Prayer That Works Week 3: "Why Didn't God Answer My Prayer?"

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Why doesn't God answer my prayers?

You're not alone. It's something we've all wondered at some point.

In today's message, Pastor Jeff unpacks this tough but important topic,

why God doesn't answer my prayer.

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And now, here's Pastor Jeff.

And so the title of the message this morning is, Why Didn't God Answer My Prayer?

Isn't that something that we all wrestle with?

We've sat by bedsides of people and believed in miracles, and it didn't happen.

We had a desire in our heart, and we begged God for it, and it feels like it didn't come through.

Maybe we had a financial need, or we have a relational need,

and we desire this, and we want it, and we beg God for it. And yet the answer

doesn't come our way, or it doesn't go like we think it should.

And so this morning, I'm going to talk to you about that thing that we wrestle with.

Why didn't God answer my prayers?

The first thing, if you're taking notes, you need to understand very clearly

that your relationships matter.

When it comes to our prayer life, our relationships matter to God. Are we forgiving?

Are we holding grudges? Are we showing honor to one another?

Are we being respectful to one another?

Are we treating people like Jesus would want us to treat them?

Look at what Jesus said in Mark 11, 24. He said, therefore, I tell you,

whatever you ask for in prayer, believing that you have received it and it will be yours.

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, what's he say?

Forgive them so that your father in heaven may forgive you your sins.

Here God is showing us very, very clearly through the words of Jesus that when

you're praying, your relationships matter.

If you haven't forgiven someone who's wronged you, the power of your prayers

will be limited, Scripture says.

You can't say you love God while you hate your brother.

And yet so many people carry bitterness and unforgiveness in their hearts,

and then they expect that God's just going to magically give them whatever they

ask for when they go to him in prayer.

And if you're struggling in your prayer life, it very well could be it's because

that you are carrying unforgiveness in your heart towards someone, maybe a spouse,

maybe a friend or a parent.

But the first place that you should look when asking, why isn't God answering

my prayers is at our relationships.

Peter goes a little bit further. Husbands, in 1 Peter 3, husbands in the same way,

live with your wives in an understanding way as with a weaker partner,

showing them honor as co-heirs of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be what?

Hindered, so that your prayers will not be hindered. Husbands,

why do we live in understanding with our wives?

Why are we supposed to love and respect and show honor?

Well, number one, we're commanded to, right, in obedience, but also so that

the intimacy that we share with God is not hindered.

Because when there's something between me and a friend or something between

me and my spouse, guess what?

There's a block there.

There's something that's between me and my Heavenly Father.

I want you to hear me. Disrespect in marriage or in families disrupts spiritual communion with God.

It disrupts spiritual communion with God.

Husbands, if you want to have an effective prayer life, then you better prioritize

living in harmony and understanding with your wives.

Number one, your relationships matter. Number two, what matters to God? Your motives matter.

James says your motives matter to God when you pray. You ask and you don't receive.

Why does he say? Because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your own pleasures.

So many times we go to God and we think that we're asking for God's will or

we think that we're asking for the right thing, but really it's selfishness.

We want so that we can spend it on our pleasures. The motives that you carry

to God in prayer matter to God.

In fact, all throughout the New Testament, you see over and over again that

the Pharisees were praying with wrong motives.

Their motives were to be heard by people or to come across like they were religious folks.

They were prideful prayers and they focused on themselves and tried to make

themselves look better.

Remember in Luke 18, where Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

We're not going to read the entire story this morning, but let me just give

you the CliffsNotes, if you remember those when you were in high school and

college and you would buy those at Barnes & Noble so that you didn't have to read the entire book.

It's kind of like cheating, but not really, because you could purchase it.

But the CliffsNotes here would be these righteous religious Pharisees would

pray and say, Oh God, thank you that look at me. Look how you've made me.

I'm righteous in your sight. And I give all of this to the church and I give

to help people. And I do this and I do that.

And they're just arrogant.

And over here in the corner, Jesus points out to the tax collector,

and he can't even, Scripture says, he can't even lift his eyes to God,

because he recognizes who he is and his wickedness.

Do you remember what he said? He said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Do you see the difference between those types of prayers?

And Jesus said, the one who prayed the prayer and said, have mercy on me, I'm a wicked sinner.

That was the guy that went home justified before the Lord.

The motives of your prayers matter.

How many times did we just pray, God, help me to be rich.

If you can just give me some money, if you, God, if you can help me win the

lottery, I promise I'll give you half.

And he laughs and he says, half, you don't, you're not even obedient to me now

by giving me a tithe. You're not going to give me half.

We're asking with wrong motives.

God helped me get that promotion so I can get a new car or a new house or whatever.

And we look at our motives and we think, man, they're really not that bad.

God, you want to bless me, don't you? You want me to have nice things and my motives are pure.

Here's what Proverbs 16 says.

All a person's ways seem right to him.

Isn't that true? Don't we usually

think, well, they just don't understand because my way is the right way.

All a person's ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs motives.

What matters when you pray? Your relationships matter. Your motives matter.

And number three, the way you live matters.

The way you live matters to God. I've heard people saying things like,

man, if God answered the prayers of Silas and Paul and Peter,

and look at all the miracles that happened, then he'll answer me too with the same results.

Let's put it in modern day.

I can pray the same and get the same results as Billy Graham or name some famous

preacher, and he'll answer yours the way that he does him.

You know what? Maybe, maybe not.

I would say this, that you have the same access to God as Billy Graham.

You have the same access as fill in the blank, some spiritual leader.

We have the same potential power as anyone else, but Scripture indicates that

the way you live matters when it comes to the power of your prayers.

We talked about this in week one, and we just touched it, James 5.16.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

It's the prayer of the righteous person that is moving mountains.

It's powerful and effective. Scripture says it's the power that comes from a

righteous, right person who's right with God.

You can't be living in sin asking for that mountain to be moved,

and it's going to be moved.

I like how Pastor Craig Groeschel once gave an example of this when it comes to prayer.

He said, would you rather give money to a guy who is healthy but refuses to

work because he thinks the jobs are beneath him,

and he has a history of spending all of his money on beer and food,

or would you rather give to a guy who is working hard at two different jobs

to support his family, but is struggling to make ends meet.

He said, if it's up to us, we'd all give to the second guy because he's trying

to do the right thing. He's trying to take care of his family.

Your actions and your choices in life do matter. And it's important to sow good

seeds if you want to reap good rewards.

You can't live like hell expecting heaven. The way you live matters.

Proverbs 15, 29.

This should convict us. This should motivate us. But it says the Lord is far from who? The wicked.

But who does he hear? He hears the prayer of the righteous.

God hears the prayer of the righteous.

The way you live matters to God when it comes to your prayer life.

Your relationships matter. Your motives matter. The way you live matters.

And number four, your faith matters to God when you pray.

Your faith matters. James 1, 6-7 says, But let him ask in faith without doubting.

For the doubter is like the surging sea driven and tossed by the wind.

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

When we ask in prayer, we're supposed to ask with faith without doubting.

How do you pray? Do you pray with faith that God wants to do great things in your life?

Or do you pray, maybe?

No, pray with faith. I love this quote, and it just said by an anonymous author.

I wish I knew who said this, but I even Googled it and couldn't find it.

And if Google doesn't have the answer, well, then who knows?

But it says this, when you ask God, do not doubt.

To doubt is to insult God and to sabotage your own growth.

For doubt is to ask the seed, to still while expecting the storm.

You get that? You're expecting it not to happen. You're expecting that the sea

is going to be stormy, and yet you're praying for stillness.

Man, put that expectation into faith, into faith.

I love the story of Jesus and the centurion that we find in Matthew 8,

and it's an incredible example of faith that James is talking about, right?

It's found in the book of Matthew, Matthew 8, 5 through 13. And he says this,

when he entered Capernaum, talking about Jesus there, Jesus entered Capernaum,

a centurion, that's a soldier, came to him pleading with him.

So he's begging God, God, Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed and he's

in terrible agony, he said to him.

Jesus answered and said, am I to come and heal him?

Like, are you asking me for help? Do you want me to come to your house?

And he said to him, am I to come and heal him?

Lord, the centurion replied, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof or roof.

Where are we from? But just say the word and my servant will be healed.

Do you see that kind of faith? God, you don't have to come to the house.

I believe that if you just say the word, my servant will be healed.

For I too am a man under authority, having soldiers under my command.

I say to this one, go when he goes. And to another, come, and he comes.

And to my servant, do this, and he does it. Next slide.

Hearing this, Jesus was amazed and said to those following him.

So he turns to the crowd and he says this, truly, I tell you,

I have not found anyone in Israel with so great of faith.

I tell you that many will come from east and west to share the banquet with

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness where there

will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then Jesus told the centurion, go as you have believed, let it be done for you.

And his servant was healed at that very moment. it.

It was a faith-based prayer.

Jesus helped this paralyzed servant who's back at home, and scripture says he.

Was in great pain, and he was in great agony.

But upon hearing this, Jesus says, hey, where's your faith at?

It's like checking the faith temperature. Do you really want me to come there?

And he says, no, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy.

And I want to point a couple things that are really important to point out here. The first is this.

It's important to see that Jesus' immediate response to the centurion's request

was compassion and a readiness to help. Why is that important?

Because you need to know that when you have a need, like so many of us do,

you will not find a cold-hearted heavenly father that's cold.

No, you'll find God is ready to meet your need.

And he's ready to show you compassion. He's ready to help.

The Lord will meet you with compassion and readiness.

I think the second thing that's important to see about the centurion's response

to Jesus is, he said, I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof,

but say the word and my servant will be healed.

He knew he was not worthy of Christ's presence, but he also believed that if

Jesus simply spoke the word, his servant would be healed.

And it gave me this thought that faith takes action when we see the reality

of our need and the greatness of our God.

We come to him in prayer because we see the reality of our need and we see the greatness of our God.

Your faith matters to God.

Let me give you one more example. In Matthew 9, it says, as Jesus went on from

there, Two blind men followed him, calling out, Have mercy on us, son of David.

When he entered the house, the blind men approached him, and Jesus said to them,

Do you believe that I can do this?

He's testing the waters there. Do you believe that I can do this?

And they said to him, Yes, Lord.

Then he touched their eyes, saying, Let it be done for you according to your faith.

And their eyes were opened.

Your faith matters.

Now some of you are going, great That means all I have to do is have faith Just

a little faith, faith, faith.

Have faith, I'm going to get that car. If I have faith, I'm going to get that girl.

You know who I'm talking about? Hand my son with a hearty amen.

Sorry to burst your bubble, boys, but there's another thing that matters, and it's God's will.

God's will, number five, matters. 1 John 5, 14 and 15 says this,

this is the confidence we have before him.

This is where our confidence, where our faith comes from. If we ask anything

according to whose will?

His will. He hears us. And if we know that he hears us, or if we know that he

hears whatever we ask, then we know that we have what we have asked of him.

See, what we forget sometimes about prayer is that although God hears and answers

us, it's important to understand that prayer aligns our hearts with God's will.

Most of the time, prayer is more about us coming into alignment with God's will.

Remember when the disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray. And he gave them

the Lord's prayer, right? That model prayer.

And Jesus told them this in verse 10, pray, your kingdom come,

your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That phrase, your kingdom come, expresses a desire for God's sovereign rule

to be established here on earth.

It's wanting God's sovereign rule in our lives.

And it takes surrender. It takes yielding.

It takes obedience in every area of our lives.

So when Jesus taught us to pray for the kingdom of God to come to earth,

he was teaching us not only that we need to align our hearts with his will,

but he was teaching us that we have to align our will with God's will.

We surrender to him. Prayer is an act of surrender.

It's not just give me, give me, give me, give me, give me, amen.

Oh, and give me this too. It's an act of surrendering.

When we pray as a child of God, we, yes, we ask, but we also through prayer

are making a declaration of trust, acknowledging that God's plans are higher.

We may not understand it. A lot of times we don't.

God's plans are higher. They're better.

They're for our good and they're for the kingdom of heaven.

And it's through prayer that we surrender our own agendas and our own ambitions,

even good agendas and even great ambitions need to be surrendered to God.

And we filter everything through prayer in order to expand the kingdom of God

and the will of God takes place in our lives and here on earth through surrender.

Our prayers must be in line with the kingdom of God and the will of God.

I think there's no greater example of someone aligning and submitting their

desires to God than Jesus when he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane that

night before he went to the cross.

So powerful. And I would encourage you, go read it. Man, it will do something to you.

I meditated on that this week, and I wanted to pull this out because I just

thought it was so incredibly powerful.

Because being God, he knew what he was about to face, didn't he?

He knew exactly the torture he was about to go through. But being human,

he didn't want to face that. He didn't want to walk through that pain.

Matthew 26, verse 39 says, going a little farther, he fell face down and prayed,

Matthew 26:39

my father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.

And here's his, here's his vague or his determination and his stand to promise whatever God wants.

He says, yet not as I will, but as you will.

I don't want to go through this pain, this torture, this agony,

but I want your will more than I want my will.

And if that's Jesus, the son of God, then how ought we to be praying saying,

God, I want this, but even more than I want this, I want your will to be done

in my life. And I want your kingdom to come here on earth.

That's a hard thing to pray when you're praying for good things,

when you're praying for great things.

God, I want your will over my will.

But this short verse, it gives us this incredible picture of the despair and

agony Jesus was in that night.

It shows this tension between his divine mission of saving mankind and his human

desire to avoid suffering.

Prayer enjoins the believer to the perfect will of God in the world and in their

lives by yielding and surrendering to it.

Now, I don't want you to hear these things, these first, these points and just

say, oh man, God doesn't answer my prayers.

That's not what I want you to hear. Does God answer our prayers?

Absolutely, God answers prayers.

Absolutely. He may say no. He may say, wait.

He may say, not right now. Or he may say, I've got something better for you

or someone else better for you.

Or he may move in your situation. He absolutely answers prayer.

Does prayer change the mind of God?

That's a great theological debate. I'm going to say yes.

Absolutely. Why? Because scripture gives us examples time and time again.

This is a passage that I've been really meditating and reading and taking notes

on for probably about three weeks.

And it's Isaiah 38.

Isaiah 38, 1 through 5, it says, in those days, Hezekiah became terminally ill.

Don't need to look up the Greek to see that that means he's going to die.

The prophet Isaiah son of Amos came and said to him, this is what the Lord says,

set your house in order for you are about to die. You will not recover.

Straight from God. God tells him, you're going to die. You're not going to recover.

Hezekiah did what most of us would probably do. He goes to God in prayer.

Wouldn't you go to God in prayer right away if you just received that from the

Lord? You know what? You're going to die. Get your house in ready.

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and he prayed to the Lord,

and he said, please, Lord, remember how I have walked before you faithfully and wholeheartedly.

He points God back to the righteous life that he's lived.

I have walked before you faithfully and wholeheartedly and have done what pleases

you. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, go and tell Hezekiah,

this is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says.

I have heard your prayer.

I've seen your tears. Look, I am going to add 15 years to your life.

That's incredible. Why did God answer Hezekiah's prayer?

Hezekiah had a death sentence. He prayed, and we see God responded with,

I have heard, I have seen, and I'm going to do.

And I believe it's found in verse 3 when Hezekiah said, remember how I've walked

before you faithfully and wholeheartedly and have done what pleases you.

It was the prayer of a righteous man who lived a life walking faithfully with

the Lord, wholeheartedly.

He was all out for God's kingdom and God's purposes and in God's will.

And he continually obeyed and lived a life of complete surrender.

And when you do that, And when you walk in those ways, then you can go to God

and you can say, God, remember that I'm walking according to your ways.

Remember how I've been completely sold out to you, how I've been obedient.

Remember.

God responded, I've heard, I've seen, I'm going to add to your life.

Do you want to begin to see God moving in your prayers, in your prayer life?

Walk faithfully, pursue obedience to him wholeheartedly without any agenda.

Live a righteous life, not in order to please you or to please your spouse or

your parents or your co-workers or your friends.

Make it your aim to surrender and please God.

So what's the alternative? We know that God hears the righteous prayers.

John 9 paints a different picture. It says, we know that God does not listen to sinners.

Now, this isn't just someone who sins.

We all fall short. We all sin in our lives. We, 1 John 1, 9,

if we confess him, he forgives him.

He cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

He says, we know that God does not listen to sinners. He's talking about those

who are perpetually living in sin, or maybe who aren't confessing their sin,

or who aren't pure before God because they haven't confessed it yet.

He says, he listens to the golly person who does his will.

It's not that he listens to everyone who's his child. No, he listens when you're

in right relationship with him.

When you're forsaking your sin and you're walking in obedience to God.

God listens to those who are godly. He listens to those who are in obedience to his will.

And maybe you're here today and you've come to God and you feel like God hasn't

heard you. like your prayers just aren't getting through.

I want to encourage you to examine your hearts today. I want you to examine your relationships.

Ask yourselves if you're holding on to bitterness.

Ask yourself if you're holding on to unforgiveness towards someone. Maybe.

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Reveal to you any sinful attitudes or grudges or places of unforgiveness that

might be holding back the power of God in your life.

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Are there any attitudes in our lives that are hindering our prayers?

Are there any actions in our lives that are hindering our prayers?

Maybe you're here today and your prayers aren't being answered because you don't know him.

You've never received the free gift of salvation that God offers through Jesus Christ.

Maybe you've been seeking, maybe you've been coming, but you just have been

putting it off because you think you're good enough.

Or maybe just because you think you could never be loved by God. It's not true.

He loves you more than anything. He sent Jesus to earth for you.

He lived a perfect sin this life for you and for me.

And he took our place and he took our penalty on the cross. And the Bible says

that if we believe in him and we surrender our lives to him and we follow him,

that he will come into our lives, into our hearts.

He'll rescue us from our sin.

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That he'll put a new spirit in

you. That he'll place your feet on the rock and pull you out of the pit.

And if that's you,

I want you just to say these words in your heart you can go to him and you can

pray just say Father I'm a sinner I need you,

I recognize that I cannot do it on my own I cannot do life on my own I cannot

be good enough to ever get to heaven.

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I accept the free gift of Jesus I believe that he is God that he took my place on the cross,

that he gave me away to heaven,

and then surrender your heart and life to him say I'm going to live for you

help me not to live for me anymore I want to live for you if you just prayed

that prayer with every eye closed I'm not going to call you out.

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Powerful relationship with you.

We want to see people come to know you. We want to see people grow more and more like you.

We want your will to be done in each one of our lives.

So would you speak to us today and as we leave this place in just a few minutes,

I pray that you would go with us and that you would help us to live in communion with you in complete.

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