Between Offered Prayer and Answered Prayer

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Whether you're watching online or at one of our campuses or in the sanctuary here in South Lake, we're so very, very honored that you're here.

Stephen Carter did just a masterful job last week.

And I appreciated the reminder from him that waiting is not passive.

That to wait on the Lord is to set your hope on the Lord.

I think waiting in a time of transition is a challenging time because we're sitting ducks for cynicism, despair, or even abandonment of our faith.

So I'd like for us to linger on this thought about waiting on the Lord.

Many of you are waiting.

Maybe all of you are waiting.

Personally, you're waiting.

You're waiting on good news.

You're waiting on a breakthrough.

You're waiting on a development.

As a congregation, we're waiting.

We're waiting on the next chapter.

We've been praying and we're waiting.

We're in a hurry.

We don't like to wait.

But waiting matters.

It matters.

And the person that we uh, whose story we're going to ponder this weekend, I think, has some wonderful counsel when it comes to waiting on God.

The title of the message between offered prayer and answered prayer.

Speaking of prayer, I've asked the lead pastor of our church in San Antonio to pray a blessing over this message.

Many people are surprised that I'm not the lead pastor.

I was forever.

But a few years ago, we discovered this wonderful, wonderful talent, gifted brother who came to us many years ago by virtue of a as a worship pastor, but then became a campus pastor.

And now he's the lead pastor, and he is just doing, he exceeds all expectations that I ever had on someone as a successor.

I love him like a son.

Would you please say hello to Travis Eads?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, it's my honor to be with you, and I want to take an opportunity to pray with you.

Let's pray together.

Well, Father, we are so grateful to you to be before you to get to proclaim who you are.

You are righteous, you are perfect, you are holy.

Your thoughts are above our thoughts.

You're above our ways.

Father, we we say to you, we claim the promise, the promise that your steadfast love never ceases, that your mercies never end, that they are new every morning.

We say, Great is your faithfulness.

Oh Father, our hope is in you.

The Lord is my portion, says my soul.

Yes.

Therefore we trust in you, Father.

Our hope is in you.

You were the one.

You said that those who hope in you will have strength.

You said that we would soar on wings like eagles.

That we would run and we wouldn't grow weary, that we would walk and that we would not faint.

So, Father, now as we come to open your word, we seek a word from you.

Speak to us.

Your children are listening.

Give us ears to hear, give us eyes to see.

We want to see Jesus.

We want to see only Jesus.

And it's in his name we pray.

And all those who agreed said.

Amen.

Amen.

Max?

Thank you.

Bill Irwin is not the first person to walk the Appalachian Trail.

He's not the first person to ever begin in Georgia and conclude in Maine.

He's not the first person to weather the rain, the wind, the cold, the hypothermia, to camp out on the ground, to ford the streams.

Bill Ehrman was not the first person to ever make this journey.

But he was in this particular detail.

He was blind.

He was fifty years old when in 1990 he set out on the hike.

A recovering alcoholic and a devoted Christian.

He justified his adventure simply by saying, Well, the Lord told me to do it.

And he made Second Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7 his mantra.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

We walk by faith and not by sight.

He didn't use a map, a GPS, or a compass.

It was just him, his German shepherd, and the rugged terrain of the mountains.

He estimates that he fell about five thousand times.

If my math is correct, that translates to an average of four times every hour for eight months.

He battled hypothermia.

He cracked his ribs.

He had more scrapes on his knees and hands than he could count.

But he made it.

You're doing the same.

Not on the trails of the appellations, but in the trials of life.

You're walking not between Georgia and Maine, but you're walking a road that is even steeper, longer, more challenging.

You're walking the path between a prayer offered and a prayer answered.

Many of you are walking this, if not all of you, personally.

You're somewhere between a prayer for healing and the answer to that prayer.

A prayer for reconciliation and a reunion.

A prayer for financial help and a new job.

You're somewhere between a prayer offered and a prayer answered.

The Gateway family is making this journey as a congregation, aren't we?

Most of us can remember when our prayers took on an added sense of urgency.

Some of you have been praying for the Gateway family for 25 years.

I've met you.

I admire you.

And I love you.

Others of us are newer to the family, but all of us, our prayers took on an added level of intensity last summer.

When we realized that we were going to take a long walk.

An uphill walk.

A walk up a steep terrain.

A challenging walk.

And that's where we are.

The walk's not over.

We have begun the prayer.

We've intensified our prayers.

We've asked the Lord to guide us.

We're praying for the elders.

We're praying for the staff.

We're praying for direction.

And we're just putting one foot in front of the other.

Oh, do we not love the season of answered prayer?

Those days in which life is nothing more than a downhill ride with the wind at the back and everything is happening in a wonderful fashion.

The Apostle Paul said that we preach the gospel in season and out.

Oh, I love preaching in season.

When the fruit is obvious, when people are happy, when nobody's mad at the preacher.

I love in-season preaching.

But you know, there's times in which we're out of season.

Seems like there's no harvest.

There's no easy solutions.

The questions seem to outnumber the answers, and the problems defy easy solutions.

We're in between offered prayer and answered prayer.

In between supplication and celebration, in between bent knees and lifted hands, in between tears of fear and tears of joy, in between help me, Lord.

And thank you, Lord.

Between Cana and Capernaum.

A father once went to Cana with a heavy, heavy heart.

He needed help.

And someone had told him that Jesus was in Cana.

So he made the journey to Cana, and while there, he offered a prayer, a sincere prayer, a heartfelt prayer, a prayer we're going to consider here in just a few moments.

And Jesus, according to what he said, answered the prayer, but the father, the person in Cana, would not see the answer to his offered prayer until he made the walk to another city by the name of Capernaum.

And it would be in Capernaum, Jesus said, that he would find the answer to his prayer.

And so he offered a prayer in Cana, and then not knowing if that prayer would be answered, fueled only by the promise of Christ, he had to make a decision and make a twenty-mile walk between Cana and Capernaum.

So again, I'd like to ask, do you know this walk?

The longest walk?

Could I ask for a show of hands?

If anybody here is somewhere between offered prayer and answered prayer, you can raise both hands if you want.

If so, then you know how arduous this walk can be.

You know how difficult every step can be.

You know how despair comes along as an uninvited companion.

You know how doubt creeps in.

You know how even temptation comes your way.

You know how hard it is to keep walking, how easy it would be to give up.

You've seen others toss the hat of faith out of the ring instead of in the ring, and you're tempted to do the same.

It is a hard time, a hard place to be in between offered prayer and answered prayer.

Yet it is a valuable time because in this season, in between offered prayer and answered prayer, some faith muscles get developed that cannot be developed in season, but only out of season.

The story of the gentleman to which I am referring is found in the Gospel of John, chapter 4, beginning in verse 46.

John 4 · chapter mention

As Jesus traveled through Galilee, he came to Cana, where he had turned water into wine.

There was a government official in nearby Capernaum, whose son was very sick.

When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his son.

This man was a man of high standing, an official in the court of Herod.

He was likely a Gentile.

His modern-day counterpart would be a secretary of state or maybe chief of staff or cabinet member.

He was a man of high position.

He had a house full of servants, but none of that mattered because he had a son.

And this son was very, very sick.

The son we will soon see in verse 49 is called Aladd, L A D.

It's a Greek word typically used to refer to a youngster.

In my mind, I see a four-year-old, five-year-old, six-year-old.

But he was very, very sick.

No doubt the aristocrat had summoned the finest physicians to help his son.

No doubt he had cashed in every chip.

He had used every leverage, but no amount of influence, no amount of money, no amount of leverage could bring him what he so longed to have, and that is a healthy son.

The dollar is not almighty.

Neither rank nor riches can protect their possessors from disease and death.

Certainly, this father would have given both to see health return to his son.

How he learned of Jesus, we're not told.

We do know that he was a resident of Capernaum, and we also know that Capernaum was home base for the operations of Jesus for quite some time, a fishing village, the hometown of Peter, where Jesus healed, Peter's mother-in-law, where Jesus preached in person in the synagogue, no doubt.

The high-ranking official had heard of Jesus.

Maybe someone said, Go talk to Jesus about your son.

Maybe he had seen what Jesus did.

Maybe he had heard word of Jesus turning water into wine.

I do not know, but I do know that Jesus, he felt, could help him.

However, he was in Capernaum and Jesus was in Cana.

And the two were separated by 20 miles.

So the walk from Capernaum to Cana is a long walk.

Can we assume that he and his entourage could walk three miles an hour?

Can we assume that this would be a long journey?

Even if he left early in the morning, it would take the better part of a day.

He gave his son's fevered brow a kiss and he gave his wife a promise, I will bring Jesus back.

And off he went.

By the time he reached Cana, he had been walking for many, many hours.

He was weary, he was worried, and his son was dying.

He went and begged Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his son, who was about to die.

Every word is rich.

He went and begged.

I see him on his knees, maybe face in the dirt.

This is an austere prayer.

He makes no mention of his title or his position.

He drops no names.

He doesn't offer to give the ministry of Jesus some money.

He goes straight to the core of the issue.

He went and he begged Jesus to do what?

To come to Capernaum.

A specific request.

Come with me.

Go the 20 miles with me.

I need you to please go with me.

He is a man of authority.

Maybe he's used to calling the shots.

So he tells Jesus, come with me.

My son is about to die.

This is the first time in John's gospel that Jesus is brought face to face with death.

In John's Gospel, the only miracle prior to this is turning water into wine.

Significant miracle, no doubt.

But I tell you, it's one thing.

To solve a problem at a wedding is another thing.

To begin to deal with the problem of humanity, and that is that we all die.

The response of Jesus surprises us.

Jesus says, Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?

Goodness gracious, I did not see that coming.

Where'd that come from?

He questions the faith of people who must have a miracle before they have faith.

A contingent faith.

He questions it.

But why?

Why?

Why here?

Why now?

Why in this moment?

Can I tell you my answer?

I don't know.

Maybe he saw some contingent faith in the eyes and the heart of this father.

Will you come with me to heal my son?

I don't know.

Maybe there was something about his orchestrating or controlling the response of Christ that didn't settle right with Christ.

It could be also the word was out now about Jesus, Jesus the miracle worker.

We could envision the official coming into the town with the entourage and people finding out why he's there, and they're saying to themselves, oh man, I wasn't there for the water-to-wine miracle.

I want to see this one.

And so a whole crowd of people follow him in hopes of seeing some razzle dazzle.

We do not know what prompted this.

It's an important teaching, but it's not a teaching that the official wants to indulge at the moment.

He goes right back to the question or the request.

The official pleaded, Lord, please come now before my little boy dies.

His heart's 20 miles away in Capernaum.

He does not deny that some people demand miracles.

He simply said, can we talk about that another time?

I mean, the appeal could hardly have been more genuine, and Jesus gratefully responded to the appeal.

So let all seekers of Christ be encouraged.

If at first you don't succeed, ask again.

Christ is never turned away by the persistent prayer.

In fact, he welcomes it.

He welcomes it.

If Jesus spoke with a frown in verse 48, can we not imagine him speaking with a smile in verse 50?

Then Jesus told him, go back home.

Your son will live.

You know, Jesus never turns away a sincere seeker.

He never does.

Oh dear child of God, hear this.

He never turns away a sincere seeker.

Search your gospel.

Read every word.

Find that one occasion in which Jesus On hearing a request, he said, You know, I'm just too tired.

Or you've been here every day for 20 years.

Or I've got other people to tend to.

Find that time he turned away a sincere seeker.

He never, never does.

He cherishes the prayers of his children.

He not just hears, but he cherishes the prayers of his children.

He cherishes your prayers.

And when you bow your head in faith and open your mouth and say, Oh Father, all of heaven stops.

Because he wants to hear what you have to say.

And Jesus said to this man, You can go home.

Your son will live.

That's good news, isn't it?

Jesus answered the man's prayer, didn't he?

Or did he?

If we were in a small group in a living room, this is where I would say, tell me.

Did Jesus answer the man's prayer?

Remember the man's prayer.

What was it?

Come home with me to Capernaum and heal him.

Come with me.

The man asked Jesus to go with him.

Did Jesus go?

No.

But he told the father to go.

He said, now go home.

Your son will live?

Do you think the man might have hesitated?

Do you think the man might have said, well, okay, yeah.

You sure he can't go with me?

I mean, who wants to make that journey alone?

Who wants to make this journey from offered prayer to answered prayer?

Solo?

Who wants to make that twenty-mile hike from Cana to Capernaum?

Don't you think that he might have said, well, Jesus, could you reconsider?

My wife is a really good cook.

And I've got some great conversation starters.

We can chat all the way.

I know some good jokes.

It'll be a nice journey.

And I would feel so much better if you came with me.

Because the man might have been thinking, what if I get all the way here and my son's not healed?

What if I make that 20-mile hike and my son is not better?

What if I get here and the prayer's not answered?

And then I have to go back and find Jesus, but Jesus isn't there.

What if Jesus has gone somewhere else?

It would be so much better.

Jesus, if you would just do it the way I want you to do it.

In the time that I want you to do it.

In the fashion that I want you to do it.

Please.

What would you do?

Or better asked, what do you do?

I would like to be healed, Lord, by this time next month.

So I'll be robust for the holidays.

I could sure use a pay increase.

And while you're at it, if you want to get rid of that colleague of mine in the adjacent cubicle, be clear.

I believe in specific requests.

I do.

I believe we are taught to be anxious about nothing but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving to make our request known to God.

So there's nothing wrong with a specific request, but there is something wrong in thinking that the only way God can answer my prayer is in the way I want it answered.

Prayer, recall, is not necessarily asking God to do what I want.

It's more asking God to do what is right.

The most important words in a prayer are not my will, but thy will be done.

As a congregation, the Gateway Church, we're being taught a lot about prayer.

A lot about waiting, a lot about healing.

How can we move from an offered prayer to an answered prayer?

Now, maybe, maybe this fella heard what Jesus said, spun on a dime, and started whistling and dancing all the way for 20 miles home.

Maybe he did.

Maybe every time he saw a person, he said, My prayer was answered, my prayer was answered.

Maybe he started singing, the sun will come up tomorrow.

Maybe he could not have been happier.

Maybe he walked, no, he rode on the magic carpet of faith, never doubting for an instant.

If so, he would be better than your preacher.

I would have had to have some self-talk.

Okay.

You sure?

All right, here I oh.

What if I the only thing that he had going for him was this.

Jesus said, Jesus said, Your son is healed.

What he had going for him was one thing, and that is the word of God.

God had spoken.

God had spoken.

So in my mind, I'm seeing the guy say, Oh, I don't know.

But he said, okay, but he said, and he said, and empowered by the spoken word of Jesus Christ, he made the journey from offered prayer to answered prayer.

You know exactly what I'm about to do, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

What word has he spoken to you about your problem?

What word?

What word?

What voice is dominating your thoughts?

In between offered prayer and answered prayer, our task is to simply do two things: heed the voice of Christ and walk in the direction of an answered prayer.

That's all we do.

Easier said than done.

Because so many voices are clamoring for our attention.

So many voices are coming in, competing for the voice of Christ.

So many voices are demanding to be heard.

But what you are called to do, moms, what you are called to do, dads, young people, older people, what you and I are called to do is to heed the voice of Christ.

But Jesus said, Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.

But Jesus said, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

But Jesus said, When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.

But Jesus said, This is the vernacular of the disciple.

He or she turns their hearts into a bank vault of verses.

They deposit God's word.

The psalmist said, I treasure your word in my heart so that I will not sin against you.

We bring words of Christ into our heart and we repeat them over and over and over.

More than once I have awakened in the middle of the night to hear my beautiful wife, Dean Lynn, who's awake and she can't get back to sleep, and I'll just hear, do I walk through the valley of the shadow of death?

The Lord is my shepherd.

Do I walk through the valley of the shadow of death?

She just, she's just speaking God's word into the into the room.

She's speaking the word.

I can see in my mind this man speaking the word of God.

But he said, he said, he said, he said, you see, when God speaks, the world comes into existence.

When God speaks, he sustains the universe with his word.

When he speaks, it happens.

God has spoken.

And what has God spoken about the Gateway family?

He has said, I will build my church.

I will.

I not I might.

For if you don't mess up, I will.

Maybe we'll go find someone else to He's in charge.

And so He will build His church.

Is that to say churches don't pass through tough times?

Just the opposite.

Because He has spoken, Satan comes and attacks the spoken recipients of God's promise.

But he will not be victorious.

He will not, because what he has here at Gateway is a quorum of people.

A quorum of people.

May be winnowed down like Gideon's army.

Not as many as we used to have, but determined to listen to the voice of God because he said.

The Father from Cana begs us to keep asking, keep walking, don't quit, to make the word of Christ our pole star.

And to hold on to the promises of Christ like a barnacle holds on to the hull of a boat.

Here's what happened next.

While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well.

He asked them when the boy had begun to get better, and they replied, Yesterday afternoon at one o'clock, his fever suddenly disappeared.

And then the father realized that this was the very time Jesus had told him, Your son will live.

And he and his entire household believed in Jesus.

This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did in Galilee after coming from Judea.

So the good news from the servants was met with a good question from the Father.

You say my son was healed.

When was he healed?

Thank you, John, for giving us these details.

What time did he get better?

Oh, one o'clock.

That's the very time I was with Jesus.

And Jesus had worked a long-distance healing.

The power of the miracle, look at this.

The power of the miracle resulted not just in the life of the boy, but in the salvation of the household.

The whole household, including the officer, believed in him.

I would suggest to you that's the greater miracle.

The salvation of the household.

It was an amazing miracle that he saved the boy from dying.

But as far as I know, that boy eventually died.

Maybe he lived to be 80 years old.

But I do not know, and I have been to Capernaum in Cana.

I've never seen a 2,000-year-old man walking around.

Eventually he died.

But here's what I do know.

These household members were saved by faith in Christ.

And right now they are a part of that great cloud of witnesses that is looking down upon us.

And the reason that Jesus healed in the way he did, and he chose not to go back is because he had a higher prayer that he was going to answer.

And that is the salvation of everyone in the household.

The problem in the man's prayer is not that it was too small.

I mean, not that it was too great, it was just too small.

He was praying for immediate healing, and Christ was dreaming of eternal salvation.

Revival came to the man's house.

Two lessons, and I'll be done.

Number one, would you please be open to a miracle?

Would you?

Would you keep your heart open to a miracle?

I think I've mentioned to you before that my dad was a blue-collar oil field worker in the wild badlands of West Texas.

And he was very handy in that he built every house that we lived in, with the exception of the last one that he bought.

It's close to Wink, not far from No Trees, and just up the road from Ira Ann.

You know exactly where it is.

And my parents, believe it or not, my mom was a nurse, my dad was a pipeliner.

And in their spare time, they found time to build a house.

I can't even stack Lincoln logs, but they could build a house.

And so long before I was born, this happened.

But they framed a small, modest house.

And it took them several weeks working in the afternoon.

And finally, one weekend, they dedicated a chunk of the weekend to getting the frame up.

And they got the frame up.

They went home, went to bed, and Sunday night, one of those wild, cruel West Texas winds that carries all of the panhandle with it came out and blew.

And my dad got up the next morning on his way to work to go check on the house.

And guess what?

Everything was down.

Mom said that dad just stood there with his arms crossed, side, thought of all that work that was wasted.

But he had to go to work, and so off he went, and he mentioned it to a few friends.

When he got off work, he went back to the house just ready to start collecting the pieces.

Can you imagine his surprise when he arrived?

And over 30 men were there.

The word had gotten out.

And by the time he got there, the frame was up.

And not only was the frame up, they had advanced the project, some two or three weeks' worth of work, my mom said.

I try to think about how my dad felt that morning and then how he felt that afternoon.

He never saw that miracle coming, did he?

Maybe you feel like your house has collapsed.

Maybe you feel like all the walls have fallen down.

Maybe you feel like it's all come undone.

Dear friend, blessed daughter of God, blessed son of God, be open to a miracle.

God can do more in one moment than we can do in a lifetime.

Be open to a miracle.

And lastly, be a part of a miracle.

Just be a part of it.

When we get to heaven, I want to find this fella, this official.

Will you go with me?

Let's find him.

And I want to ask him a couple of questions.

One question is: did you ever regret making that long walk between offered prayer and answered prayer?

Later in your life, did you ever look back and say, boy, that was a waste of time?

And he'll laugh and say, Of course not.

And he'll call all that household together who are in heaven because he made that walk of faith.

Gateway family, do you think you'll ever regret being faithful to God during this time?

It's a tough time.

It's a challenging time.

But let me tell you something, friend.

At the end of this walk, there's going to come a revival for the household of God.

There's going to come a revival.

There's certain things we cannot learn unless we are in a time of testing.

There's certain things we cannot learn otherwise.

We can't learn them through sermons or through books.

We have to experience them.

And right now, it's a time of testing.

But I believe with all my heart that at the tail end of this time of testing, there'll be a great revival in the household of God.

Amen.

Do you believe that?

Do you receive that?

May God be praised.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.