John 11:1-44
Intro –this morning I want to deal with very challenging question that all of us have asked at one time or another…which many of us are asking right now…”What about unanswered prayer? Why doesn’t God answer my prayer?”
Most of us here know what it’s like to cry out to God for help…only to get no response or not the one we hoped for…and then to deal with the feelings of hurt and betrayal when we know that God could have done something about it but didn’t…
* Greg and Sarah Wohlgemuth’s honest story…how some prayers are answered and some are not…(come up or sheet)
Why are some prayers answered and some are not? why are some prayers for healing answered, when others aren’t? Why did Emily die after her heart transplant? And many of us praying she would live? Why is Sarah’s wrist taking so long to heal?
Why do some people’s children come back to Christ when other’s don’t? Why do painful circumstances continue when we ask God to stop them?
Turn to John 11…Prayer…
Read John 11:1-44 with comments…
v.42 “…I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
* God has a purpose for prayer not answered in the way we ask…
Prayer is a mystery…cannot explain it, control it, understand it…because God is a mystery…but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn about it and practice it diligently and in faith…
God Hears and Answers Prayer
-we know from the Bible and from personal experience that God hears and answers prayer.
•1 Jn 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
There really is no such thing as an unanswered prayer…
…that’s hard to believe for those who have been praying for years for…but seeing no progress, or the opposite happening, eg. like Sarah and Greg’s niece…the challenge is maintaining our faith, confidence in God despite apparent unanswered prayer…
Here is what the Bible says about how God answers prayer…
God has at least four answers to prayer: … we will experience all four of them at one time or another…
1. yes as requested eg. Hanna asking for a child,
1 Sam 1:11-20
2. yes but not in the way you asked eg. David building temple for God, 2 Sam 7:12-13
3. no eg. Paul’s thorn in the flesh 2 Cor. 12:7-9
-sometimes God says no to what we ask for because He has something better for us that we just can’t imagine right now…
* don’t be afraid of asking for the wrong thing…we will! It’s not sinful to ask for the wrong thing…it’s part of learning to pray…prayer isn’t an exam that we have to pass and get it right everytime…we’ll grow into it, learn as we go what to pray for…Just pray and be thankful that God knows what is best for us and so will only give us what we really need
4. not now, wait eg. Abraham and Sarah wanting a child,
Gen. 15:4-5 and 21:1-2 (25 years)
-someone told me last week, that if God answered every prayer the way we asked, what would be the need for faith? “apparent unanswered prayer” can be a great faith-builder…
The question of unanswered prayer is best addressed by looking at what the Bible says prayer is…
The Nature of Prayer
- what prayer is not
-manipulation…how a child knows which parent they can get their way with…
eg. one parent who is softer than the other one…
• a reward for good behavior …that when God answers it’s because we’ve been good and deserve a reward from Him…
• just a list of requests – eg vending machine God…
* Moralistic Therapeutic Deism…
Beware also of prayer being driven by our own needs first, rather than a response to Who God is as revealed in the Bible…(like we talked about last Sunday), otherwise prayer will be narrowed down from its potential full biblical spectrum…
Beware of prayer that is disconnected from the God of the Bible and the words/truth of the Bible. As Eugene Peterson points out: “left to ourselves, we will pray to some god who speaks what we like hearing, or to the part of God we manage to understand.” (Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer, pp.5-6)
“Without connection to God’s word, our prayers may become un-tethered from reality. We may be responding not to the real God but to what we wish God and life to be like. Self-deception in prayer can easily happen to those who are weak in knowing the God of the Bible…”
(Tim Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, p.62)
- what prayer is
• the way to a loving, living, relationship with God – John 10:4
-communication, hearing God’s voice, dependency, perspective, humility…creates love in our hearts for God instead of only a mind-oriented orthodoxy…
• how God changes us (and things) Acts 10:9-35 – lines up our wills/desires with His…eg. Peter and Corenlius
• how God intervenes in this world…Mt.6:10 “Your kingdom come…”
• expressing our needs, longings, cares, etc. to God
Mt 5:11“give us this day our daily bread”
• a powerful weapon for spiritual warfare and victory
Eph 6:18 -for others…stand in the gap…deliverance…these come out only by prayer and fasting…believing God for the miraculous…
• a gift of God’s grace Heb. 4:16…an expression of His love, kindness, gospel…prayer is based more on the merits of Jesus than on our worthiness to deserve to be heard and answered…prayer is not based on our ability to pray the right way…to get it right…to follow the right formula…
-nothing we can formulate or do can qualify us to access the presence of God…to get us into the throne room of grace…into God’s presence…only what Jesus did qualifies us…we are able to pray only because of our position in Christ…because we are children of God, we belong to God…because we are “in Christ”…we have been saved thru faith in JC…
• based on “Jesus’ name” Acts 3:16… our confidence in praying is “in Jesus’ name” which is not a magic formula we attach to the end of our prayers so they’ll work…
”In Jesus name” means we come to God in Christ, fully trusting in Christ for our salvation and acceptance and not relying on our own goodness, record, or credibility to be heard by God…
-and when we pray ‘In the name of JC” Jesus takes our prayers and makes them His own on our behalf to the Father…
A Normal Prayer Life
* I hope prayer for you is multi-faceted vs. monotone… a wide range of experiences and emotions vs a predictable, routine, boring experience…I hope it’s got it’s highs and lows, it’s delight and duty…
…I hope it’s both a resting and a wrestling…peaceful and a struggle…sweet, peaceful conversation and assertive, aggressive petition…I hope it’s like any relationship with God: life-giving, encouraging, but also perplexing, mysterious…
Prayer is one of the hardest things in the Christian life to do, to maintain and to grow in…if you struggle with prayer, you are not alone…God is not looking for perfect pray-ers; He is looking for people who want to grow in their prayer life…who along with His own disciples will say, “Lord, teach us to pray…” Prayer is a journey…
Some Obstacles to Answered Prayer – since the Bible says there are some things we can do to prevent God from answering prayer…sabotage our own prayers by:
• willful, persistent sin Ps 66:18
• unbelief, doubt Jm 1:6
• wrong motives Jm 4:3
• being the cause of relational brokenness, eg.unforgiveness Mk 11:25 mistreating wife 1 Pet:3:7
• ignoring the poor Pr. 21:13
• isolation, self-reliance Mt. 18:19, Jm 5:16
But again, don’t let any of these obstacles stop you from praying…
The Unanswered Prayer of Jesus
So, how do we handle prayer that appears to be unanswered?
The example of how Jesus’ dealt with unanswered prayer may be the best way to help us cope when we feel our prayers are being ignored or rejected or not heard at all…
-you heard me right, not all of Jesus’ prayers were answered…at least not in the way He asked…
-I’m thinking of His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane the night He was betrayed…Mt. 26:36-39…(read with comments…)
v.39 “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
-the “cup of suffering” was not taken from Him; the Father essentially turned down Jesus’ request…said “no” to His one and only Son…
Got to wonder how that could be? Jesus was the perfect Man – He served God with all His heart, soul, mind and strength; He loved His neighbor as Himself; He completely fulfilled the law of God; He never sinned once in His entire life on earth…
Now if you believe that sinners deserve to have their prayers go unanswered… while good people deserve to have their prayers answered…which a lot of people do believe…
then that belief is completely blown out of the water by what happened to Jesus…
…when you see that Jesus, the only Person in history who was perfect and sinless, did not have everyone of His prayers answered in the way He asked… He was turned down just like the rest of us experience many times…
You’ve got to wonder why?
1. Perfect High Priest
Perhaps it was part of Jesus’ experiencing everything we do as humans…including the struggle of unanswered prayer…that qualified Him to be our perfect High Priest and Savior…
Heb. 2:17-18
For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
2. Perfect Example
Perhaps it was also because of the example of Jesus in the way He came around to the point of surrender and submission to the will of God…”yet not as I will but as You will” (v.39)…which invites us to do the same, even when we can’t understand what God is doing…surrender, submit…
Jesus Asks Why
But it got even worse for Jesus, because as He was hanging on the cross He prayed again and said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mt. 27:46). And He got no immediate answer…at least none that we’re told about…
…how many of us have asked God “why?” only to get silence in return? We know now why God the Father turned away from the Son…why He forsook Jesus…because He became sin for us…to be punished for our sin…
2 Cor. 5:21…”God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”
* for a few hours on the cross, Jesus lost His relationship with the Father so we could gain a relationship with the Father…Jesus was forsaken so that we might be remembered…He was rejected so we could be accepted…He paid the price for our sin so we could be redeemed from our sin…Jesus took the punishment that our sins deserve so we could be forgiven and receive the free gift of eternal life…
Salvation
Jesus had to endure both unanswered prayer and the suffering of the cross so we could be saved…and if you’re not yet saved, this is the reason why you can be…
So Jesus understands your cries of why…He knows how painful it can be…yet He also knows that even without a clear explanation, God knows precisely what He is doing and He can be trusted to have your best interests in mind…God is not out to harm you, hurt you, mess with you…punish you…but to bless and help you and do good things for you because you are His child…
Don’t Give Up Praying
-so don’t give up…continue persevering in prayer…no matter how many prayers go “unanswered”, no matter how bleak things look, be faithful, persistent…keep asking, knocking, seeking…(Mt.7:7)
eg. George Muller’s story…
“In November 1844, I began to pray for the conversion of five individuals,” Mr. Muller said. “I prayed every day without a single intermission.”
Eighteen months passed before the first was saved. Five years lapsed, then the second was converted. Six years passed before the third was converted. The last two remained unconverted.
In an interview with George Mueller towards the close of his life, Mueller said, “I have been praying every day for fifty-two years for two men. They are not converted yet, but they will be! How can it be otherwise?”
When he was asked on what ground he so firmly believed this, his answer was, “There are five conditions which I always endeavor to fulfill; by observing these I have the assurance of answer to my prayer:
1. I have not the least doubt because I am assured that it is the Lord’s will to save them,
2. I plead for their salvation in the blessed name of my precious Lord Jesus, and on His merits alone (John 1:14).
3. I always firmly believed in the willingness of God to hear my prayers (Mark 11:24).
4. I am not conscious of having yielded to any sin
5. I have persevered in believing prayer for more than fifty-two years, and will continue until the answer comes:
Mr. Mueller went home to heaven praying firmly in faith, thanking God in advance, for the salvation of those for whom he was praying. Within months of his passing, the last two friends on his prayer list were converted. God answers prayer!
Conclusion
Prayer in the end boils down to what we believe about the character of God: His goodness, love, sovereign power, faithfulness…
…boils down to our willingness to trust Him when He answers and when He doesn’t…to believe that He does have our good in mind as He works out events of our lives and responds to our prayers…
Tim Keller: “Prayer is the way to experience a powerful confidence that God is handling our lives well; that our bad things will turn out for good, our good things cannot be taken from us, and the best is yet to come.” (Prayer, p.73)
A House of Prayer Response…pray a previously unanswered prayer again…a prayer you’ve given up praying…
Greg and Sarah Wohlgemuth Prayer Story
When we had many trials coming our way, prayer was the only foundation we could lean on. Just in the past couple of years we had the uncertainty of Greg's job when the prison strike was going on and Greg's job was suspended without a time frame. We prayed and God lead us through and Greg was able to return to his work.
We then had our niece Emily get critically sick and in need of a heart transplant. We prayed and prayed. God answered prayer and Emily got her heart and we thought things were about to improve, but we ended up saying goodbye to Emily as she passed away with complications from her heart transplant.
We are still praying for Emily’s parents, my brother Simon and his wife Cheryl as they are suffering from the loss of Emily and are angry at God for not answering their prayers. Cheryl is now pregnant again and our prayers still continue for a healthy baby and that Cheryl's heart will be open to God in her life again.
We are praying for healing on my wrist as this is now round two of surgery and the uncertainty of whether or not I will be able to return to my nursing job which I love. We feel like we are treading alone in deep water, sinking as finances are hitting bottom. We pray that God will get us through this.
We still don't know what the future has for us, but we are praying, now actively putting our trust in God, knowing God is with us every step of the way. He is the only thing we could lean on. I can't even imagine how even more difficult would it be if we didn't have God in our lives. My encouragement to you is to pray, even though it feels like you are alone as God is there to carry you through.