Promises for Prayer

There was a woman at work when she received a phone call that her daughter was very sick with a fever. She left work and stopped by the pharmacy to get some medication for her daughter.

She returned to her car to find that she had locked the keys inside the car when she went into the pharmacy and was now unable to get into her car to drive home.

She didn’t know what to do and started to panic, so she called home and told the baby sitter what had happened and that she did not know what to do. The baby sitter told her to find a coat hanger and see if that would open the door.

The woman looked around and found an old rusty coat hanger that had been thrown down on the ground, possibly by someone else who also had locked their keys in their car. Then she looked at the hanger and said, "I don’t know how to use this." So she bowed her head and asked God to send her some help.

In so doing, she obeyed the command to never stop praying. Do you think God would reward her for that?

Within five minutes a motorcycle roared up and pulled into the parking space next to her car. A rough, dirty-looking biker got off and saw her situation. He asked if he could help her. The woman thought, "This is what you sent to help me, God?"

She finally told him yes, as she needed to hurry and get home to her sick daughter. He walked over to the car, and in less than one minute the car was opened. She hugged the man and through her tears she said, "Thank you so much! You are such a nice man."

The man replied; "No, I’m not, Lady. I just got out of prison for car theft." The woman hugged the man again and with sobbing tears cried out to God, "You even sent me a professional."

Last week we talked about promises for generous people; today we talk about promises in prayer, because we serve a generous God.

If you ask, seek, knock, you will be given, find, and have it opened.

God is an answering God, and he promises that when we ask him, seek for him, and knock on his door- he will respond. In other words, God will never leave us hanging. God will always respond, and always answer. Even if the answer is not what hoped for.

John Broadus once said that “One may be a truly industrious man, and yet poor in temporal things; but one cannot be a truly praying man, and yet poor in spiritual things.” God will add to your cup.

Some of you may have recieved one of these cards before. If I go to visit a member of our church and they are not home, or otherwise indisposed, I leave one of these cards to let them know I have been trying to connect with them. Today I am thankful that I never have to leave a card like this for God. He is never indisposed, never too busy, he always comes to the door.

In fact, if we are confessional today, we would probably all admit that the problem is that many times we play ding dong ditch with God. Remember that game? I have done it a thousand times to God! Knocking on the door and asking him to come speak to me, and before he gets a change to open the door I am gone! Chasing the next thing, the thing I think will answer my prayers or make it better. Ding. Dong. Ditch.

If we abide in Christ, then our prayers will be answered.

John 15:4–7 ESV

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

The word abide means to remain in, continue, or stay. It a connection word- one does not just abide one time, one abides throughout their lives. Jessica and I abide in a home on N Valley Pike- we may visit other places, like this week when we visit the beach for a few days, but the beach is not where we abide. Our place of abiding is where were find shelter, peace, and wholeness. Is that Jesus in your life? Is he your safety, your peace, your wholeness?

One person put it this way: Abiding in Jesus isn’t fixing our attention on Christ, but it is being one with him. A man is abiding just as much when he is sleeping for Jesus, as when he is awake and working for Jesus. Oh, it is a very sweet thing to have ones mind just resting there.

But make no mistake, friends, abiding in Jesus is a personal choice, you have to make it. Jesus has made his choice, he chose you and has opened himself to you, but the choice to abide in him is only yours. You spouse cannot choose it for you, your parents cant, your pastor cannot, it must be you.

Here’s the thing, when we abide in Christ, then our prayers will empower our abiding, they will keep us close to Jesus. Many prayers that people pray do not get honored by Jesus because the end result is the person would be jettisoning Jesus and their relationship with him. Jesus will not honor prayers that damage our relationship with him. Jesus promises to honor the prayers that continue to keep up close to him.

Jesus can also honor these prayers by changing our desires. You see, when we abide in Christ he is directing our prayers.

A retired teacher was giving her little nephew some help with his schoolwork. He was normally a good, attentive child, but on this occasion he could not fix his mind on his work. Suddenly he said, "Aunt Sally, may I kneel down and ask God to help me find my marble?"

She told him to go ahead, the little boy knelt by his chair, closed his eyes, and prayed silently. Then he got up and went on with his lessons contentedly.

The next day, his aunt was almost afraid to ask about the prayer request. She was a little worried that if he did not find the marble that his simple faith would be damaged.

She finally decided to ask anyway and said to him, "Well, dear have you found your marble? " No," was the reply, "but God has made me not want to."

You see, the person who abides in Christ has their prayers honored not because God answers them more, but because the prayers that they pray conform to the will of God.

If we humble ourselves, God will hear us and respond

2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV

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.

Leonard Bernstein, the late conductor of the New York Philharmonic orchestra was asked what was the most difficult instrument to play. Without hesitation he replied, "The second fiddle! I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second fiddle with enthusiasm—that’s a problem. And if we have no second fiddle, we have no harmony." 

God promises to hear us and honor our prayers when we take up playing second fiddle. When we allow God to have the driver’s seat, the control, the direction.

E.M. Bounds once reflected “Humility is an indispensable requisite of true prayer. It must be an attribute, a characteristic of prayer. Humility must be in the praying character as light is in the sun. Prayer has no beginning, no ending, no being, without humility. As a ship is made for the sea, so prayer is made for humility, and so humility is made for prayer.”

Many people think that their prayers go unanswered- they are not unanswered, they just didn’t get answered the way you wanted. That is why humility is essential to effective prayer- we remove the need to dictate the outcome. Even Jesus, the very Son of God, did not try and dictate the outcome of his prayers- he prayed that the will of God would be done above all.

God wants some second fiddles, some people to join in harmony to the melody he is composing. Many times we rush in, insisting that God is playing his part wrong. Forgetting that he is the composer of life’s great sonnet.

God Will Claim Us

Zechariah 13:9 ESV

And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”

I love this one- what a promise. God promises a connection between our answered prayers and our adoption in the KOG. God answers our prayers to point back to our relationship with him. When we choose prayer, we are choosing to cultivate our relationship with God. God says that when we pray he will claim us and we can claim him- that our relationship will be evident and it will grow.

Last week when we talked about generosity we discussed what it meant to invest our money in God’s economy, we talked about storing up treasure where rust and moth do not destroy- investing in things with eternal value. Well, listen to the story of Mary and Martha from Luke 10-

Luke 10:38–42 ESV

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Did you catch that last line? Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be take away from her. The time that we spend with Jesus, worshipping him, praying to him, investing in our relationship with him, that will never be taken away- NEVER.

William Carey once reflected that fervent pray lays at the root of all personal godliness. Think about that for a moment, we know that Scripture implores us to be “Godly people” to pursue godliness. Godliness- like God. Let me ask you a question, how we can be like God if we do not spend time with him to see what he is like. My parents used to tell me that I needed to be mindful of who I hung around with, because we tend to replicate the characteristics of the people we associate the closest with- or as I like to tell our teenagers- show me your closest friends and I will show you a picture of you in three years.