Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers?

A national survey discovered that 90% of Americans pray.

Interesting. 90% of Americans said they pray.

Of those who pray, 75% said they do it every day.

It doesn't say how many of that 75% do it while they're driving with their eyes

closed or when somebody's running a stop sign coming the other way.

But anyway, 75% said they pray every day.

According to the same article, however, the issue that most divides those who

pray is whether or not their prayers are even answered.

Nothing is more spiritually debilitating than a string of unanswered prayers, right?

Have you ever had that where it almost seems like when you're praying.

Your voice is bouncing off the ceiling and you don't think it's going anywhere?

You can call heaven, but it seems as if nobody's home. Well, let me assure you he is.

He's there. But what about those times when we pray for someone who is sick

and he or she doesn't get better?

Or those times we ask for something that seems so good and so right and the answer never comes.

If you've ever felt that way, you're in pretty good company.

The Apostle Paul experienced his share of heaven's silence when he prayed.

The Bible says that Paul had some sort of chronic physical ailment.

2 Corinthians 12, 8 says that he prayed and asked God to remove the thorn in

his flesh, the difficulty, three different times.

But his problem never went away. On another occasion, Paul asked a group of

believers to pray that he would be delivered from his enemies in Jerusalem.

So instead, he was arrested, imprisoned, and eventually executed.

Why did one of the greatest apostles who ever lived experience the agony of,

unanswered prayer? Why don't we receive answers to some of our prayers?

Why don't we receive answers to all of our prayers? But it seems sometimes they're just like unheard.

I think there are several definite explanations, but sometimes only God knows the reason.

Isaiah chapter 55, verse 9 says, As the heavens are higher than the earth,

Isaiah 55:9

so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

There's a certain mystery to prayer, but the Bible tells us that the great majority

of our unanswered prayers can be accounted for.

I want you to turn in your Bibles to James chapter 1 verses 2 through 8 and

James 1:2–8

then chapter 5 verses 13 through 16 and follow along with me.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many

kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all

without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts

is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray.

Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise, which is like prayer.

Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over

them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.

The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

There are at least three categories that describe these reasons why our prayers

are not answered, and I'm borrowing this outline from an outstanding book by Bill Hybels titled,

Too Busy Not to Pray.

You ever thought about that? Have we ever gotten ourselves so busy in doing

everything around us, we wake up in the morning and are running out the door

to work, and we're doing everything all day long,

and we're just too busy to pray.

But this book is too busy not to pray.

Here's the first outline that he's given us. There are three things.

If the request is wrong, God will say no.

If the timing is wrong, God will say slow.

If we are wrong, God will say, grow.

And so the first one is this, and you'll get these up here as we go.

If the request is wrong, God will say no.

There are times when God says no to our requests because they are the wrong kind of requests.

God is not a genie. He does not give us all that we ask for.

He is not obligated to give us everything we want.

He's not a magic lamp or a fat Buddha sculpture that we can put a few coins

on his lap and rub his belly and get what we want.

You know, you've seen those in the Chinese restaurants, right?

Don't we oftentimes have selfish prayers like the little girl I once read about?

One night, she went into her bedroom and knelt down by her bed for her nighttime prayers.

Her father had just refused to grant her a certain request, so she prayed.

And please don't give my parents any more children.

They don't know how to treat the ones they've got.

In a similar way, I know that some of my prayer requests have been self-serving and materialistic.

James chapter 4, 3 says that when you ask, you do not receive because you ask

James 4 · chapter mention

with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your own pleasures.

The root of all sin is self.

Sometimes we don't receive what we ask for because our motives are all messed up.

Instead of praying for something that would honor God, at times we're more interested

in only pleasing ourselves.

The purpose of prayer is not to get our will done in heaven,

but to get God's will done on earth.

In the Lord's Prayer, we pray this whenever we do that. we say these words,

thy will be done on earth as it already is done in heaven.

And so we're not praying for our will to be done in heaven. We're praying for

his will to be done on earth. Here are some,

us helpful questions to ask to make sure whether our motives match up with what we pray.

First, will this bring glory to God? Will whatever I'm praying for bring glory

to God? Or is it all about me?

Letter B, does this request advance God's kingdom?

Letter C, will it help others? and letter D, will it grow spiritually if this

prayer is answered the way I want it to be answered?

It would be a recipe for disaster if God simply gave us whatever we asked for.

If he granted us all of our requests, we'd become like spoiled children.

That reminds me of two brothers who came to Jesus one day and asked him,

maybe you know who they are, asked him if they could reserve the two best seats in the kingdom.

In Mark 10, verse 35, they boldly and rudely asked, teachers,

Mark 10:35

teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.

And so they asked for special thrones at the right and left side of Jesus in

the kingdom. But what they really wanted was recognition and status and power.

Jesus turned the request down because it was self-centered, the root of all sin is so.

He said, there's going to be a lot of gain and hardship in my kingdom before my glory is revealed.

Besides, the places of honor are already reserved.

In other words, Jesus said, your request is wrong, and I will not grant it.

I will not answer a selfish prayer.

Friends, if the disciples were capable of making self-serving,

short-sighted, and materialistically wrong requests.

Then so am I and so are you. Fortunately, God loves us too much to say yes to

such wrongful requests.

His answers to prayers like that is no.

We really don't want a God who would do any less than that, do we?

I'd rather have God evaluate my requests from his all-wise, all-knowing perspective

as he sees fit, knowing what the future is going to be and knowing what's right

for us and what's best for us.

And so if the request is wrong, God will say no.

Number two, if the timing is wrong, God will say slow.

I don't know about you, but I'm often like an impatient child when I pray.

I want God to answer my request right now, not down the road.

My guess is that most of us are like that from time to time.

Do you know how God responds to our immaturity?

He lets us wait.

He knows what he's doing. His delays are not necessarily his denials.

If we got what we wanted right away, we would think we did it.

Some of us view God like a celestial vending machine that we want to kick if

the vending item doesn't drop down right away.

We like to help God along like one of those old pinball machines that I used to play in college.

Kind of bouncing the machine around a little bit to get the right bounce on the bumpers.

But too often, if we don't do the bouncing at the right time or do it too hard, what happens?

Tilt. The machine says tilt, and it just shuts off.

It's kind of the way it is with us sometimes. Too often times we try to jostle

God around into giving us what we want.

God is a loving Father who will give us what we need when we need it,

not necessarily when we think we need it.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

I shall not be in need. God may have something far better in mind for us if

we can just trust him and wait.

I did a recording for the radio station a couple days ago that'll be playing

next week, and we just, in it, I said, we don't have to worry about things.

God has got this. We can just simply trust him. We see this illustrated in the life of Jesus.

One day, Mary and Martha, who were two of his closest friends,

sent an urgent message to Jesus that their brother was deathly ill and they

needed Jesus right away.

You'd think Jesus would come right away for some of his closest friends, wouldn't you?

I mean, you would if one of your closest friends called and said, I need you here.

You'd probably drop everything and go, right? But Jesus didn't hurry at all

because he had some other things he wanted to teach his friends.

John 11, verse 6 says, Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick,

John 11:6

he stayed where he was two more days.

During his delay, Lazarus died.

Mary couldn't understand why Jesus had taken his time. Why didn't Jesus answer

this urgent request immediately?

Listen to what she said to the Savior in verse 32. Lord, if you had been there,

my brother would not have died.

It's all your fault.

Because you waited and you didn't jump when I asked.

Jesus had something far better in mind. He wanted to demonstrate his power over life in another way.

Instead of healing his friend, he now had the opportunity to raise him from

the dead and show them who had the power of life.

In fact, Jesus tells us why he didn't come sooner in verse 15.

And he says, and for your sake, I am glad that I was not there so that you may believe.

Jesus was more interested in helping them grow in their faith than he was in

immediately answering their urgent request.

Sometimes God is saying slow because he wants to give us an opportunity to trust

him in a new way or to give us time to revise our requests more in keeping with his will.

So don't box God into your timetable.

Because that would make you God and not him. And let me tell you,

that doesn't work out well.

Number three, if we are wrong, God will say grow.

First two categories deal primarily with God's reasons for unanswered prayers.

The third category has more to do with us.

Many of us blame God when our prayers aren't answered. It is a lot harder to

look in the mirror and say, maybe I'm the problem.

Perhaps I'm the cause of my short-circuited prayers.

James tells us that trials produce perseverance that produce maturity.

So now let me give you four things that are prayer busters, okay?

So you've got reasons why God doesn't answer our prayers. Now here are four

things that are going to absolutely bust your prayers. And the first one is this, prayerlessness.

Most common cause is prayerlessness. We might have good intentions to pray,

but yet if we are honest, we would have to admit that we hardly pray at all.

We're too busy to pray, even though the book says too busy not to pray.

I sense that all of us would say that we believe in prayer.

90% who answered that survey said that they pray.

75% said that they pray every day.

That's not of just of Christians. That is of Americans.

Now, I kind of find that hard to believe.

I would say probably if you ask this question of those same people,

how many of you have lied?

100% would say, no, I never lie.

Anyway, I don't know if that was in the survey or not, but I sense that we would

all say that we believe in prayer.

We know in our minds that God moves in response to the prayers of his children,

but do you pray as much as you should?

As I read before, James said, you do not have because you do not ask God.

Or maybe we stop praying too quickly. In Luke chapter 18, verse 1,

Luke 18:1

Jesus challenges us to be like this persistent widow and never stop asking.

1 Thessalonians 5.17 challenges us to pray without ceasing, never quit praying.

Friends, I wonder if our prayers are more like texts than they are like conversations.

We send up a quick, help God, help, and then hang up the phone.

We need to show God that we mean business when we pray.

We need to be straightforward in praising him and asking him to glorify himself in our requests.

But we don't have because we don't ask and continue asking.

Recently heard someone testify that they had gotten so far down physically that

they didn't even want to read God's word or pray.

Friends, that's pretty far down, and that's when we need to listen to him even more.

The second prayer buster is a faltering faith.

We don't believe, truly believe God will answer our prayers anyway.

In other words, our lack of faith may short-circuit the answers in the power of our prayer.

Jesus made it clear that faith is a prerequisite for answered prayer.

He told his followers in Mark 11, verse 24, Whatever you ask for in prayer,

Mark 11:24

believe that you will receive it, and it will be yours.

And he also said to pray in the name of Jesus, pray in Jesus' name in his will,

what would be pleasing to him.

And when we do that, and we believe that it will happen, it will happen.

It's not enough to just pray if you don't believe that God will answer your

prayers. It's not enough.

In fact, James 1, verses 6 through 8, which we read, paints a graphic picture

James 1:6–8

of the individual with faltering faith.

It says, But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts

is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord.

He is double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Nancy and I went to Madison yesterday, and if you were out and about,

you know that the wind was pretty wild.

And as we were coming back from Madison and looking at all the flooded fields

and the ponds that had become lakes, we looked at the waves from the wind.

Do you know that not one of those waves went in the same direction as all the others?

They just went every which way. They blew all over the way.

And that's the way it is with a man who doesn't have faith in his prayer. He's like unstable.

His faith goes every which way.

So he paints a picture that that man should not think he will receive anything

from the Lord because he's double-minded.

Like waves, we're often up one minute and down the next.

We're blown around by life. In fact, the phrase double-minded literally means

having two spirits, almost like we have split personalities.

We believe, but we don't believe. Like the man who wanted Jesus to heal his

son, and he said, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

That doesn't make sense, but yet it's true. He was being honest.

Now, before you get blown away because you think you don't have enough faith,

remember in Luke 17, verse 6, Jesus said,

Luke 17:6

if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, which is one of the smallest seeds around,

great things can happen.

The point is that we must have enough faith to believe that God can,

Not that our prayers will make a difference, but that God makes the difference.

The third prayer buster, and it should be a show, kind of like Ghostbusters,

Prayerbusters, maybe not.

Anyway, the third one is ruptured relationships.

They can prevent prayers from being answered.

Most of us grossly underestimate how committed God is to building and maintaining

a community of Christ followers.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenged his followers to keep short accounts

with others, to not let friction and conflict grow.

Listen to Matthew 5, verses 23 and 24 from the Message Bible.

Matthew 5:23

If you enter your place of worship and when you're about to make an offering.

You suddenly remember a grudge that a friend has against you,

abandon your offering, leave it immediately

go to this friend and make things right and then and only then come back and

work things out with god lord's prayer says forgive me as i have forgiven others

jesus didn't say if you have something against your brother he said if your

brother has a region and hold a grudge against you.

So think about that. Too often, Christians have used this passage as an excuse

to vent against their fellow church member.

The onus here is on us to do the soul-searching and ask forgiveness for our

sins against our brother.

Many believers have worn their feelings on their sleeves and have used this

scripture to confront someone who has not sinned against them,

but who hasn't done things the way they wanted them to be done, so they've felt hurt.

Pastor, you never did what I asked you to do before in starting a new ministry.

I remember one lady coming to me in one church, and she says,

I really think this church needs to do such and such, and pastor,

you need to get that going. I said, well, wait a minute.

That's a great idea. I'm putting you in charge.

Sometimes we get hurt when people don't do what we want.

The scripture isn't speaking about this. In fact, I believe that God would give

us a Gib slap on the back of the head. You know how you guys have watched?

Yeah, you guys remember that, right? NCIS? Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, Gib kind of would slap Dinozo on the back of the head and say, grow up.

Get a life. God wants us to be in community with others before we do business with him.

Here's the principle. Before spending any time in prayer, make sure you do an

inventory to determine if you have any relational ruptures.

Check your motives and check your heart.

Have you offended anyone or sinned against them? Then go to them and own up to it.

Have you mistreated your spouse or spoken against him or her,

either to your spouse or to someone else or in public, you'd better ask forgiveness

before you come before the Lord.

Father, forgive us our sins as we have forgiven others.

Don't expect God to answer you or be close to you if you've moved away from

him by your own behavior.

If you don't repair your relationships, your prayer requests will be knocked

out of the sky before God can even hear them.

Scripture says, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

And then the Bible says that sin that has not been confessed has some serious

consequences to our spiritual growth.

Psalm 66, 18 says, If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

Sometimes when I send out an email and I've typed in the address wrong,

it gets bounced back to me. You know how that goes.

Because I made an error, my message doesn't go through to the intended recipient.

In a similar way, our unconfessed sins keep our prayers from God's ears.

When we cherish sin in our heart, when we're living in a pattern of deliberate

disobedience with no effort to change,

because we're all sinners saved by grace, so we just keep doing it with no effort to change.

We can't expect our prayers to have any effect.

If godly thought hasn't changed us, how do we think we're going to change God?

We don't change him. We come to him in worship.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

If you're tolerating sin in your life, don't even waste your breath praying

until you make it right first.

You must disappoint God something fierce when his kids flagrantly disobey him,

yet come to him with a shopping list of personal requests.

Do you really expect God to honor our prayers while we callously dishonor him by the way we live.

Some of you have never come to the place in your life where you've seen the

need to confess your sins and ask God to forgive you.

The Bible teaches that forgiveness is only possible through what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

Most of you know that he died for the sins of the whole world.

The Bible says that even the demons believe in Jesus and tremble.

What you might not know is that you need to do something to have his forgiveness

activated in your life. Let me put it another way.

The Bible refers to God as the creator of all, but the father of only those

who put their faith in Jesus Christ. So he's creator.

But is only dad to those of us who are following him.

If you want to experience unanswered prayer, then you need to become a child of God.

John 1, verse 12 says, Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in

John 1:12

his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

What an awesome thought to think that God thinks so much of us that he has adopted

us as his child, taken us away from the power of Satan and brought us back to himself.

Then you have to release control of your will to God to perform the transforming ways in your life.

Only then will you find real salvation. Once you've received Jesus into your

life, then you can enjoy many benefits and many privileges.

1 John 1.9 says, If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe

in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

So God is gracious, and he longs to hear us lift up our prayers,

and he loves to answer them if the request is right, if the timing is right, and if we are right.

Bill Hybels tells the story about a situation that took place after a baptism

service in their church, Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Illinois.

Huge church. If you've ever been there, you'll know what it is.

When they have baptism services in they're in their pond or their lake out by

their church. It's a big campus.

When they have baptism services once or twice a year, there's oftentimes three

to 400 people who are being baptized at those services.

Wouldn't that be obvious? We'd drain that thing.

We had that. But he tells a story about a situation that took place after a

baptism service. He said, I thought my heart would explode for joy.

Afterward, in the stairwell, I bumped into a woman who was crying.

I couldn't understand how anyone could weep after such a celebration,

so I stopped and asked her if she was all right.

No, she said, I'm struggling. My mother was baptized today, and I'm struggling.

This is a problem, I thought, he said. She went on to say, I prayed for her

every day for 20 years, and then she started crying again.

You're going to have to help me understand this, Bill said to her.

The woman replied, I'm crying because I came so close, so close to giving up on her.

I mean, after five years, I said, who needs this?

God isn't answering. He's not listening to my prayers. After 10 years, I said, this is absurd.

After 19 years, I said, I'm such a fool. But I guess I just kept praying,

even though my faith was weak. I kept praying.

And mom gave her heart to Jesus, and she was baptized today.

And the woman paused and looked at me in the eye, and she said, what if I had given up?

I will never doubt the power of prayer again.

I'd like to ask for us to take a few minutes right now and just connect with God.

We're going to ask you to just, in the quietness of these few minutes,

just take a few minutes to reflect and do an inventory of your heart and your

mind if there's any obstacles to God answering prayer.

Reflect on where you need to be in your walk of faith. Confess any sinfulness

or selfishness you need to. ask God to give you a renewed spirit.

If you'd like to come up to the altar, you may do so. And then in a few minutes

after we've prayed, spend some time in prayer and quiet. I'll close this in prayer.

Search me, O God, and know my heart today. See if there is any wicked way in me and cleanse me of it.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Behold, the old things are gone. the new has begun.

Father, we are your kids.

You have welcomed us into your family. You have adopted us, which is a choice you have made.

Help us to act like it. In Jesus' name, amen.