How To Receive An Answer From God

4 Attitudes To Have In Receiving Answers To Pray

Last in the series on "Pray Can Change Your Life"

Looked at

Purposes of Prayer

5 Attitudes for Answered Prayer

How To Pray for Your Problems

Today our topic is How To Receive Answers From God

Luke 1:5-23

You Must Be Willing To Let God Answer In His Own Time

God often delays answer

Why?

V. 18 Zechariah asked "How can I be sure?"

He had stopped praying years before. The angel said your prayer will be answered

V. 13 God heard your prayers. Heard= Already happened

God answered immediately, delayed sending the gift

Like kids, big difference between "No and Not Yet"

Mark of maturity - How long can you wait?

Lost faith, no patience

Why delay? To prepare us, get us ready

We need to grow up.

Frustration we think we're ready before God says we're ready

He wants to change your attitude before giving.

Start with changing me instead of the situation

God is never late, His timing is perfect

God's delay is not God's denial

What do I do? Keep praying until

Get answer

Get assurance your going to get answer

God reveals it is not His will

You Must Be Willing To Let God Answer In His Own Way.

Not only in His time, but also in His own way

His ways are usually bigger and better

What would have happened if He had answered Zechariah and Elizabeth's prayer?

Ordinary baby

Delayed and got John the Baptist

The forerunner of Jesus

Problem with Prayer

We ask too little

Want it too quick

We aim too low

Eph. 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us.”

Praying for 75 members by year 2025

If receive all at once we'd be overwhelmed

Get like the way God gave His people the land - a little at a time

John D. Rockefeller, "I won't give a man a million dollars at once because it would overwhelm him."

God says, "Let me answer in my time and my way"

Praying for a job, don't worry God has it

Praying for finance success, don't worry God has it

Sometimes best not to get what you pray for

Prodigal son

Got inheritance and it ruined him

We Must Be Willing To Let God Answer In His Own Power

Let God do it without your help - its a miracle

Truth in this story is God often waits until its humanly impossible to act

He gave Zechariah and Elizabeth a baby after the child-bearing age

Who gets the glory - God does

Same with Abraham and Sarah

Abraham helps God out with Hagar

God says not the right way

Angel came and said you will have a baby

In Romans 4:20 (KJV) it says Abraham "staggered not" or did not waver in unbelief

Told Sarah - she laughed - didn't believe

Got a child

God waited so it would be an out right miracle

When you pray don't be surprised if it gets worse before it gets better

Marriage - spouse more hateful

Finances - worse

Martha and Mary - Lazarus

Lazarus was sick

Asked Jesus to come

He intentionally delayed for 3 days

Then he went

Lazarus was dead

Martha and Mary asked where have you been?

Just believe and see glory of God

Lazarus come out that's a rhema

Another time was when Jairus’ daughter was sick

Jairus comes and gets Jesus

On the way, woman who had been bleeding for 12 years touches Jesus

He stops

Imagine Jairus' feelings

Goes on and servants say she's already dead

Jesus said don't worry keep on believing

Raises girl

While you are waiting keep eyes open to see confirmation of God's power in other people's lives

You Must Be Willing To Let God Answer For His Own Purpose

For whatever reason He chooses

Why does God answer prayers? For our growth and for His glory

Why did He answer Zechariah and Elizabeth? He needed a John the Baptist

Joseph, dreamed of being ruler, slave, prison, the 2nd in command in Egypt

Look at Paul - a great example of letting God answer his prayer according to His timing, His way, His power, and for His purpose

Look at Romans 1:7, “To all who are in Rome, loved by God, called as saints. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 10, “always asking in my prayers that if it is somehow in God’s will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you.” 15, “So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”

Paul's desire was to preach in Rome

Romans 15:20, 24, “My aim is to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named, so that I will not build on someone else’s foundation.” “Whenever I travel to Spain. For I hope to see you when I pass through and to be assisted by you for my journey there, once I have first enjoyed your company for a while.”

Did God answer Paul's prayer? Yes

Acts 28:16, “ When he got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him.”

He was under house arrest

He went to Rome as a prisoner on his way he was shipwrecked, chained up, in the winter, bit by snake, not the best way to go to Rome

Point - Paul made it to Rome in God's way

How did he get there?

Through Felix, Agrippa, Caesar, God works through some unlikely people

God's own timing - Paul may have packed his bags many times, God is never in a hurry

God's own purpose - Why did Paul want to go?

To preach

God wanted him to go to write a bunch of letters

They became the NT

Paul's desire was to impact the world

He thought the only way to do that was to preach in Rome

Instead God wanted him to write the Bible

Which had the greater impact?

How Do I Apply This?

When you pray

If the request was not right God will say No

If you are not right God will say Grow

If the timing isn't right God will say Slow

When all is in place God will say Go

Prayer

Are you willing to let God answer

In His own way

In His time

In His power

For His own purpose

Why are you praying for what you are praying for?

Health - What are you going to do with your body

Finances - What are you going to do with the money

Will God get any glory out of it?

Lord, Help me to know you better, realize how much you love me. Show me Your plan for my life and help me to cooperate with it. Jesus Christ come into my life and make me a Christian, a new person. I want to know you. Make Yourself real to me. I want to believe in you. I do. Thank you for loving me, for dying for me, and help me understand it.