He is Good | Power in Prayer | Mark 11:20-25 | Coleton Segars

We are in a series right now titled He is Good, looking at the Gospel of Mark and just going all the way through it.

It's a two-year teaching series, just section by section.

And this image here is actually of Jesus cursing the fig tree because the story that we're going to look at today kind of piggybacks off of the one that we talked about last week.

And uh one of the things that struck me about this image is like how big the fig tree is in this image.

We don't actually know how big the tree was.

I just I've never thought about the tree being humongous and being this thing.

And so that's the image that we're looking at today because the text is Mark 11, 20 through 25.

And so I'm going to read this teaching text and we'll get started.

Mark says, In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots.

Peter remembered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered.

And then Jesus responds, Have faith in God.

Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, Go throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in their heart, but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your father in heaven may forgive your sins.

This is the word of the Lord.

At the lake this weekend, and I was talking to my dad, and we just I was talking to him about the message, and um I just had this thing pop into my mind.

When I was a kid, he was I saw him one day in the house sharpening his knife on a little thing.

Uh he just got this knife, apparently he said from Kmart.

I was like, Oh, okay, I guess that's why you had to sharpen it.

Um But uh he was sharpening it and whatever, and I was watching him do it, and I was like, that's that's cool, you know.

What are you doing?

He's like, I'm sharpening a knife.

And I was like, Can I see it?

And he's like, Yes, you can see it.

But I was, I don't know, I was like five or something.

He's like, But you just you should be super careful.

It's very, very sharp.

I've made this thing very, very sharp, and I was like, totally got it.

And immediately cut myself.

Um I grabbed it and just put my thumb, just to I just wanted to feel how like how it's like when they at the Mexican restaurant and they say it's a hot plate.

I'm like, we're gonna see.

I just want to double check.

And I was like, how sharp is it?

And I just, I literally I just touched my finger to it and then pulled it back.

And it did not hurt because it was so sharp it cut right through my skin.

Uh it didn't hurt at first.

I mean, it hurt a lot later.

Um, but it was so sharp that it cut me, and I just barely, barely touched it.

And he looked at me, he's like, I just told you to be careful and not cut yourself.

I was like, I didn't, I didn't, I tried, I didn't realize it was that sharp.

I didn't realize it was that dangerous.

Uh I wasn't careful enough.

And so uh we were talking about that story, and I was like, Do you remember that?

And he's like, Yes, I do remember that.

And uh he goes, I told you it was too sharp.

And so the reason I tell that story is um that idea, like it's so sharp, like looking at it might cut your finger.

Like, no, you don't have to touch it.

It's so sharp, just seeing it might might cut you.

That's how I feel about this text.

I feel like there is, if y'all don't understand, if I miscommunicate what we're about to talk about, you will either miss out on this wonderful gift we have in prayer that God gives us, that Jesus talks about here, or the other way, if you misunderstand, you will wind up disillusioned with what's actually available to us in prayer and think that you can just manifest every single thing that you want just by believing hard enough.

And so I want, I think this is a very, in terms of if if we're connecting it to a sharp blade, it is very sharp, it can be very dangerous, and I want to be very careful today when we're talking about this.

And I want you to be very careful to listen to what I'm saying and don't read in history that you've heard in other churches or been a part of different denominations or whatever.

Don't read that stuff into the text.

Actually allow the text to actually do the speaking for itself.

And so that's what I want to do.

I want to be very careful about this, but I just want to begin with a question, ask that question of the text, and then the message will go from there.

So I'm just gonna ask a question to the text, answering that question, and the message will flow from that particular part.

And so the question that I want to ask is what is Jesus actually saying here in this text?

Is Jesus really saying, if anyone says to this mountain, go throw yourself in the sea, and they don't doubt in their heart, but believes it will happen, it will be done for them.

Is that what he's actually saying?

Is he actually saying whatever you ask for in prayer, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours?

And so I just want to ask that question, is that really what he's actually saying?

Because those are the words he uses.

Is that what he's actually saying?

So most people, when they read this text, they read something like this and they feel like he's not saying that.

We must reinterpret what he's saying.

There's no way he could be saying that.

We have to reinterpret what he's saying.

He can't actually mean what he says that he means.

The issue that I find with that is that Jesus says the words, truly I tell you, and he's not normally a liar.

And so I have I have trouble when he's going, he says, truly, he says this a lot, truly I say to you.

And so he says that about this text.

And the reason that's a problem, one is he uses the word, but then it's also a problem because he uses truly I tell you a lot, and he says it about different things.

And so, for instance, he says to Peter, truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you shall deny me three times.

And that literally happened.

No one needs to reinterpret that and be like, well, it's figurative language.

A rooster's not really gonna crow.

It's like, no, no, no.

He said, Truly I tell you, and then something that he said was going to happen actually happened.

Didn't figuratively happen, didn't symbolically happen, it actually happened.

He says this again.

He says, Truly I tell you, heaven and earth will pass away, but not one word will pass away from the scriptures.

No one feels the need to reinterpret that.

They actually hold to that.

Denominations are like, the word is eternal, it will last forever, the, you know, the grass withers, the flower fades, but God's word will last forever.

And it's like, so they don't reinterpret that one.

Why do we feel the need to reinterpret this particular text that Jesus is saying?

Jesus also says, Truly I tell you, anyone who believes in me, truly I tell you, anyone who believes in me will have eternal life.

And no one feels the need to reinterpret that text.

And so if you're gonna use the logic that, well, he's saying something that can't be true, we have to reinterpret this.

If he begins it with truly I tell you, it we don't reinterpret all the truly I tell you, so why would we use that logic here?

And so to me, that doesn't hold up.

So another group, uh it would seem that we shouldn't reinterpret it based on that because Jesus says, Truly I tell you.

Another group looks at this text and they would say that Jesus was, he does say this, but he's only saying this to the disciples.

He's only speaking to the disciples, and so only the disciples can practice this.

It is true what he's saying, he was just only speaking it to twelve people, and Judas, I don't know what he got.

Um The issue I find with that is there's plenty of times in the scriptures where Jesus is only speaking to the disciples.

And so, for instance, Jesus says, if they persecuted me, they will persecute you.

He's only talking in that particular text in John, he's only talking to the disciples.

And there's plenty of Christians nowadays that aren't the original twelve that are being persecuted for their faith.

He also says, if you abide in me, you will bear much fruit, only talking to the disciples.

And it's still true that it's used for everyone, if you abide in Jesus, you do life with Jesus, you will bear much fruit.

And so, because that's not something that happens consistently, he's only talking to the disciples about this, and then on top of that, Jesus actually uses the word anyone.

I think we have the text there.

It says, um, if anyone, not if any of you disciples, if any of you twelve, he's like, if anyone says to this mountain.

And so it that doesn't seem to hold up as well.

Uh, and then uh some people say that uh what Jesus is saying is like, it's true, kinda, but it was about a certain mountain.

The mountain he's talking about is very important.

We got to really make sure the mountain is in there because he's talking about a specific mountain.

So some people say it was the mount, uh the temple mount, some people say it's the Mount of Olives where they're where they're standing.

Um, and so that's what they they think it has to do with uh some kind of mountain.

And so we shouldn't think about it as, you know, you can ask for anything in prayer.

This is referencing some mountain experience that they're actually dealing with.

The issue is Jesus literally uses the word anything, anything you ask in prayer, not any mountain or anything like that.

He uses the word anything.

And so again, that logic wouldn't hold up to this like, well, if it's only specifically about the temple or the destruction of the temple, or it's about the Mount of Olives and this uh prophecy back in Zechariah, why would he then use the word anything that you ask in prayer?

And then on top of that, moving mountains was a common Jewish expression to talk about things that are impossible.

One of the background commentaries says this, it says, moving mountains became a figure of speech for a task that was considered virtually impossible.

Some scholars think that this mountain refers to the Mount of Olives, which is at this point within sight for the disciples.

Others believe that the Temple Mount is in view.

However, and I love this, however, even if it is one of those mountains, neither application would alter the principle here, that there's something impossible happening.

And so this was just a common phrasing of like just doing something that's impossible.

Anyone who says this mountain be tossed into the sea.

It was a way of saying, like, anything that's impossible, if you just say it's going to do this and you don't doubt but believe, then that will, that will be done for you.

That's what he's saying, that anything impossible.

And so I just of this week reading all the different commentators and all the different people about it, like they come at it and all these different things, and many of them want to reinterpret it.

They want it to say anything other than what it actually says.

And I have trouble with that because I couldn't watch their argument unfold and then find that the scriptures actually align with those things as well.

And so I had trouble with that.

Not that those men and women aren't smarter than me, they went to school for all these different things, but I did have trouble actually buying any of their interpretations that we needed to reinterpret and somehow backpedal Jesus' words.

And so to me, if if we're trying to understand this, and I want us to understand this, to me, the best way that I feel like we could understand this is to look at the way the disciples who heard this to look at the way that they prayed moving forward.

And how did they, because they literally heard Jesus say it.

They, you know, they're the ones that the firsthand account, they're the ones doing this stuff.

And so, based on hearing it and then understanding what Jesus is saying, we can kind of look at how they prayed and go, did they take it figuratively?

Did they take it literally?

Did they, did they reinterpret what Jesus was saying and pray differently than this, or did they pray exactly the way that Jesus says they should pray here?

And I'm gonna be honest, if you look at the evidence in the book of Acts, they did exactly what he said here.

They did exactly what he said.

They took, it's it's almost like they took his words and they were like, we will literally do that.

We're not gonna symbolically do it, we're not gonna figuratively do it, we're not gonna symbolically take this, we're gonna literally do what you say.

I'm gonna speak something into existence, having faith in God.

And so, just a couple of examples here in the book of Acts.

It's more than a couple, sorry about that, but I needed to prove a point.

Look at some of the examples.

Acts 3, verse 6.

Acts 3:6

This is Peter talking to a man who's paralyzed.

He says the man wants some silver and gold.

And he's like, Yeah, I don't have any of that.

Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have, I give you.

And then notice what he does.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.

And so it was literally, I'm gonna speak to something, I'm gonna speak something out, and I'm gonna believe that it's going to happen, and what I believe is gonna happen without doubting is actually gonna take place.

And the man stands up and walks, and then they get really in trouble in the temple area.

But like they practice this literally.

Just say it, believing that you will have it, and then it'll be done for you.

And that's exactly what they do.

Acts 4, 29 through 30, they pray to God and say, enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.

Stretch out your hand, God, to heal and to perform signs and wonders through through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

And so they're asking whatever you ask in my name and then and believing that you receive it, you'll get those things.

They pray that way.

And then you see if you can follow the story of Acts.

Like they're they're preaching boldly, they receive boldness, even in the midst of persecution.

They're being boldly persecuted and boldly still announcing the good news of the gospel.

We see that the Lord is healing and stretching out his hand to heal and the save.

These things are actually taking place so much so that Peter's shadow, he's just walking down the road, and people are like tossing like sick people where his shadow would touch them, and then those people are being healed just because Peter's shadow touches them.

Like he's doing incredible miracles here.

And this is what they prayed for.

They asked, believed that they would receive it, and they received those things.

Acts 9, 34, Jesus Christ heals you.

That's what one of the disciples said.

Jesus Christ heals you.

Get up and roll up, roll up your mat.

Immediately he got up.

And so again, it wasn't like, God, is it your will to heal this person?

What do you want to do here?

Lord, I just want to know.

Like, let's gather the, I don't know.

Like, it wasn't that it was like Jesus Christ heals you, get up and walk.

It's like, boop, okay.

So that happened.

Acts 9, 40.

Uh, Peter says to a dead woman who cannot hear because she was dead.

Um you get that.

That's important though, right?

Like it's like she didn't have enough faith to be healed.

Well, she's dead, so no faith for she's dead.

Um, but Peter has faith in what he's saying, and he says to this woman, this dead woman, Tabitha, get up.

And it says she opened her eyes and sat up.

And so, again, like you see a boldness in praying time and time again.

They're actually literally doing what Jesus said.

It seems that they heard his words, did not reinterpret it, and just actually move forward, going, He said to do this.

It sounds crazy.

I'm just gonna, but he said to do it, I'm gonna do it.

The man also walks on water and rose from the dead.

I don't know what he does.

I'm just gonna do whatever he says.

And so they keep going, and then I'm gonna keep going.

Acts 13, Paul calls, this is actually a really odd and cool one.

Paul says to a false prophet who's called Bar Jesus, his the son of Jesus, is what this false prophet is called.

And Paul says to him, You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery.

Will you never stop perverting the ways of the Lord?

Now, the hand of the Lord is against you.

You're gonna go blind for a time, not even able to see the sun.

And immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about seeking someone to lead him by the hand.

And then it says that the people saw this happen and they're like, We believe in Jesus.

We just want you to know.

We we're all in, we love it.

Big fan.

Um, but like he just spoke actually something not destructive necessarily, like, hey, this is a judgment on you and your false prophecy, claiming to be someone from God, claiming to be someone attached to Jesus and not knowing him.

So he speaks this into existence.

You're gonna be blind.

It's like, and he is.

Acts 16, a woman with an impure spirit, Paul said to her in the name of Jesus, I command you come out of her.

And at that moment the spirit left.

Again, I'm just commanding those things.

James 1 seems to Jesus' brother takes this up too.

If any of you asks for wisdom and doesn't doubt, he will give it to you.

Same word for doubt there.

He will give it to you.

If you just ask and you don't doubt, he'll you'll receive that wisdom.

James 5, 13 through 15, if anyone is among you, if if they're in trouble, let them pray.

If anyone among you sick, let them call the elders 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 per person well.

And my point with all of these is like the evidence seems to show that the this the disciples and the people who heard the disciples' teaching and the apostles' teaching, they seem to literally hear what Jesus said and then literally follow it.

They did not reinterpret it, they didn't change it, they didn't go like, well, you know, it's just it's a little bit different.

You had to think about the mountains.

No one's saying, like, you really gotta think about the mountains.

No one has to do any of that.

They just heard their rabbi's voice and his words, and they're like, he's true, he's real, he's never lied to us before, and so we're gonna do exactly what he said.

They did not reinterpret it.

They looked at problems, they told those problems what to do, believing that it would happen, and then that problem did what they said what they said it for it to do.

That's what happened.

And so for us, what does that mean for us?

To me, it leads me to want to communicate to you that we don't need to reinterpret this text to match our experience.

Because if this isn't our experience, we don't need to go like, that's not my experience, so let's reinterpret the Bible.

I don't think it needs to be reinterpreted.

I just think there's something here that we need to get back to.

I think there's some kind of power and something that exists in the life of Christians and believers who follow Jesus.

There is something available to us that maybe we don't fully understand, and that's okay.

But I do believe that Jesus is saying something here that doesn't need to be reinterpreted.

It just needs to be repracticed or gone back to.

We need to get back to this.

We don't need to run away from this.

And so if we're gonna take our Bibles seriously, if we're gonna say with Peter, Jesus, you have the words of eternal life, like that's great.

But if we're gonna say those things, then we must conclude that he's not lying to us here, that this is still available to us and to you in prayer.

That what he's saying is not something to be reinterpreted, but it's something that he is offering to us and making available to believers.

To pray for anything without doubting and receive what you ask for.

And I believe that we should believe that because of the person who said it.

Jesus said it, not like some random, not me just sitting out there and just like, you know what, I was thinking the other day, I'm gonna write some scripture.

Like, no, I didn't do anything.

Like Jesus said this, people wrote it down, inspired by the Spirit, and it's still here for us today.

And so I believe that we shouldn't reinterpret it, we should get back to this.

Now, the obvious next question to me is like, if this is true, why is that not my experience?

If this is true, I have plenty of unanswered prayer and join the club, me too.

I have plenty of unanswered prayers.

And normally people hear something like this, think of an unanswered prayer, and be like, well, then what's my issue?

Like, why if this is true, why didn't I experience that?

And I I get that, I feel that, and I understand that as well.

Um, and some people would come along and they'd try and be nice, like, you just didn't have enough faith, and those people are just the worst.

Don't say that.

Don't don't beat people down with something that's clearly something that's confusing and it's very difficult.

And so I don't want to do that either.

But the question is, if this is true, then why aren't we experiencing this?

And there's so many reasons, and I want to get into three of them, but I'm gonna give you eight of them.

I'm just gonna list the first five are these.

There are reasons for unanswered prayer, there are reasons for hindered prayers.

And so, are there things that get in the way of prayer?

Yes.

One is no faith in prayer.

You pray, but you really don't believe it'll do anything.

And so that's James 4.2.

And he says, You have not, you're not receiving anything from God because you're not asking God.

You didn't have faith enough to pray.

When you think of prayer, you're like, what will that do?

And so you then choose not to do it.

And you have not because you asked not.

Also, I'm gonna do a series on these at some point, or maybe a course on Wednesday night where we talk about the things that go through unanswered prayer and why that stuff.

You can do your own research.

All the verses are there for you to go and read.

Um, but we'll do a whole thing on all of these.

I was, I actually have it all written.

It's just on a different page because I was like, if I do that, this sermon will be 12 pages long, and they're normally seven, and so you're good, man.

Don't worry about it.

Sorry, I didn't mean to call you out.

Um so no faith in prayer.

No faith in prayer is one of them.

Uh, second is selfish motives.

James says, you don't even pray.

And then when you do pray, you just want to use it to on your lusts and the things that you just like, all these comforts that you want.

Like you're not praying for the kingdom to come and his will to be done or for people to be healed or whatever.

Like you're not praying for that stuff.

You're praying for something that's that's selfish and it's for yourself.

God's not gonna honor that.

Like it's selfish.

And so that's one of them.

Dishonoring relationships, 1 Peter 3, talks to husbands about their wives.

Treat your wives well, otherwise, your prayers will be hindered.

So, men, treat your wives well.

Women, it also goes the other way too, though.

It's not just one, like if you treat him like crap, God will still hear you.

That's not what it's saying.

So you it's it's for both people to actually see that to go like he cares about your union very, very much.

Uh, your union displays his love for the church, uh, the bridegroom's love for the bride.

And so if you treat your person like garbage and then you like need God to do something for you, apparently, according to the scriptures, he's like, uh-uh, that's gonna hinder your prayer.

Go fix it with her, go fix it with him, and then come back to me and let's chat.

Um, cherishing sin is another one.

The psalmist says, if I had cherished sin in my heart, uh, you would not have heard me.

But now I know that you have because I haven't cherished sin in my heart.

And so cherishing sin, not unconfessed sin, because there's probably plenty of sins that we've all committed that we have no idea that we're living in unconfessed sin, but it's sin that you know you should confess that you just hold on to.

You're like, I know I should.

Jesus actually talks about that here in this passage.

He talks about forgiveness.

He's like, if you know you're standing there and you're praying for something and you know you need to go forgive somebody, go and do that thing.

You should do that.

Because if you choose, like, no, no, no, God, I want you to do something for me.

I don't want to do jack of what you say, but if you can help me out and I won't do anything you tell me to do, those that's kind of the relationship that I'm looking for with you.

He's like, that's not gonna work.

Cherishing sin in your heart will get in the way of your um prayer requests, it will hinder them.

And then Luke 18, Jesus talks about the lack of persistence.

You just didn't persist in prayer.

Just asking for something, then forgetting about it, asking for something and be like, I don't know, you didn't do it, it doesn't work.

I I asked for something once and it didn't work.

I don't know.

Lack of persistence, and Jesus says, that is not a way of prayer.

You should know that persistence actually matters to God.

And so those are the five we'll talk about someplace else.

The three that I want to talk about.

Why are we not experiencing this truth that Jesus has in these scriptures?

Why are we not experiencing this?

The first for us uh that I want to address at length is we've been told not to believe that what Jesus is saying here is true.

Consistent most of the time, maybe not all of you, but in many cases, people have read these passages and then people have told you, yeah, but don't go too far.

Yeah, but you need to be super careful, and I do think you need to be careful, but instead of being careful, they've been faithless.

And so I think we've been it's been communicated to us that like Jesus is not actually saying what he means to say you can't take him literally on this, and it's like, well, all the disciples did, so that's confusing.

But we've been told, one of the reasons we're not experiencing this is because we've been told not to practice this.

Ulrich Luz is a um Swiss theologian that I read this week, and um, I'm not saying that because I'm brilliant, I just he happened to say something about this thought was really interesting.

But he looked at the history of how this passage has been interpreted, and here's what he concluded He said, Two thousand years of exegesis, or interpreting this passage, have success successfully explained away texts like these with euphemisms such as Jesus spoke only symbolically, or he intended to encourage only spiritual miracles.

When Jesus Jesus actually talked of literal healings and miracles.

They, the interpreters, have awkwardly suppressed the fact that the Bible clearly presents healings and miracles as something Jesus in the early church practiced and expected, and they have reinterpreted these passages to match a church who, for a long time, has not really expected healings or miracles for prayer anymore or from prayer anymore.

And so just he just looks back on all the scholarship and all the things that people have read about these, written on these things, interpreted this stuff.

And what he's concluded is like they have reinterpreted this passage and dumbed it down and made it so soft and so nothing.

They've just made it like, and most of the honestly, I would love to show you all the commentary, because I got I got interested in it now.

I wanted to see how many commentators just skipped this verse.

And they're just like, we're just gonna we're just gonna walk right past that and say nothing because it's like, what do you think?

I don't know.

And actually, I really appreciate saying I don't know, because even a fool is seen as wise if they don't open their mouths.

And so I do think that there's if I have no value to offer to the conversation, I actually think that's better, versus people dumbing something down and watering it down.

But he looked at all the scholarship and and concluded, like, they have just reinterpreted reinterpreted this passage.

And one of the reasons that we haven't experienced this truth for us is because we, pastors, uh, have communicated to churches that we should listen to them instead of actually listening to the we've we've believed a scholar or something like that over the actual text and the person who wrote it.

And that's a problem.

And so we are missing out on something that's available to us that Jesus clearly says is available.

But the reason we're doing that is because I just think we've been encouraged not to actually believe this thing, not to practice this thing.

And so because we've been told that Jesus must mean something else, that's not really, that's not really what he's saying.

There's not really that much power in prayer because we've believed that for so long.

Many of us have grown up in a Christian culture where Christianity is everywhere, it's prevalent, but it's not powerful.

It's everywhere.

I've everybody in my life is a Christian.

It's like, you've experienced any power from your Christianity the way that the scriptures testify that it's available to us.

No.

And it's like, isn't that crazy?

That it it's it's everywhere in the streets, but there's no power in it.

It's prevalent but not powerful.

All because we've been told that this isn't real.

No power in prayer.

And so that's one reason.

One of the reasons I think that we're not experiencing this is because we've just been told, don't practice that.

Don't believe that he's actually saying that.

And from me, I'm saying, don't I'm do the other thing.

Let's get back to this.

I don't want us to go like, ah, yeah, that's I don't really know.

Like, I what that is, like, no, no, I'm not the reason we have a prayer room, the reason I want more hours of prayer is I actually really believe that this is true.

I think there is more available to us than we can possibly comprehend in prayer that God has given to us through Jesus' death on the cross, and I think his death was just the most magnificent thing that's ever taken place in order to open up this space for us to enter into a space with him.

And so it's available to us to step in to have his ear and to have God move into our lives and do things with power.

That's available to us.

And so I don't want us to fall into that going, just don't believe that this is true.

No, believe it that it's true.

But that's one reason we're not experiencing it.

Two, the second reason we don't experience this as much is because what Jesus says, there's doubt in our faith.

He's uh it's it's contingent on doubt being removed.

He's like, I anybody who says this but doesn't doubt, then these things are happening.

And there's just, I mean, in our he says it in this text, truly I tell you, if anyone says this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea and does not doubt.

Doubt is a huge bit.

And then he says it in the other thing.

He's like, whatever you ask in prayer, if you believe that you have it, because that's what not having doubt is.

I don't have to doubt, I believe that I have it.

When I'm holding food, I'm not doubting that I'm gonna have food.

I'm I there's no doubt left, I have it.

And so the same way, he's like, doubt gets in the way of you experiencing what you're actually asking for.

James says the same thing.

He says, and if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously 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.

That person should not expect to receive anything because of doubt.

You're even praying.

This person, James is saying, I know that you're praying, but you're praying filled with doubt, and you should expect to receive nothing.

We see this in Peter's life that doubt really messes him up.

Peter's literally walking on water.

He literally says to Jesus, if it's really you, call me out here, and he says, Come.

And so Peter starts walking on water.

He is actively doing a miracle and then begins to doubt because he's like, People don't walk on water.

We swim in water, kinda.

Like this is not, this shouldn't be happening.

I'm actively doing it, and doubt still creeped in somehow, and he begins to sink.

And then Jesus calls it out.

He says to him, He's like, You have little faith.

Why?

Not why don't you have any faith?

Or why did you step out in the boat in the first place?

Like he's like, Why did you doubt?

Like he asks that question.

Doubt is a there's there's something in there that drives prayer away.

Doubt hinders our experience from God.

And I think more than the disciples did back in the day, I believe that we live with more doubt in our faith than maybe ever before.

And so we doubt that prayer will work.

We doubt that God hears us, we doubt that God can do anything about this particular problem.

We doubt that God will.

I know that he can.

I doubt that he will do something about this.

Um, I doubt that this is the will of God.

And so that gets in there.

That's me a lot.

Like there are certain things that I know.

Like, I know if I ask for wisdom or if I ask God to speak to me, I know.

I have confidence.

I'm like, He's gonna do it because he's done it every single time.

And so I know that he's gonna do that.

But when I'm praying for somebody to be healed, I got a lot of doubts on that.

Like it's just a struggle for me because I've seen more people I pray for who I want to be healed, not get healed.

And the same with marriages.

I've prayed for more marriages that have failed than I've prayed for marriages that have actually been well.

And I'm like, people like pray for my marriage, I'm like, oh, God, I'm gonna try.

Like, I'm sorry.

Like, I just I struggle with those things.

And so I I know, like in me, even as I'm prepping this message, I'm going, man, there's doubts that well up in my heart when I pray.

And it's just insidious, it's secret.

It's it's it's something that you're like, oh, I didn't even know that was there.

But Jesus is saying, even though it's secret and you almost didn't know it was there, it gets in the way.

It's gonna block what I want to do in your life if you doubt, because it gets in the way.

And so our faith is filled with doubt.

And I'm not shaming you, again, I'm joining you in this.

Um, but to me, and to me, honestly, think about it.

If Peter literally walked on water and struggled with doubt, um, we don't have a chance.

Like he walked with Jesus and you know, saw Jesus walking on the water, and then he has doubts welling up.

I've never seen anything like that.

And so if he's struggling with doubt and he's actually living with Jesus, like how much more are we gonna deal with doubt?

On the mount where Jesus gives the Great Commission, he's resurrected from the dead, he's about to ascend into the heavens, the disciples are there, and the and the a crowd of the disciples are there.

And it says that they worshiped him, but some doubted.

Like, this is the living resurrected Jesus, still nails in his hands and feet, and they're like, I don't know.

Like that might be makeup.

Like, I like they're still struggling with this thing.

And I'm like, if they struggled after seeing the resurrected Jesus, if they doubted, like how much, like, what chance do we have not to doubt?

And so I'm not trying to shame you, I'm just saying, like, doubt is something that we all deal with, and I think it blocks a lot of what we could experience in prayer.

And I want to talk about how to actually deal with doubt in just a minute, but it does hinder what we receive from God in prayer.

And then the third thing that hinders us just saying, like, I just like I'm naming it and I'm claiming it.

Like, not that.

Here are the things that get in the way.

That was that was the second one.

The third one is the actual will of God.

The actual will of God might get in the way of what you want to see happen in the world.

Um, this happened, if it happened to Jesus, it'll happen to us.

And so sometimes the will of God is just different than what we want.

Even if what we want isn't necessarily bad or sinful or whatever.

Sometimes God's will is just different.

We see this in Jesus' life.

Father, if your if you are willing, remove this cup from me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

And we know how that went.

It was his will that Jesus drink the cup of that suffering.

It was God's will, and Jesus knew that.

Paul, it happens to Paul too, uh, he says this in 2 Corinthians 12, he says, In order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but God said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore, Paul says, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

And then this happens again to Paul.

It kind of happened to Paul uh more than Jesus, which is kind of odd.

Uh, or maybe not, but Paul says this, he says, Um, he he wants to, or Luke writes it, he wants to, Paul wants to go on a missionary journey.

And Luke writes that when Paul and his companions had come up to Mia, uh, they attempted to go into Bythynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go.

And so it wasn't the will of God for Paul to go in that area.

And so passing by, they went to Troas, and in a vision, uh, a vision appeared to Paul in the night, and a man from Macedonia was standing there urging him to come, saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us.

And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that this is now God's will for us.

He's calling us to go here.

And so you see these things that happen where God's will just gets in the way of what we actually want to do or the things that we want to see.

And we see that happen in Jesus' life, you see it happen in Paul's life, and so it's going to happen in our lives too.

God's will is just different every now and then what we actually want.

But I do want to say this about God's will.

Um, because I think many of us have prayed that.

We pray for something, it doesn't happen, and we're like, oh, then your will be done, not mine.

And we say it kind of like we don't actually know what your will is, but whatever it is, your will, not mine.

All these three people know exactly what God's will is, and they all knew that what they wanted was contradictory to what God's will was.

Uh but I also want to say, like, there's only three instances in the New Testament, three, where God's will gets in the way of a prayer request or something that's happening.

And I think we use God's will.

It's like it's just not God's will for this to happen.

We use that a lot.

Must not be God's will.

My prayers weren't answered, it must not be God's will.

And it only happens three times here.

There's actually a lot more prayers that are answered in the scriptures than there are where God's will gets in the way.

And so my encouragement to you is maybe some of the time it is God's will that's going.

It wasn't his will for this, and so I'm being blocked by God Himself, and that's okay, and we got to make our peace with that, your will, not mine.

But maybe it's the fact that you're just not persisting in prayer.

Maybe it's the fact that you're actually got a ton of doubt like in your life.

Maybe it's the fact that you're treating your wife like garbage, and that's why your prayers aren't being answered.

Like, go repent, say you're sorry, cook a meal.

I don't know what you do to say you're sorry.

But like, maybe there's something else that's going on in your life where it's like maybe you're cherishing sin in your heart.

It's not God's will.

God's will is for you to repent and you refuse to turn from your sin.

Maybe that's actually what's blocking your prayer.

So I'm not saying that God's will doesn't sometimes get in the way of what we want, but I'm saying it's definitely not always.

There are other things that happen, and many times as Christians, we're like, yeah, that just wasn't God's will.

And it's like, no, actually, this could have been it, you could have had something, but you just chose to not deal with your doubt.

You chose to not deal with something else.

And so those three things, those are the things that I want to address, and I'm gonna address how to actually deal with those things.

I believe they get in the way of receiving what we ask for in prayer, because I do believe that what Jesus is saying is true for us.

Okay.

So if what Jesus is saying is true, this is that we don't need to reinterpret it, this is true, but there are things that hinder our prayers.

The next question follows is like, okay, so what do we do?

How do we how do we move towards this idea that Jesus is talking about in prayer?

The first is for you and for me.

I think we need to fight to get doubt out of our faith.

We actually need to go to battle with it, we gotta figure it out, notice that it's there, and we gotta fight to get doubt out of our faith.

If if you could have a lot more of your prayers answered without doubt, but doubt's getting in the way, you need to figure out a way to get doubt out of your life and doubt out of your faith.

Jesus said that to Peter, Jesus said it to his disciples, and now I believe it's still true for us.

We need to get doubt out of our faith.

If doubting is a barrier to prayer, we have to get it out of our lives.

Here's a couple of ways to do that.

Um one is you need to go to the next slide.

One is if you're trying to get doubt out of your faith, you need to spend more time in the scriptures and with God in prayer.

You need to spend more time reading the scriptures.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, that it will do something in you, grow faith in you, that God's word will do that, and it will crush doubt.

But you need to spend time in the scriptures, you need to spend time in prayer, spending more time with him.

The reason, the reason you need to spend more time with him, hearing from his word, and then talking to him is because you and I both know you naturally trust people you know better.

Like you, you, there's just a there's a faith that you have with people that you know really well that you don't share with the lunch lady or the grocery store clerk.

I would ask you guys to watch Teddy and keep him for a minute while I go do something for an hour.

I'm not asking the cashier at Kroger.

Like, I'm not gonna ask him to do, like, I don't know you, lady.

Like, I don't I don't trust you like that.

I have I have a lot of doubts about your ability to raise children because I've never seen you do it.

But to somebody that I know, there's a natural trust that I have there.

And so that knowledge drives out doubt.

Just getting to know them, it will drive it out because it's like I know you.

And so because I know you, I naturally trust you a lot more.

So you need to spend more time with him.

I made this decision back in 2022.

Uh, I was working at the other church, and I just was thinking about prayer a lot and went to prayer conferences, all these different stuff.

And so I made this decision.

I was like, I'm gonna pray for a set number of hours.

Like, I'm gonna make sure I'm doing this in my week, set number of hours in my week.

And I just want to see if it changes anything in my life, notably.

And uh told people about it so they could hold me accountable to it.

And um, I just wanted to see.

Instead of working on my sermon, instead of meeting people for lunches and doing my pastoral things, I was like, if I just spend time praying and doing nothing else, even though it feels like I should be doing something more productive, I want to see if it makes a difference.

And so I did that for a whole year in 2022.

And then in 2023, I had a conversation with the people I told about.

And they were like, hey, did it make a difference?

Did it change anything?

Did you feel like you were unprepared for your sermon or unprepared in your ministry?

Where was things lacking because you weren't actually doing to-do lists?

You were just sitting in silence praying.

Like, did do you what what was what was the difference that it made?

Did it make a difference?

And I was like, it made such a substantial difference in my sermons, it made such a substantial difference in my life that not only am I gonna keep doing this, I'm gonna, I'm adding hours.

I'm going to go the other way.

I I'm I'm not lacking for things where I'm going like, oh, I'm praying and I should be doing this other stuff.

It's actually the other way.

I need to give more time to this thing.

It made such a significant difference.

And so for you, spend more time with him.

This is why we have a prayer room.

This is why we're gonna have more hours at it.

I believe doubt will be driven away the more that you actually get to know what he's like and who he is.

I still struggle with doubt, clearly, I still, but I have a lot more confidence now than I did three years ago, four years ago, and what prayer can do.

And so for us, drive out doubt by just spending time with the person who builds your faith.

Second, you should ask him to increase your faith.

Jesus wants you to have faith.

He does not want you to doubt.

And so if you're like, I need to pray in line with God's will, great.

He does not want you to have any doubt.

So just ask him, please take away my doubt.

Please fill me with faith.

The disciples prayed this, increase our faith.

The guy with the kid, he was sitting there in the scriptures where he's like, I help my unbelief.

I do believe, help the unbelief parts in me, the doubt in me.

And Jesus does that.

Ask him to increase your faith.

Get around people who have strong faith.

I had a, you know, I have so many people in my life that are such a gift to me, which is like, really, thank you.

Um, but uh this past week, Troy and Matthew uh, just in different spaces of my life, just filled me with faith and just talking about those things.

And I have other people that do that at different times.

But I was like, man, I'm just so I need people like that in my life.

I need people that believe stronger and better than I do.

Because I I I hope like I believe pretty good, but I need other people to come along and go, like, hey, this is still true.

You have to believe these things.

I need that, and y'all need that too.

Uh get around people who have strong faith.

Read accounts of those who've prayed with power.

Um, I'm reading this book right now by Ian Bounds.

It's like everything that he's ever written on prayer.

Reading that book, there's a small one and then there's a gigantic one.

I almost brought it in, but then it made me, I felt like a dork, so I didn't.

Um huge, everything he's ever written on prayer.

And he just tells the accounts, these accounts of people who've prayed with power and these things that are written down and can be accounted for, and it's amazing.

Here's one real fast.

I'm gonna try and do it.

This is about um one of the stories in his book.

He says, Dr.

Adam Clark, who he doesn't mention who it is, but in his autobiography records that when John Wesley, um, the Methodist preacher, was returning to England by ship, considerable delay was caused by strong winds.

So they're trying to go to England, the winds are messing it up.

And so Wesley was reading, and when he became aware of some confusion on board and asking what was the matter, he was informed that the wind was blowing in the wrong direction.

And he said, Then let us go to prayer, was his reply.

Wesley broke out into fervent supplication, which seemed to be more an offering of faith than of mere desire.

Almighty and everlasting God, he prayed, you have sway everywhere, and all things serve the purpose of your will.

You hold the winds in your fists, and sit upon the waters and reign as king forever.

Therefore, command these winds and these waves that they obey you, and take us speedily and safely to the haven where we would go.

He says the power of his petition was felt by all.

And Mr.

Wesley then rose from his knees, made no remark, took up his book, and continued reading.

Dr.

Clark went on deck, and to his surprise, found that the vessel was under sail, standing on her right course, and did not change course till the ship was safely at anchor in England.

On the sudden and favorable change of wind, Wesley made no remark.

So fully did he expect to be heard that he took it for granted that God heard him.

That was prayer, the definite and direct utterance of one who knew that he had the ear of God and that God had the willingness as well as the power to grant the petition which he asked of him.

Like I love that story.

Like, and he's this is in a chapter where it's nothing but stories of the power of prayer.

And I've read that story, and like I'm reading stories that are making me put the book down and be like, I gotta go pray for some stuff.

Like, I'm just gonna, I'm feeling like there's no doubt in me right now.

I gotta take advantage of this.

And I'm like, man, like I need stories like that in my life to just be a reminder, because we live in a world that just beats us down.

Like it's just all you see is all there is, and it's like there's a kingdom that exists somewhere, and I know that we can't see it, but we're not supposed to live by sight, we're supposed to live by faith.

And so there's something there for us in these spaces, so we need that.

All right, that's one of them.

All right, I gotta go faster.

All right.

The second, I believe, that's right.

The second is so you need to you need to get doubt out of your faith.

The second is you need to find out the will of God for what you're praying for.

You actually need to seek God to find out what is your will for this thing that I'm I'm praying for.

John, in his first epistle, gives us this amazing thing on prayer, and he says, he says, this is the confidence that we should have in approaching God.

This is the confidence we have.

That if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us, and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, then we know that we have what we asked of him.

And so he says, like, I'm trying to give confidence in prayer.

You know that if he, if God wants something, if he wills it, and then you're praying for exactly what he wills, then you know that you have it.

And so he presents this idea that God's will isn't something unknowable.

He presents it as something you can know.

And you can know what his will is, and then use that in prayer to go, I know I'm praying in line with your will.

And so because I'm praying in line with your will, I have what I ask for.

And John is saying, you can have confidence when you pray.

And so for many people, they're like, I don't think you can know God's will, or I don't know what God's will is.

Or normally what we do is like, Lord, your will be done, not mine, but we're saying it kind of nebulous and kind of like generically.

We don't actually know what that will actually is.

And he's going, no, no, no.

You can know his will.

It is, it is a noble will.

Jesus says this, he's like, I want you to pray that my will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The idea is that you would actually know what that is, that it's not just a term you say, that Jesus says, like, all you're supposed to say is thy will be done.

It's like, no, no, no, what is what is that will that he wants to be done and pray that thing.

And so we need to do that as well.

If you think about the three where God's will got in the way, Jesus, Paul, and then Paul again.

If you think about those three stories, again, they knew what God's will actually was, and they knew that they were praying in opposition to it.

Jesus knew, I know your will is for me to drink this cup.

I'm just asking, is there any way around it?

But I know what your will is, and that's why he said, But not my will, your will.

I will drink the cup.

Paul, the same way.

He's sitting there and he's like, I want this, please take this away from me.

And God didn't go, sorry, no, I'm not gonna say nothing else.

God told him what his will was.

He's like, actually, I want my power, my will is for my power to be made perfect in your weakness.

And Paul's like, Oh, well, then I'm gonna stop praying for this thing that's out of line with your will.

Now that I know what your will is, I will actually rejoice all the more in my weaknesses because what your will is is that your power be made perfect in my weaknesses.

The same with him trying to go and share the gospel somewhere, and the Spirit of Jesus blocks it.

And he's like, why?

And then all of a sudden he gets this vision where he's like, Oh, because you want us to go to Macedonia.

But they weren't praying, thy will be done, whatever that is.

They were going, no, seriously, I if that is your will, I want to pray for that too.

And that's what John is saying.

You don't have to live in this space where you're just wondering what his will is.

You can actually press into it and go, tell me what your will is.

And so when you go to pray for somebody or pray for something, figure out, ask, ask the Lord, like, look, I'm I pray for these people who I know they want to get, they want to get married, or this person wants to be healed, and this person wants this, and this business, this, all these different things.

And I'm just I'm beginning to ask, like, Lord, what do you want to do in that person's life?

Because I don't want to keep praying for their healing when you're going, like, actually, I want to use the sickness, or I want to use the whatever this is, I'm gonna use this in their life.

Edgar, uh, one of our missionaries, he said that about his arm.

These people want to keep coming up to him and like, let me pray for your arm.

That's it's gone, uh, he's lost usage of it because he had a stroke.

Let me pray for healing for your arm.

And he is like, Please don't.

It's like God has already told me his will for my arm.

He's gonna use this more if it as it is than if it was actually working.

Please don't pray against the will of God.

But notice that he knows.

God has told him, like, I'm actually want to use this, and so for you as well, as you're Praying for things, figure out what the will of God is.

Because now you get to go in, like John says, with confidence and going, I can confidently pray for this thing that I know you want to do in the world.

I know you want to do this in their life, this thing.

I've seen it in the scriptures.

You've told that to me directly, and I know that.

And so we have confidence in approaching God because we know this is your will for that thing, and I'm going to join you in praying for that thing.

And because it's your will and I'm wanting your will and I'm praying for that too, I know it's going to happen because it's your will and you will accomplish your perfect will.

And so figure out.

If you're praying for something and you just seem to be hitting a wall and you're like, I don't know why this is happening, ask him, is there something else that's going on?

Are you, what else do you?

I don't want to pray against you, God.

I want to pray with you.

You tell me to pray your will.

Please just tell me what it is because I don't want to be kicking against something.

If you're sitting there, I actually have something better to pray for.

Please teach me to pray.

And so figure out the will of God for your life.

And then last, don't settle for less than what Jesus gave his life to give you.

Do not settle for less than what Jesus gave his life to give you.

Jesus gave his life away.

He died to open a door for you to be able to pray and communicate with God.

If God was going to do nothing with your prayers, that now you're able to communicate with him, he's going to do nothing with them.

If he's going to do nothing, why die?

Like, why would Jesus give his life for something that's like, I don't know, they're going to talk to me now.

Great.

I'm going to do nothing with that.

Like, if that was the experience, like, no, like he gave his life to open this beautiful gift for us to like, now we have the power of God that we can ask for and experience us, like, of that's why your your death is so beautiful.

That's why your sacrifice on our behalf is so amazing.

Now we have you as Father again, but we actually get to experience your your life in ours.

And so don't settle for like, well, I don't know a lot about prayer, or I don't know if this really works, like, or I just this might need to be reinterpreted.

Don't reinterpret it.

This is something that Jesus is saying.

This is available to the people around me, and this is why it's good news.

This is why it's good news that I came here.

It's why it's it's this is why it's good news that I sacrificed my life in order to bring you back into this space where you can actually talk to him again.

And so don't settle for something less than what Jesus actually gave his life to give you.

So don't reinterpret this text to match your experience.

If your experience is, this text isn't my experience, don't reinterpret the text to match your experience.

Allow this text to increase desire to actually get back to this thing that Jesus offers you.

Don't reinterpret it.

Allow it to stir something of like, I want that.

If that's true and I believe it to be true, great, I want that.

So I'm gonna end there.

Jesus is saying something that is true for us.

There's incredible power in prayer.

But there are things that hinder your prayers, there are things that hinder my prayers, and you need to figure out how to get doubt out of your faith, figure out what the will of God is for those things, and don't settle for less than something that's actually available to you.

Because there's power here that he gave his life in order to give you.

And so I want us to experience that, not just individually, but as a church.

I want people to show up here and be like, man, I tell you what, they pray different.

There's something that happens, like they pray, and God comes where he's wanted.

Like he does something there, because I think that's true for us, because Jesus isn't a liar.

So let's do these things together.

Let me pray for us.

Lord Jesus.

Thank you.

Um that you have something for us here, that there's life here, that there's um just a beauty that you actually want to uh watch us step into, that you gave your life for something that's really incredible.

And it's a huge gift to be able to talk to you.

But an even greater one to actually be able to know that you care enough to respond and act on our behalf.

God, would you teach us to pray?

If there's doubt in the room, even just thinking that any of this is true, I get it.

But Lord, I just pray that you would fill it with faith.

Just replace those thoughts of doubt with just wonder and awe and faith of just going, I want this to be so true.

And Lord, would you just help unbelief in the room?

Help us to believe.

We believe so many of your words about how we need to for you know forgiveness of sin.

We believe all those different words.

We should believe every single word that you say if we believe one of them.

And so, God, I pray that you would help us to experience everything that you have for us in prayer.

Would you help us to experience those things?

You want your children, it is your will for your children to talk with you because Jesus gave his life in order for that to happen.

And it is your will as a father to give good gifts to his kids because you say that it is.

And so, God, I pray that you would do those things for us on our behalf.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.