A Call to Persevering Prayer

A Call to Persevering Prayer

Matt. 7:7-11

Jesus emphasizes the importance of prayer in the Sermon on the Mount by instructing us about it on two different occasions. In 6:9-14 He instructed us how to pray. In these passages He focuses on why we pray and He encourages us to persevere in our prayer life. He strengthens our faith by stressing that God is good and He desires to give His children good gifts. We will discuss that and then we will look at what is necessary for us to have the type of prayer life Christ desires for us.

God is good

A discussion of God’s goodness is not complete without a discussion of how evil man is. Notice that Jesus calls His hearers “evil”. Let’s consider some thoughts about what Jesus is saying:

* Man is evil. That is not a popular thing to say in our culture. We believe that man is basically good. Scripture teaches us the opposite. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the human heart is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”, Psalm 58:3 says “the wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born speaking lies”, Ephesians 2: 1 says we are “dead in our trespasses and sins” and 2:3 says “we are by nature the children of wrath”, and Ezekiel 36:26 says that we have a heart of stone. There is nothing good in unredeemed man. The purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to show us just how evil we are. When we consider the teachings of Christ in this sermon we have to admit that we fall terribly short of meeting the requirements of kingdom people.

* Man is not as evil as he could be. Jesus mentions that His hearers do love their children. They would never give a hungry child a rock instead of bread to eat. Nor would they give them a snake instead of a fish to eat. Mankind has enough of the image of God in them to know that there is a right and a wrong. They know that they should care for their children. We even see a hint of religion in man. Snakes were unclean animals. They would never feed their child something unclean. A parent that would treat their child in such an unkind way would be considered a terrible person even among a group of evil people. It is true that man is evil. However, man could be worse, and some are. The unredeemed heart has no limits to its depravity. It can sink deeper and deeper into evil. It can dream up some of the most viscous and vile things imaginable.

Jesus points out the fact that evil people give good gifts to their children. He does this to compare the love of evil man with the love of our heavenly Father. If sinful man desires to love and provide for his children, how much more does Holy God desire to love and provide for His children? Here is a fact that can strengthen our faith and keep us on our knees. God is good and He wants to give good gifts to His children. In fact James says in James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning”.

Too often we look at how evil our hearts are and think “God does not want to give me anything, I deserve nothing from Him”. It is true that we are evil and it is true that we deserve nothing. However, it is not true that God does not desire to give us good things. Notice the phrase “how much more” in verse 11. Does sinful man want to see his children succeed? Then how much more does God want to see His children succeed? Does sinful man want His children to have their needs met? Then how much more does God desire that for His children? Our love is but a drop of water in comparison to the ocean of God’s love! When we think about our love for our own children we think that no one could love them more than we do. The truth is that God has the capacity to love in deeper and truer way than the most virtuous saint. God is good and His goodness should compel us to pray.

The Requirements of Answered Prayer

Scripture is clear that there are requirements if we want to have a victorious prayer life. Let’s consider the type of person that experiences the good gifts God wants to give through prayer.

* God hears the prayers of His children. Not everyone is a child of God. We become His child through adoption as we repent of our sins and place our faith in Christ (John 1:12). In Luke 13:24-30 Jesus warns of a day when the door of heaven will be shut. People will ask the Lord to let them in, they will seek to get in and they will knock on the door. Jesus will refuse to open the telling them “I know ye not, depart from me…” Here are people that ask, seek and knock yet their prayer is unanswered because they are not a child of God. Salvation places us in a unique position with God. We are His children. He loves us more deeply than He loves the world. If we want our prayers answered we should make sure that we are a child of God.

* God answers the prayers of obedient children. 1 John 3:22 says “And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight”. Peter says that strained relationships in marriage can hinder prayer life in 1 Peter3:7. God is more concerned with our holiness than He is our happiness. Answered prayer in the midst of rebellion against God could cause us to overlook sin in our life. God does make the rain fall on the just and the unjust. However, the unjust aren’t getting it because they prayed for it. In the same way, we may get what we want even when we are being disobedient. When this happens we should not think it is the result of our prayer life, it is simply the result of God’s goodness. There is something special about knowing that we have communicated with God and He has answered our prayer. That blessing is forfeited when we receive God’s blessings despite our disobedience. If we want the great privilege of knowing that God hears our prayers and responds with blessings we should seek to live an obedient life.

* God answers the prayers of people who pray with the right motive. James 4:3 says “Ye ask and ye receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your own lusts.” When the motive of our prayer is for something in our life that is sinful or is causing us to sin we should not expect God to answer that prayer. Many pray for money, cars, bigger homes, etc. simply to enable them to live a luxurious lifestyle. They name it and claim it. They justify it because they believe that the most important thing in the world is their comfort and position in life. Some pray to marry a man that they should not marry. Some pray for a job that will take them away from the Lord. The motive of our prayer life should be the glory of the Lord. It should not be the glory of us.

* God answers the prayers of people who want His will above all other things. 1 John 5:14 says “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will He heareth us”. Jesus tells us to “Ask” not demand. We can consider some guidelines in praying for the will of God. For instance:

1) The will of God will never contradict the Word of God. No matter how long a woman prays for God to make her a pastor, she should not expect God to answer it. The Bible is clear that a pastor must be a man (Titus 1:6).

2) The will of God will never encourage a person to sin. If what a person desires is sinful they should not expect God to give that thing to them. The Bible says that God does not tempt man to do evil (James 1:13).

As we consider the will of God we have to be humble.

1) It can be quiet elusive at times. The apostle Paul had no idea what to do just before the Lord showed him to go to Macedonia (Acts 16:7).

2) It can be quiet difficult. Jesus found it difficult to submit to the suffering of the cross. In submission He prayed to the Father “Thy will be done” (Matt. 26:42)

The will of God could be something that we do not know or something that we do not want. We must be humble enough to qualify all of our desires with “Thy will be done”. We should allow humility to remind us that even when we think we are certain about the will of God, we could still be wrong. Greater men and women than us have missed the will of God.

* God answers the prayers of people that are persistent. The verbs in verse 7, “ask, seek, and knock” are all in the present imperative tense. That means that the command is not simply to do the action once. It means to go on doing that action. Therefore, Jesus is saying we are to keep asking, keep seeking and keep knocking.

Jesus gives more references to this type of prayer. In Luke 11:5-8. The situation is this: There is a man in need of food. He is on a journey. He stops by a friend’s house to get some much needed food. However, the friend did not have enough food to feed the traveler. So the friend goes by one of his friend’s house to borrow some food. The problem is that it’s midnight! The friend answers the door and explains that he can’t help him. It’s too late and he doesn’t want to wake up his family. The home described is a one room house where everyone would sleep in the same room. Any commotion could disturb the whole family . Eventually the man gives the man the food he needs. However, it is not because the man is his friend. He gives the man the bread because of his “importunity” or literally “shamelessness”. The bold persistency of the man pays off. The awakened man finally gives in not because of his friendship with the man but because he is bothering him!

We should not interpret this to mean that we are bothering God with our prayers or that He just wants us to leave Him alone. The principle here is for us to be persistent in our prayer life.

In Luke 18:1-8 He gives us another lesson in persistence. There was an ungodly judge had no fear of God and did not care for man. As a judge he had nothing in him that would compel him to give mercy to anyone. This judge was a nightmare to anyone that appeared before him. There was a widow that came to him for justice. There was a legal matter between this woman and someone else. The woman felt she was being taken advantage of. The judge was her only hope to acquire justice. For whatever reason the judge refused to grant the request of the widow for sometime. However, finally the judge did decide to grant justice in the widow’s matter. The reason the judge gives for his decision is odd. He is simply tired of her bothering him. His decision is not based on God or others. He simply wants to please himself. He saw that she was not going to give up and he was tired of dealing with her. If an unjust judge is willing to grant the requests of people he does not care about how much more will our loving Father grant the requests of those who appeal to Him.

1 Thess. 5:17 says that we are to “pray without ceasing”. Romans 15:30 says that we are to “Strive together in prayer”. Prayer is to be active and constant in our lives. I believe that too often we give up on prayer too early. Either we assume that it is not God’s will or we just forget about the request. Could it be the reason that Christians and churches are so weak and fruitless is because we are not persevering in prayer? The very fact that God tells us to be persistent in prayer implies that sometimes we do not see the answer for quiet a while. It could be that God wants us to deepen our relationship with Him by praying for weeks, months or even years about a situation. Often as time passes our intensity in prayer weakens. We see a progression in the command given in verse 7. We begin by asking, we grow more desperate and we seek and then our desperation increases even more and we begin to knock. If we needed rescuing from a building that was on fire our cries for help would not weaken as time passed. They would grow louder and more passionate. So as time passes our prayers should grow more passionate.

Let’s consider some prayer requests that we know God wants answered:

* The prayer for spiritual power. Jesus said in Luke 11:13 that the Father would give the Holy Spirit to them who ask. Luke emphasized the power that the Spirit gave the early church, especially in the book of Acts. I believe God wants the church to operate in power. He wants us to live in victory over sin and to accomplish mighty acts as a body. We should passionately seek God for spiritual power to accomplish great deeds for His glory. If we do, we can be sure He will answer that prayer. It would be wonderful to see the power of God operating and souls being saved on a regular basis.

* The prayer for wisdom. James tells us in James 1:5 that God will answer the prayer for wisdom. Wisdom gives us the ability to discern and know the will of God. Instead of guessing about what we should do as individuals and a s a church we should seek God for wisdom. God wants us to know His ways and we should passionately seek Him until He shows us.

* The prayer for laborers. Christ tells us to pray that God would send laborers into the harvest (Matt. 9:37-38). There is a lack of workers in kingdom business. Instead of complaining we should get on our knees and seek God until we have the workers we need. I believe that is a prayer God wants to answer.

How is our prayer life? Are we allowing the goodness of God to be extended to us through answered prayer? Or are we forsaking this great privilege? Let us pray, let us keep praying. Let us witness the love of our Father as he gives us all we need, much of what we want and always more than we deserve.