Worth Green, Th.M., D.Min.
This sermon is the fourth in a series on prayer. I have had a great deal of dialogue with you in regard to these sermons, and this sermon is a direct result of that dialogue.
People are supremely interested in why their prayers are not answered. In the gospels Jesus makes a number of really bold statements about prayer.
In John 14:13-14 Jesus says:
13 Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; 14 if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
In John 16:23-24 he adds:
23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. 24 Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
Lest you think that the 4th Gospel is all alone in advancing this high view of prayer, I would also call your attention to Matthew 18.19. Therein Jesus says:
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
Some people want to know how Jesus could make such bold promises with regard to prayer, when the vast majority of their prayers seem to go unanswered.
I think the reason that Jesus uses such bold language about prayer is so we will know that prayer is ultimately about God’s goodness and concern for us on the one hand, and God’s willingness and power to meet the needs of his children on the other.
We have already said that prayer is not simply a labor saving device. God helps those who help themselves, and others. We have already said that no prayer is genuine unless the one who prays it is willing to be a part of the solution. Now we must add that prayer is not ultimately about our ability to help ourselves, or our ability to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Likewise, prayer is not about playing the odds, or “praying it safe.” Prayer is not just about the small seemingly possible things; prayer is about the great big seemingly impossible things. Let me say it again: In making these bold far-reaching promises about prayer, Jesus insists that the answers to prayer ultimately do not depend on us, but on God.
Of course, such an observation leaves open the question of unanswered prayer.
I believe that some prayers go unanswered for three reasons. Two of them are found in the 4th chapter of the book of James.
The first is not technically about unanswered prayer, but it is close enough to include. In James 4:2 the apostle writes, “You do not have because you do not ask.” There are lots of things we never receive from God, and lots of things that we never achieve in life, because we never commit those things to God in prayer.
Some years ago, I felt as if I needed someone to help with the administrative tasks that take away from my ability to be with people. We have a church secretary, and a good one, but her workday was full up and running over. For years I did those tasks myself. I thought about going to the boards and asking for additional help, but I knew that what I needed did not warrant another employee, even a part-time one. What was needed was a volunteer. So, instead of going to the boards, I committed my request to God in prayer. It was not long after that God brought a new member into this church and she said, “I am pretty good at little administrative tasks that seem to be taking a toll on your time. Would you allow me to help?” I immediately said, yes, and she took over tasks like collating the friendship registers, proof-reading the sermons and articles I post on the web, handling the communication for a group of young adults, and supervising the invitations for the Pastor’s Teas. Many of you know I am talking about Betty P______________. She will tell you that it happened just this way. The apostle says, “You have not because you ask not.”
There is another reason our prayers go unanswered recorded in James. In James 4:3 the apostle continues. He writes, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
What the apostle means is that we ask a thing not so that we may advance the kingdom of God, and God’s work in the world, but so that we can advance ourselves, and make life somehow more comfortable for ourselves.
In both the passages from John’s Gospel, Jesus says in effect that if we ask anything in his name he will do it. Some people think that this means that if we stick a postscript to our prayers, finishing with, “In the name of Jesus, Amen” then Jesus will answer them. That is not at all what it means. When we ask something “in the name of Jesus,” we are asking in his stead; we are asking by his direction; we are asking the thing that he himself would ask. You have seen the bracelets that read WWJD, “What would Jesus Do?” We would do even better to have a bracelet WWJP. “What would Jesus pray?” Let me illustrate.
On my 16th birthday, I woke-up early and imagined my ideal scenario for the day. At breakfast I would find an envelope by my cereal and toasts. And the envelope would contain a key. And the key would go to the 1964 ½ Mustang Fastback parked in my driveway. The Mustang would have a 89 cubic-inch, 271 horsepower engine, and a four-speed transmission with HURST shifter, and five-spoke Cragar mag wheels, and, of course, a radio. And after breakfast, I would get in that car with my dad, and drive to the license agency, and use it to secure my permanent driver’s license. I may even have prayed for such a thing. If so, it was not a worthy prayer, and it did not happen. Instead, I got in my mother’s 1953 Plymouth flat-six with three on the tree and went and got my driver’s license. My parents could not afford a car like the Mustang, and they would not have wanted me to have one even if they could have afforded it. They were frightened enough that I would have control of the 110 horsepower in that 1953 Plymouth.
The apostle says, “You ask, and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your own passions.” Many of our prayers are not answered, because we ask for things that we do not need.
In Matthew 18.19 Jesus says:
…if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
I think one of the reasons that Jesus said his Father in heaven would do what any two of his disciples “agree on anything they ask,“ is so that we Christians can provide one another with a reality check. As individuals, we may loose sight of the distinction between what we need, and what we want, but a good friend, a fellow Christian, a prayer partner, can help us regain the proper perspective.
Jesus told his disciples that the heavenly Father knows what we “need” before we ask him. He promised that God would take care of our needs, not necessarily our wants. Indeed, In 2nd Corinthians chapter 8, Paul tells the disciples in Corinth that they should help the Christians in Jerusalem. He says:
13 I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, 14 but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want, so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality.
Then he quotes from the story of the manna that God sent from heaven to the Children of Israel as they wandered in the desert:
15 As it is written, “He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”
In effect Paul uses the story of the manna from heaven to illustrate that God did not intend to lavish some of his disciples with luxuries while the remainder flounder in poverty, lacking the basic necessities of life.
That leaves open the many generous, worthwhile, God-centered, people- loving prayers that we pray that seem to go unanswered.
There is a third reason that many of our prayers go unanswered: they involve other people. We want someone to respond to us—or to others, or within a situation in a certain way, and they do not. These prayers are not answered because God will not impinge upon the free will of his creatures. That is the short answer; but I think it will stand.
It has been said that there are ultimately no unanswered prayers. There are after all, only three possible answers to payer, “Yes!,” “No!”, and “Not yet!”
Sometimes we pray, and God says, “Yes!” to our prayers. I am happy to report that a great many of my prayer have been answered in the affirmative. When I was a child I used to pray:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
I prayed that simple prayer nightly for more years than I care to admit—for there were times in college and as an adult that I still prayed it, and thus far it has been answered. In my 61 years God has kept my soul through more than 22, 000 nights. Likewise, I have frequently prayed for the health (and life) of others, and I have had my prayers answered in the affirmative. I have prayed for more people who are seriously ill than I can possibly count, and much of the time, if not most of the time, they have recovered. Can I write off all those recoveries as mere accidents? I cannot. Likewise, on more than one occasion, I have prayed for my own health, and have received a resounding “Yes!” to my request.
Several years ago, my family doctor was administering a full physical, and he told me that I had had a heart attack. He said that it showed up on three separate EKG’s. He asked me if I had had any episodes with my heart, and when I told him I had, he scolded me for not seeking medical aid. He was so concerned about my condition that he told me to refrain from all rigorous activity, and immediately scheduled me to see a cardiologist. The night before I saw the cardiologists, I lay awake tossing and turning, wondering if I had seen the dawn in my own life of the last cloudy day, after which the sun would not return. The next day I went to a friend and prayer partner, and I once again confessed my sins, all of them, going back practically to birth, and then we prayed for my well being. I went to the cardiologist, and submitted to her tests. She told me that not only did my heart appear to be undamaged, but also I had the heart of a much younger man. I walked out of my doctor’s office with a more certain tread than I walked in. I know that will not always be so. That last cloudy day after which the sun will not return, for me, is still out there, still hanging over my head. I pray that when it dawns, I will not forget all those days on which God has answered my prayer for health.
That said, sometimes we pray, and God says, “Yes,” to our prayers.
Sometimes we pray and God says, “No,” to our prayers.
At times, I have prayed for some special boon to myself, believing I was well suited for a particular tasks, and been disappointed. I remember when I was an associate pastor at the Little Church on the Lane, and I prayed that I would receive the call to a now defunct church in Florida, and the call went to another. I was severely disappointed, yet the person who accepted that call—a friend, was forced to oversee the closing of that church. It is true; I have lived long enough to be glad that God answered, “No,” to my prayers.
The “No” that God has given to other prayers has proven a severe and continual disappointment. I have prayed determined prayers for the health and well being of my friends, and family, and, of course, for the members of the churches I have served whom I consider to be my friends and my family. I have pleaded with God for people to survive a bad heart, or cancer, or some other terrible disease. I have been with many of these same people when they died. Or, I have asked God for people to find a job, and watched them struggle financially for long periods of time. My brother-in-law was without work for the last several years of his life. I have seen how the lack of work can affect one’s self-esteem, and ultimately one’s self-reliance.
I recently read about a man who had been without work for a year. He had purchased no new clothing for himself in that whole time. He said that the collars and cuffs of all his shirts had become frayed, and threadbare. He got called for an interview. He bought a new shirt. He did not get the job. Since that day he has been kicking himself for not spending the money he spent on a new church or necessities for his children. He said that not working is the hardest work he has ever done.
Let us remember him, and people like him on Labor Day. Sometimes we pray, and sometimes God says, “No!”, to our prayers.
There is a third option. Sometimes God says, “Yes!”, to our prayers. Sometimes God says, “No!”, to our prayers. Sometimes God says, “Not yet!” to our prayers. When God says, “Not yet!” it may mean any number of different things.
It may mean that we are not ready yet. Oswald Chambers says that we are not ready for God’s service until we are ready to become broken and poured out wine. We need maturity. He says many of us are like an unripened grape. He says that when the pressure comes, we pop out, just as an unripe grape might pop out from between a man’s thumb and forefinger. Under a little pressure, we do not produce the “juice” God intends us to give. We are not ripe. We are not ready.
It may mean that we need to work harder to achiever our goals. The problem with most of us is that when we want something we want it now, and we want it all. The world seldom works like that, and God seldom works like that. God loves all of his children. Like every good parent he wants us to learn to share. And he wants us to learn patience.
Finally, when the answer to our prayer is “Not yet!” It may mean that situation is not yet right. God has prepared certain people for certain tasks; but he has also made a time during which those tasks may be accomplished. I am reminded that Sir Winston Churchill began speaking out against Hitler and the Nazis way back in the early 1930’s. Most people called him an alarmist and many laughed at him. It was not until Hitler invaded Poland, and England was at war with Germany that people understood that no Englishman was better equipped to lead the nation in the war against Germany than Churchill.
Sometimes God says, “Not yet!” to our requests, and we must just continue to pray. In Luke 11, Jesus told a parable in which he compared God to a friend who got up and gave in to a request by his neighbor, not because he was a friend, but because he was tired of him knocking on his door in the middle of the night. (Luke 11:5-12) God knows what we need before we ask. Is Jesus telling us to annoy God long enough and we will get what we want? Or is it possible that God wants us to understand our true passions?
In Luke Jesus told his disciples a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray, and not to “faint” or give up. The parable was about an unrighteous judge who vindicated a poor widow against her adversary, because he was afraid she would wear him out by her continual coming to him day and night. He said if an unjust judge responds like this, “… will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily.” (Luke 18:7-8)
I have been reading a powerful series of sermons by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The collection is entitled, Strength to Love. My favorite thus is entitled, “Shattered Dreams.” In it Dr. King tells about a famous painting by George Fredric Watts in which he portrays Hope as a tranquil figure, seated atop our planet, her head sadly bowed, playing upon a harp with a single unbroken string. Sometimes that single string is all that remains of our hopes. So let me encourage you to think of that string as God connection to us in prayer. That string is strong. It plays a beautiful and constant note that sounds clearly in time and in eternity. Its meaning is clear. It is a summons to, and an invitation to be confident in prayer.
Let us pray.
Finis