Ask Boldly, Surrender Completely
Notes
Transcript
Welcome
Welcome
Good morning everyone. Today we are continuing on in our sermon series on prayer. This will be our last Sunday looking at prayer, I will be home with a new baby next Sunday and then the following week we are going to begin our Advent series. For Advent this year we are going to go through the Christmas account found in the Gospel of Luke and see how the Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love are found in the Christmas story. With that, let’s pray together and ask that God would teach us as we study prayer again today and ask The Holy Spirit to teach us more about how we can communicate with God.
Prayer
Prayer
Engage / Tension
Engage / Tension
A few months ago I had a friend send a text to a group chat that I’m a part of with some college friends. He was telling us about how his day had not gone as planned and randomly asked for someone to venmo (send him money electronically) him $10 to get a bagel and coffee. Not long after he texted back, someone had actually done it! This friend was having a bad day, asking (jokingly) for some cash for breakfast, and within a short amount of time someone had given it to him.
Now, my friend could have told us about his bad day and left it at that, but he asked for something. Even though it was just a bagel and coffee, he asked for it. And I think this is a good example of what we DON’T do with prayer sometimes. I think Stuart talked some about this, but it is important that we ASK God for what we want. Obviously there is some nuance to this, and we will get there, but I first want us to see that one of the problems we have sometimes is that we simply don’t ask God for things in prayer. James himself even says this in his letter.
You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
Now, these verses are within a larger passage, but what is happening is that James has been laying out the difference between earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. Some of the people have been pursuing earthly wisdom and selfish desires and as a result, this has caused some arguments within the church. James points out two issues when it comes to prayer within this context then.
First, he says that they do not have because they do not ask. Now, going back to my one friend, if he had never asked, he would not have gotten anything. How many times when it comes to prayer do we decide to not ask God, because part of us is afraid that the answer we recieve won’t be want we desire? There are times when I am afraid to pray boldy, to ask God to work and do different things, because I don’t want to be let down in some way in how God answers. And this is a problem. Jesus himself tells us to ask.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
We are encouraged to ask God for what we need. If you are sick, ask God for healing. If finances are tight, ask God to help. If relationships are strained, ask God for reconciliation. (I think about youth group one night when Cheyenne had lost her headphones, what did we do? We prayed and asked God to help her find them!) We have to ask. God is not bothered when we ask in prayer. It is not annoying to him, it does not take up his time, he wants us to ask.
(Kanan sometimes will want something but instead of asking he just says, “I wanted ______” a lot of times its around a meal and he wants cottage cheese, sometimes he wants a certain toy that he can’t reach, but I tell him, “All you have to do is ask buddy.” I love when I get to help Kanan get something that he wants. He lights up. And that is what Jesus mentions in that passage as well. If your son asks for bread, you aren’t going to give him a stone. If we, as fallen and sinful people know how to give good gifts to our kids, we need to recognize that our heavenly father desires to give good gifts to his children as well! But we have to ask!
Our Father loves to fill us with joy by granting the desires of our hearts for good and all our plans for his glory.
Prayer is thus connected with the blessing to show us the value of it. If we had the blessings without asking for them, we should think them common things; but prayer makes our mercies more precious than diamonds.
Charles Spurgeon
Spurgeon points out here that when we are bold and ask for these things, it shows us the value in prayer. These things are not common, they come from God. If we don’t ask, we will try to pursue these things on our own and won’t be able to see how they can be an answer to prayer and a blessing to us.
(Christmas gift illustration, you can ask for something for a gift, but if you end up going out and getting it yourself, you are robbing yourself of the ability to experience it as a gift)
We won’t see these things in our lives as blessings unless we ask God for them.
In his book on prayer, entitled, “A Praying Life,” Paul Miller writes,
“All of Jesus’ teaching on prayer in the Gospels can be summarized with one word: ask. His greatest concern is that our failure or reluctance to ask keeps us distant from God. But that is not the only reason he tells us to ask anything. God wants to give us good gifts. He loves to give.”
Going back to James then, the other issue that we have is that we ask God with the wrong motives and with selfish desires. Are we asking for things that are beneficial for others? Are the things we are praying for about loving God and loving others? We can absolutely ask God for our own needs, but we also need to examine our motives. Why do you want God to answer this prayer? As we pray then, we should ask ourselves, “Am I only asking God for this for personal pleasure, for selfish desires?” Ask God to help you examine your selfish desires and speak to you in them.
The first point for us then, is simply ASK. Talk to God, ask him to work in these mighty ways, don’t shy away from praying big prayer. Ask your father in heaven to act.
Surrender Completely
Surrender Completely
Now we get to the other side of this, and that is that even when we ask God boldly in prayer, we need to be able to surrender completely. We need to genuinely be able to say, “not my will, but your will God.” I think one of the best practical stories of this comes from the book of Daniel with Shadrach, Meschach, and Abendego. They are told to bow down and worship this false idol that has been made and they refuse. Because of this they are threatened with death by being thrown into a furnace. Even with this threat, they respond boldly.
If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Notice how confident they are in God. If you throw us in it doesn’t matter, because our God is powerful and he is the one who can save us. They go so far as to say, “and he will deliver us from your hand.” That’s bold! Their confidence is not found in themselves, it isn’t based on how good they are, it isn’t based on how good their prayer is, it is based entirely on who God is. God is able. God has the power. Then they continue. BUT, even if he doesn’t we will not worship this idol or your false gods. They have complete confidence that God is able to do this good thing and they also know that God’s will might be something else and they are at peace with that.
This is where the kicker is for a lot of us. If God is able, if he can save them, why doesn’t he save us from certain things. Why do bad things happen? Why do kids get cancer? Why do good people die? Why do bad things happen to good people and those who do evil prosper? There’s a part of this where I could say that these things happen simply because we live in a fallen world where sin is present. I think that is true and it is good for us to remember.
Another part of me, if I’m being completely honest, says, “I don’t know.” I can’t talk to someone suffering from a tragedy in life and tell them that it happened because we live in a fallen world. Theologically I can believe that to be true but also practically I don’t know why these things happen. If God is able, then why didn’t he? .... I don’t know. I can’t provide that answer to someone in the midst of suffering and even if I did have a great answer it probably isn’t going to help. But the example we are given through Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego is, “Even if God doesn’t, we’re okay with it.” It’s the act of completely surrendering what we are asking for. It means that we have this mindset of asking God to act boldly in our lives, but also fully accepting God’s sovereign choice.
We see this modeled in Jesus’ prayer, just before he is arrested and put on trial.
“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Jesus himself asks for another way. If there’s another option Father, please take this away from me. Don’t put me through this. But ultimately, your will be done.
What surrender isn’t
Now, let me be clear. Surrendering completely isn’t hedging your bets in prayer. That isn’t surrender. Surrendering completely isn’t being timid in prayer, it isn’t tacking on “if it be your will” to every prayer, and isn’t holding back with vague prayers for God’s kingdom to come. Surrendering completely isn’t hedging your bets.
What surrender is
Surrendering completely is asking with both the boldness and submission that comes from knowing that your Father is in charge and His ways are best. Surrender means trusting Him enough to ask specifically and to keep crying to God day and night, like the Persistent Widow in Luke 18.
Surrender means telling God exactly what you want, but loving him more than what you want such that you’ll worship Him if he answers another way.
I am also confident that when we fully present with God even after our death or at the end of the age, God will have the answers to those “Whys” that we ask. He will wipe every tear from our eyes and we won’t wonder about why God didn’t act in certain ways throughout our life. We will be confident and assured that what God did or didn’t do was best for his purposes and for his glory.
Application
Application
Ask, Ask, Ask
Surrender everything.