick up in Verse 8 and continue. But first, let’s read 1-7 to catch up.
Psalm 84:8 (ESV)
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
So, again, he is referring to YAHWEH God of hosts, the commander of the Lord’s army. The Warrior King. The undefeated King of the World. David is walking into the headquarters of all spiritual warfare. The leader of the forces of good in the spiritual realm.
Then David said a phrase that caused me to think and study.
David asks the Lord to hear his prayer, to give ear, O God of Jacob.
My mind stopped and asked why he prayed that. What did he have to ask? Why is this important? Is it simply a plea to be heard or is this request necessary?
Is there times or situations to where the Lord would not listen to our prayers? That He would not give ear?
(pause)
I found 8 verses but we are going to briefly look at 5 that describes situations or reasons that the Lord may not listen or grant the request of our prayers.
Two things right off the bat,
I do not believe that when these verses talk about God not listening or hearing, I do not believe that God plugs His ears and acts like a toddler. I don’t think that He can’t physically hear, its that He doesn’t allow our prayers to change situations or hinders His responses to our prayers. You’ll see what I’m talking about.
I believe it has more to do with what we talked about a couple of weeks age in James 5:16.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
We talked about how the righteous person is not a perfect person, but a person who is actively pursuing the Lord, confessing and repenting of sin, killing sin and pursuing righteous living. This verse tells us that the prayers of a person like this has great power, or availeth much, or have great affect in its working.
I think that we are about to see that supported throughout scripture.
Let’s go through these verses and pray Psalm 139:23-24
Psalm 139:23–24 (ESV)
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
This is our prayer, Lord. That our prayers would not be hindered or be in vain. Help us to discern these verses with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to seek truth, even if it hurts. Bring us to a place of confession and repentance, and may we be greeted with your steadfast love and mercy in our time of need.
In the precious name and by the blood of Jesus we pray.
Amen.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
If you are seeking wisdom from the Lord and you ask doubting that He will answer you, this verse is clear, do not expect to receive anything from Him.
To add to this, Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
Faith is required to receive the rewards of His wisdom and doubt can hinder His from answering.
Psalm 66:18
Psalm 66:18 (ESV)
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
If we have cherished, loved, cared for sin in our hearts.
If there are those sins that in our hearts and minds that we are fully aware of, that we love and hold close and have a hundred excuses for.
Those sins that if we were honest with ourselves, we would say that we do not intend to ever give up or turn away from.
Look, this is a conversation between your heart and God. I’m not up here judging, I’m just reading what the Word says.
And the Word is telling us that if we cherish sin, if we love sin in our hearts, then we do not love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, minds and souls.
And if this is a relationship and we love something that hurts His heart, then why would the Lord listen.
Micah echoes this same truth.
Micah 3:2–4 (ESV)
you who hate the good and love the evil,
(spare you the gorey details of this passage)
Then they will cry to the Lord,
but he will not answer them;
he will hide his face from them at that time,
because they have made their deeds evil.
I’m not sure it can be more clear than this, if you love evil and hate good, then God will not answer your prayers....
What about 1 Peter 3:7
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.
Husbands, if you are domineering, cruel, speak down to your wife. If you do not live honoring her, loving her like Christ loves the church, giving of yourself to her. Sanctifying her. Then you prayers may be hindered.
If you are not seeking or leading your wife to be united with you, if there is disunity in your marriage and it is your fault, your prayers may be hindered.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
So, if we ask the Lord for things to use on our selfish motives or to spend on our passions, we will not receive the request of our prayers.
Look, I know that these verses are hard to hear and that they certainly are not popular to preach about. Trust me, I haven’t been looking forward to this, but I have been called to preach the whole Word.
But this is not super negative!
We can stop and thank our loving God from being gracious enough to tell us that there are times and prayers that He will not listen to or honor, rather than Him NOT tell us and let us just pray for nothing??
I thank Him for His Word that shows us that there are things in our lives or how we live our lives that can hinder our prayers from being answered!
At least, we now know them!
Our God is gracious and loving and care enough about this relationship that we have with Him to at least tell us how to pray and have our prayer heard and answered!
So, let us now turn our hearts towards Him but allow the truth of His word come into our hearts and minds so that the grace of God can be real.
Because I also believe there are certain prayers that the Lord never ignores or does not honor.
I believe the Lord never ignores our humble prayers of confession and repentance.
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
If we humble ourselves, pray, seek His face and turn away from our sins, He WILL hear our prayers and forgive our sins!
This is the promise!
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If you confess, admit, acknowledge, don’t try to cover up or make excuses, that you sinned,
then His faithfulness of His promise can be trusted. His faithfulness to listen and hear and forgive that sin and cleanse you from all, all unrighteousness.
Psalm 32:5 (ESV)
I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
Psalm 51:17 (ESV)
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Despise meaning to show contempt for, to think lightly of, to see as small value.
A heart that is broken over its sin, love for sin, doubt, disobedience to the Lord, our loving, faithful and gracious God will not push away or look down on. But will always welcome.
Want to see it one more time?
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Because we have Jesus in the office of priest for us, in the position of paying for our sins, the one who tore down the wall of hostility between us and God,
Because we have Him, if we hold fast to what?
Our confession, confession of who He is, yes, but also confession of our sins, of our need for Him. of our need to rid our lives of sin, cherished loved sin.
If we hold fast to confession, because our great high priest knows what its like to be human, knows what its like to be tempted, knows how hard it is to live on this earth and not sin, yet He was able to do it!
I know that’s a lot of “becauses” but because of all of those “becauses”,
we draw near to the throne of what? Grace!
That we may receive what?
Mercy and grace in our time of needing mercy and grace. As we hold fast to confession, recognizing our need, we are always allowed before the throne of grace.
And we can be confident about the fact that we will be admitted before this throne. We can be confident that we won’t be push out, set aside, looked on with disdain or contempt. But that our God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse you of your unrighteousness.
So, I thank God that He wrote these verses that we will know that there are things that might hinder or damage our prayers!
I thank God that He wants us to know! That its not a mystery!
I thank God for Jesus Christ, our great high priest! That keeps the door open for us to draw near to the faithful God to find grace and mercy in our time of need if we hold fast to confession.
Our James passage from a couple of weeks ago, calls out to us as well.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
As we begin this 40 days of prayer and fasting on Wednesday, I think the Lord is calling us to confess. To come before Him as a church and admit that we don’t have everything figured out and we might not be doing everything correctly. So, that we can be a righteous people whose prayers have great power in it working. That our prayers avail much!
I’m going to say a prayer as the pastor of the church and then I would like you to take a few minutes and circle up.
I would ask you to circle up 5-6 people per group. Pray the prayer that we started the service with. Lord, search us, try us, see if there is any grievous ways in us.
And i’m going to ask you to do what James 5 tells us. Confess to one another and pray for one another.
Y’all ready for this?! Will you trust me in this?
Look we will never see the fruit of verses like this unless we do we give you chances to act of them.
Let’s pray.
Points to confess:
Lord, we want to take you at your word. We want to see your promises fulfilled in our lives and in our church.
As the pastor,
I confess that I don’t always practice what I preach.
I confess that I struggle with cherished sin in my heart.
I confess that I sometimes lead this church to look like other churches instead of what you are asking us to look like.
I confess that struggle with insecurities in my life, my family and our church.
As a church,
I confess that we have strayed far from the intended view of the NT church described in the Bible.
I confess that we are very inward focused as a people.
I confess that we do not value or act upon the commands of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I confess that the American church has strayed from what it should be.
For those in the church:
Lord, there are those here who are feeling the drawing, loving conviction of your HS towards the throne of grace.
There are those here who are recognizing their need for you.
There are also those here who feel like they are too far gone. That the door that we talked about here today has been closed to them and the Lord doesn’t want to listen to their prayer of confession because they have prayed it too often.
Lord, may we today, find the answer to all of our needs in you, Lord Jesus.
Show yourself, in our groups and prayers.
Give us courage to be honest in our confession and lead us to prayer earnest prayers for each other. That we may be healed.
Most merciful God,
We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed,
by what we have done, and
by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your name,
in the name of Jesus, we pray.
Amen.