When God Doesn’t Answer

So I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately. Unanswered prayer is a universal Christian experience. Every one of us has asked God for particular things that have been denied: we asked for help to make a B and only got a C; we asked for sleep and lay awake all night; we asked that her attitude be changed and she stayed as sour as ever; we asked that they not go ahead with the divorce and they did it anyway; we asked that he be protected and he was killed; we asked that she be given the job and they gave it to another; we asked that the place be full and only a few showed up; we asked that she be healed but she passed away. The question I want to begin to answer today is, “What do answers to prayer depend on?” The reason I want to answer that question and not the question of “why didn’t God answer my prayer?” is simple: I don’t know why God doesn’t answer specific prayers, but I do know there are things that we need to do and that God does so that prayers are answered. So what has God done that our prayers might be answered? Let’s go to Hebrews 4:14-16 to answer that question. ¹⁴ Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Jesus died for our sins that our prayers might be answered. That’s why all of our prayers are “in Jesus’ name.” All the answers to our prayers are owing to the death of Jesus. What has God done in order that our prayers might be answered? He has sent his dearly loved and only Son to absorb his own wrath against sin and to lead us into the green pastures of his favor where there is mercy and grace to help in time of need. This is the first bullet to the rest of the bullets: We must have an honest relationship with God through Christ. We deserve the punishment of hell, every one of us, for the scorn we have heaped on God’s glory by refusing to trust his promises and delight in his will. Any blessing at all that comes to us, including all the answers to our prayers, is sheer mercy on God’s part. Therefore, whatever the conditions are that we must fulfill in order to have our prayers answered, they should not be viewed as work done to earn God’s favor, but rather as things done in response to and for the enjoyment of his mercy. So let’s get this straight: I’m not telling you that you have to earn answers to prayers. All I’m saying is that there are things that we need to do so that we can truly live into God’s answers to our prayers. Now, what must we do that our prayers may be answered? I have five things that matter to God when we pray. Everybody needs to pull their Bibles out right now because we’re going to do a lot of Bible passage jumping. My relationships matter. ²² “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. ²³ “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. ²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵ And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” (Mark 11:24-25) If you are praying and despite the fact that you believe that your prayers will be fulfilled by the method Jesus says, if you’re relationships aren’t right, then your prayers are moot. As long as we continue to harbor bitterness in our hearts toward someone else, we allow that individual to have a controlling factor in our lives. My second point bleeds from my first one. If somebody else is having a controlling factor in our lives, then our motives become tainted. God doesn’t have to answer prayers that have tainted motives. My motives matter. Let’s look at James 4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:3) The prayers you pray should be motivated by something other than our selfishness. Every time the lottery hits over 200 million dollars and I see the sign driving to church on Sunday mornings on the highway, I say a little prayer, “God, please let me win the lottery—I can use the $200 to do some awesome work, like pay my bills, take care of the church, and take care of my family, etc.” Then I buy a lottery ticket, and wait for the drawing, and I don’t win. People can say, “Wow! God didn’t answer your prayer Pastor Jonathan.” But really, my motives matter to God and it’s clear that my motives aren’t pure. Point number 3: Your faith matters. We’re going to look at this next Bible passage to grasp an understanding of how faith matters. ²⁷ And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” ²⁸ When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” (Matthew 9:27-28) The two blind men had three acts of belief just in the first two verses of this passage. First, they believed Jesus was the son of God. Second, they believed that Jesus could be healed. Third, they believed that their healing was wholly dependent on God saying yes. Let’s see what happens next. ²⁹ Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” ³⁰ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, “See that no one knows about it.” (Matthew 9:29-30) When we live with this type of belief and faith, God answers to prayers seem to happen more frequently. The blind men believed they could be healed and that their only option was healing from God. Jesus did as their faith was able. The reason God doesn’t answer a lot of prayers is because we’re not willing to put enough of our faith behind our prayers. We are not willing to go out of our way to follow Jesus in faith and then be bold enough to rely on God for those answers to the prayers. I want to get to my fourth point: God’s will matters. We just read the story of the two blind men being healed by Jesus—but there is something implicit there—Jesus was able to glorify God through the act of healing. God answers prayers that are according to His will. God didn’t have to heal the blind men, He healed the blind men because it was His will to heal. I know it’s a difficult thing to understand, but I want to move to Luke 22. Jesus is now praying in the garden of gethsemane. He is praying in this passage that God sends him another option because He doesn’t want to be apart from God’s presence to release us from our sins. Jesus knew that being away from the presence of God was much more weighty and costs more than what we could ever imagine. So he prays: ⁴² “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” ⁴³ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. ⁴⁴ And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:42-44) The Bible says Jesus prayed with drops of blood falling to the ground. He was that anxious and nervous about the situation. Jesus prays, “not my will, but yours be done.” Prayers that God don’t answer may not be in His will. But that doesn’t mean that your prayers don’t matter. That doesn’t mean that you don’t matter. In fact, just like Jesus, it may mean that there is something greater that we are living for and something more amazing that we realize that come from God’s will through the silence of God in our prayers. My fifth and last point: The way you live matters. We just learned how Jesus prayed and God didn’t answer. It doesn’t mean that we should stop praying. It just means that the way we live our lives matter more than we think regardless of God’s answers. But you’re probably asking, “what’s the point” if God doesn’t answer. In fact, you may be saying, why should I care about the way I live my life if God isn’t going to give me what I want in my prayers? Those are all great questions. So here’s my supersized memory verse for you take home and think about. The reason I give you all a memory verse every week, if you don’t know, is so that you can go home and take that verse with you, to encourage you, to remind you about what we talked about because you have and will indefinitely encounter situations that are hard and you need to remember things from God in order to overcome them. So my supersized verse for you to think about this week comes from James 5. ¹³ Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. ¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:13-16) “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Everybody say that with me. James doesn’t say perfect person. He is not saying the prayer of a perfect person is powerful and effective. James says the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. A righteous person isn’t perfect—a righteous person acts on what he or she says she believes in faith. If you say that we are saved by the grace of God, then you must live like you’re saved by the grace of God. A righteous person is somebody who doesn’t just say it, but moreover, practices it. See, the examples James is giving you in verses 13-15 are just ways of how righteous people live out their faith in prayer. God may not be answering because the way you live your life is devoid of God—you say you believe, but you don’t act like it. Before we sing this song, I want you to huddle up in your small groups and talk about what we must do that our prayers may be answered. I want you all to share in your groups and like it says in the Book of James: confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed and your prayers answered because there the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective—you are all righteous. Amen?