Amen. All right, we're there in Matthew, chapter number seven.
And of course, today we are finishing up
this series that we've been going through is our fifth week
in this series called the School of Prayer.
And what we've been doing is we've been learning
from the Lord Jesus Christ on the subject of prayer.
And we've been looking at
the specific teachings from Jesus on the subject of prayer.
And you may have been surprised as we walk through this
how much Jesus talked about prayer and taught on prayer.
If you remember, several weeks ago when we started,
we began with a sermon entitled Getting Schooled on Prayer.
If you remember Jesus, his disciples, after watching him pray,
they asked him the question, Lord, teach us to pray, which he answered.
But before he could teach them how to pray, he had to teach them how not to pray.
And we looked at all those things that Jesus taught about
in regards to how they were doing it wrong.
Then we looked at
the second sermon in the series was entitled Prayer 101.
And we went through and looked at the model prayer,
or what's known as the Lord's prayer.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, we talked about the purpose of prayer.
Then I preached a sermon called Any Questions.
And we talked about how to bring our requests to the Lord, how to ask.
And last week I talked about don't be a prayer school dropout.
We talked about consistency and persistency in prayer.
We looked at those parables that Jesus taught in regards to prayer.
Today, we're going to finish up
just kind of some miscellaneous teachings on prayer that Jesus gave.
But the interesting thing about these miscellaneous teachings,
we're going to look at them from different places in the Bible.
They all have one theme.
And it's all it's all this how to get your prayers answered.
And Jesus taught these things regarding how to get your prayers answered.
So I'm preaching this morning on the subject of getting your prayers answered.
The title of the sermon is The Prayer Answer Key.
And Jesus really gives us a key for how to get our prayers answered.
I want to give you four thoughts this morning in regards to four keys
for getting your prayers answered.
And I encourage you to maybe write these down on the back of your course.
The week there's a place for you to take down some notes.
If you're there in Matthew Chapter seven,
I'd like you to look down at verse number seven, Matthew Chapter seven and verse seven.
The Bible says this, I want you to notice this word, it says ask.
He says, ask and it shall be given you.
Then he says this word seek.
And in fact, if you don't mind writing your Bible
or writing your Bible, I encourage you to underline that word ask.
Then he says seek.
He says ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find.
Then I want you to notice this word knock,
and you can underline that word knock if you don't mind.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Now, Jesus is about to go into a little discussion about prayer,
and I'm going to show you there's a theme to this discussion.
But even here, when he gives us these three thoughts
or these three steps in regards to prayer, he says ask.
He says seek and he says knock, ask, seek, knock.
If you turn these three words into an acronym,
you'll notice that the first letter of each word is A.S.K.
and it gives us the acronym ask.
And this is really the theme
that Jesus gives us in this passage of scripture here.
He says ask and it shall be given unto you, given you, seek
and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Notice verse number eight.
I want you to notice the acronym there ask.
And that's the theme in which Jesus is speaking.
Verse eight.
He says this for everyone that notice the word asketh receive it.
And he that seeketh find it.
And to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
Or what man is there of you whom if his son notice the word
ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Or if he notice verse 10, the word ask a fish.
Will he give him a serpent?
If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts
unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven,
give good things to them that notice the word ask him.
There's this emphasis that Jesus brings up with this idea of ask.
He says, I want you to ask.
I want you to see.
I want you to knock.
I want you to bring your request and make your request unto God.
Keep your place there in Matthew Chapter seven, if you would.
And go with me to the book of James in towards the end of the New Testament.
We've seen these verses throughout the series,
but I want you to see him again, if you would. James Chapter four.
We start at the end of the Bible and go backwards.
You have the book of Revelation, Jude, 32nd and 1st John, 2nd and 1st Peter.
James James Chapter four.
And I'm going to ask that you do me a favor
and put a ribbon or a bookmark or something there,
because we're going to leave the book of James
and we're going to come back to it.
And I'd like you to be able to get to it quickly.
And let me just give you these thoughts.
We're talking about the prayer answer key.
You know what an answer key is, right?
It's when you go to school and you take a test and you
write down all the answers.
And then the teacher has an answer key and it gives the teacher
all the answers so they can check that you got them correct.
Well, Jesus gives us a prayer answer key,
and it's these keys on how to get your prayers answered.
And I want to give you four of them this morning.
But the first one is pretty simple, but I think it's worth stating.
And it is this.
The first key to getting your prayers answered
is to actually ask, is to make a request.
I know that doesn't sound very deep, but the truth of the matter is this.
The secret to answered prayer is to pray.
The reason that most of Christians have never experienced
true answered prayer is because they've never experienced true prayer.
See, Jesus says, hey, you want your prayer answered?
Why don't you ask for everyone that asks to receive it?
He says, whom if his son asks bread, will he give him a stone?
He says, or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent?
He says, look, God wants to answer your prayer.
James chapter four, if you would look down at verse two.
Notice what he says.
He says he lost.
The word lost means to desire or to want something.
He says there are things you want.
Isn't that true?
There are things you want.
Now, some of them are not good things, but there are some things we want.
They're not bad things.
He says he lost.
Notice and have not.
This is the guy that says God never answers my prayer
or God never gives me what I need. Right.
You lost and have not.
Then he says this, ye kill.
Ye kill. Why do you kill and desire to have?
He says, and cannot obtain.
He says, you even take matters into your own hands
to try to get what you want.
He says you lost and have not.
You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain.
Notice you fight in war.
He says, don't you fight?
Don't you kill?
And hopefully not physically, but but people have killed
because of things they want.
And we often kill relationships.
We kill the emotions of people that we care about and we love.
He says you fight in war.
He says you you take it into your hands.
There are certain things you want.
There are certain things you you desire.
There are certain things that you that you want, but you have not.
He said you desire to have and cannot obtain.
He says you fight in war.
And he says you try to get these things that you want and you can't get them.
And then in James here at the end of verse two, James tells us
here's why you don't have the things you desire.
He says you have not because you ask not.
He says there are things you're trying to get from someone
you're trying to get from your spouse.
You're trying to get from your kids.
You're trying to get from your career.
You're trying to get from social media.
There are certain things that you want.
You're trying to get, but you're asking the wrong person.
He says, look, if you simply ask God, God says Jesus says, ask and you shall receive.
Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.
He says, he says that your heavenly father
wants to give good things to them that ask him.
So he tells us you lust and have not, you kill and desire to have
and cannot obtain, you fight in war.
He says that you have not because you ask not.
I know it's a simple thought, but the thought is this.
Maybe you don't have answered prayer.
Maybe you don't have the experience of being able to say,
I prayed that the Lord would do this for me, and he came through in this way.
And God answered this prayer and God answered that prayer.
You may not have that testimony and you may not have that excitement
to even pray because you don't pray, because you don't ask.
So the first key, and it should be obvious to getting your prayers
answered is that you actually make a request.
Go to 1 John. Keep your place there in James, if you would.
James, chapter number four.
And go with me to the book of 1 John, chapter five.
If you're there in James, you're going to just continue.
Keep your place there in James, and you're just going to continue on.
You have 1 Peter and then the book of 1 John.
James, 1 Peter, 1 John.
Do me a favor as well, if you would, keep your place there in 1 John.
If you would also, because we're going to leave it
and we're going to come back to it.
1 John 5 and verse 14, notice this, the Bible says,
and this is the confidence that we have in him that if we notice our word,
ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.
Have you ever because here's the truth, and I'm not
and I'm not here to try to beat up on you or make you feel guilty or whatever.
I'm just trying to encourage you.
And I'm trying to, like we talked about on Wednesday night, appeal to your conscience.
But have you ever thought about the fact that most Christians don't pray?
If you were honest with yourself,
I think we would all say we could pray more than we do pray.
Most Christians have a prayer life that's virtually nothing.
Zero other than a quick prayer before we eat.
There's not really any substance to our prayer.
But if we understood that God has given us this great privilege
to whether it is like we talked about a few weeks ago,
whether you bow your heads or you raise your hands,
whether you get on your knees or you sit in a chair.
The truth is this.
When you begin to communicate with heaven,
when you begin to speak to your heavenly father,
the Bible says that we know that this is the confidence that we have in him,
that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.
If you stop to think of the fact that you have access to God almighty,
and when you speak and when you ask, he hears your prayers.
If you actually understood that we get to bring a request before God,
it might help you with your prayers.
Whenever I think of prayer, I always think of this this song
I've quoted to you many times on the subject of prayer.
What a friend we have in Jesus.
The words say, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.
Oh, what peace we often forfeit.
Oh, what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
The truth is this, that the first key to answered prayer,
a secret to answered prayer, is that you would actually pray.
Now, keep your place there in 1 John.
We're going to come right back to it, but go back to James, chapter 4.
Let me just say this, oftentimes people say, well, I do pray
and I do ask for certain things and I still don't get them.
And we'll talk about God's obligation to answer your prayer here in a minute.
But let me just say this.
We also have to remember we can't take just any one verse,
pluck it out of scripture, out of context and expect it to be a promise from God.
You have to take the entire scriptures together.
The Bible tells us that we should ask.
James told us in verse two, he said you have not because he asked not.
Then he says this. Here's what he says in verse two.
He says you don't get answered prayer if you need a commentary for verse two.
If you need to put a note next to James chapter four, verse two.
Here's what you can write.
You can write God doesn't answer my prayers because I don't pray.
You lost, you lost and have not.
You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain.
You fight in war yet you have not because you asked not.
So lesson for verse two is this.
James 4-2, God doesn't answer my prayer because I don't pray.
Here's a lesson for verse three.
Ye ask. He says, here's what James says.
When you do ask, when you do pray, when you do bring your request to the Lord,
he says ye ask and receive not.
He says you ask and you still don't get what you're praying for.
Here's why. Because ye ask amiss.
The word amiss means you ask incorrectly, you ask inappropriately,
you ask out of place, you ask out of bounds.
See, you ask for things that are not appropriate for you to ask.
So you said, you know, God, I need you to have, you know,
some rich uncle die that I don't know about and have him give me a million
dollars and leave me a million dollars.
And God says ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss.
That ye may consume it upon your loss.
See, here's the other secret to answer prayer is this.
When you ask, you must ask according to God's will.
You can't just ask for every little desire you want and think,
well, God's just going to do this for me because I'm going to pray that God does these things.
No, no, no. See, oftentimes when we do ask, we ask and receive not
because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your loss.
See, we must ask, number one, but we must ask according to the will of God.
Go back to First John chapter five.
And if you want to put a note there in James 4-3, James 4-2, the lesson was this.
God doesn't answer my prayer because I don't ask.
James chapter four, verse three, the little note is this.
God doesn't answer my prayer because when I do ask, it's selfish.
When I do ask, I ask amiss that I may consume it upon my lust.
When I do ask, I don't ask.
And by the way, if you were to pray through the Lord's Prayer,
like we've talked about, and if you were to take time to come to God as He is, infinite and intimate,
if you were to take time to say, our Father, and not repeat it vainly,
but to honestly come to your Heavenly Father and say, God, you are my Father.
You are in heaven. You are hallowed. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done.
See, if we understood that the purpose of prayer was to align ourselves with the will of God,
then we would stop asking for things that are selfish, that we're only asking, that we may consume them upon our lusts.
Jesus says, you want your answers, your prayers answered?
He said, the first thing you need to do is actually ask,
and the second thing you need to do is check your motives behind your asking.
1 John 5, looking at verse 14.
1 John 5, 14, and this is the confidence that we have in Him.
And if we ask anything according to, notice these words, according to His will, He heareth us.
And if we know that He hear us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.
The truth is this, God wants to answer your prayers, but God's not a genie.
You don't bring your three wishes to God and say, God, I really want this type of car
and I really want to live in this type of house and I really want to have this much money.
No, no, we must ask what we must ask according to the will of God.
And God says, if you ask, if you ask, if you actually ask and bring your request before God,
and you align them to the will of God, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
He says, I will answer. In fact, Jeremiah says this,
call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.
God says, I want to answer your prayer.
And Jesus says, God wants you, your Heavenly Father wants to answer your prayer.
And we say, well, what's the problem? And Jesus says, the problem is you don't ask.
And when you do ask, you ask selfishly.
You ask that you may consume it upon your lusts.
So here's a key for answered prayer.
Prayer key number one, it's to make a request, but make an appropriate request, make an actual request.
Actually consider, see, if we stopped and considered what would further the kingdom of God,
not my kingdom, not the little kingdom I'm building here, not the agenda I'm pushing here,
what would actually further the kingdom of God?
See, sometimes people, they'll come and they'll ask me to pray and they'll say,
will you pray about this situation? I'm thinking of divorcing my husband.
I'm thinking of divorcing my wife. Will you pray about this situation?
I think to myself, you don't want me praying for that.
Because if we pray for what would actually further not your kingdom,
not your agenda, not your will, not your desire, but the kingdom of God,
the will of God, the desires of God, it would change the way we pray.
Go back to Matthew 21, if you would, Matthew.
Back to the book of Matthew, if you would find chapter 21, Matthew chapter 21.
Let me give you a second thought.
We're talking about keys for answered prayer.
Number one, make a request, actually ask, and when you ask, ask according to the will of God.
Here's a key for answered prayer number two, Matthew 21, look at verse 21.
Here we have again another of Jesus' miscellaneous teachings on prayer,
and they have to do with this theme of how to get your prayers answered.
Matthew 21, Jesus answered and said unto them,
verily I say unto you, if ye have faith, if ye have faith and doubt not,
ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree.
If you remember Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered.
He says, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain,
be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done,
and all things, notice verse 22, all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,
believing ye shall receive.
Now don't, again, understand this.
We can't pluck Matthew 21, 22 out of context and say,
Jesus, you said that whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive.
So, you know, I'm asking for a private jet.
We've got to connect all these prayer promises together.
Yes, you're supposed to ask, but you're supposed to ask not to consume upon your own lust.
You're supposed to ask according to the will of God,
but it's not enough to ask according to the will of God.
You must also ask in faith.
Here's key for answer prayer number two, rely through faith in God.
You must first make a request, but you must also rely on God.
See, the Bible says, and all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,
believing ye shall receive.
See, God wants us to come to him in faith to exercise faith.
Having faith means that you believe that God can.
Go to Matthew chapter 11 if you would.
Matthew chapter 11.
Look at verse 22.
Matthew chapter 11 and verse 22.
Notice what the Bible says.
Matthew 11 and verse 22, the Bible says this,
And Jesus answering saith unto them.
Notice what he says, he says,
Have faith in God, for verily I say unto you,
that whosoever shall say unto this mountain,
be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea,
and shall not doubt in his heart,
but shall believe, notice,
that those things which he saith shall come to pass.
He shall have whatsoever he saith.
Therefore I say unto you,
what things soever ye desire when ye pray,
believe that ye receive them,
and ye shall have them.
See, there's a key to answered prayer,
and it is this, that we actually believe
that God can do what we're asking him to do.
The Bible says this,
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
The Bible says this,
With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
Go to James if you would, James chapter 1.
If you kept your place in James,
you can flip back there, James chapter 1.
We must come to God in faith, praying in faith.
And by the way, let me just say this,
prayer in and of itself is an act of faith, is it not?
By the way, that's why we often don't pray,
is because we don't have faith.
Because doesn't it, when you get up in the morning,
your alarm clock goes off,
and I know this is the way it is for my wife and I,
the alarm clock goes off and you wake up,
and immediately there's 30 things that need to be done that day.
And I'm not talking about, you know,
checking Facebook and having breakfast,
I'm talking about you've got tasks,
you've got things, you've got phone calls to return,
you've got events to prepare,
you've got sermons to write,
I mean immediately there's all these things
that you need to get done,
and the tendency,
and we're going to talk about this tonight,
and it's not a bad thing,
but the tendency is to get out of bed
and just hit the ground running,
and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that,
but it's actually an act of faith to stop for a moment,
to stop all your action,
to stop all the productivity,
get down on your knees and pray.
It's actually an act of faith to pray,
and the truth is this,
you and I, we try to act like,
we're too busy to pray,
but we're so busy because we're relying upon ourselves.
Faith requires a reliance on God,
and when we pray in faith,
when we bring our prayers to God in faith,
we rely through faith on God.
You say, I want to have my prayers answered,
then ask, number one,
according to his will,
number two, in faith, number three.
James 1, look at verse six,
but let him ask in faith,
nothing wavering,
for he that wavers is like a wave of the sea
driven with the wind and tossed.
Notice verse seven,
for let not that man think
that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
When you don't believe,
when you don't have faith,
see, we must believe that God can.
We must believe that God is able to.
I often think of an illustration
that Brother Vijay actually gave me.
He said, he told me a story in India
that he had a time of a drought,
Christians gathered together to pray outside,
that rain would come,
and the individual leading the prayer meeting
came out and he had an umbrella with him,
and he said, where's all your umbrellas?
Nobody brought umbrellas.
He said, I thought we were praying for rain.
The truth is this,
we often don't pray expectantly.
We often don't pray
as though God will actually answer our prayer.
The truth is that we must believe that God can.
We must believe that God wants to.
We must believe that if we are aligning our will to God
and we're aligning our prayer requests to God,
that there is a God in heaven
that wants to hear our prayer
and wants to answer our prayer.
Go back to Matthew chapter seven, if you would.
While you go there, let me just read to you Ephesians 3 20.
It's one of my favorite verses in the Bible.
Ephesians 3 20 says this,
Now unto him that is able
to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think
according to the power that worketh in us.
Do you believe that, that God is able to do
exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think?
Curtis Hudson said this,
The possibility of prayer exceeds our ability to ask.
And I believe that oftentimes our prayers go unanswered
because number one, we don't pray.
And when we do pray, we pray selfishly.
But secondly, when we do pray, we don't pray in faith,
believing that God can do what he said he would do.
And Jesus says, have faith in God.
He says, if you ask, he says, if you have faith
and doubt not, he says,
whatsoever you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.
But let me just say this
because people need to understand these things.
And I should go to Matthew seven,
but let me just read this to you from Daniel.
You've heard me explain this to you in the past,
but I want to make it clear again.
Believing that God can does not mean that God must.
Faith, faith is believing that God can
and also believing that it may be God's will
to do something different.
And look, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings.
I'm not trying to discourage you,
but it may be God's will you don't get that job.
You don't get that raise.
You don't get that promotion.
You don't marry that individual.
It may be sometimes the things we say,
well, this must be God's will.
And it may be God's will,
and we should do our part to align ourselves to God's will.
But sometimes God's will is different.
It may be God's will you lose that loved one.
It may be God's will you don't get healed
from that sickness.
It may be God's will you go through that trial.
I'm often reminded of Daniel chapter three.
If you remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach,
and many of you, you have to turn there.
I'll just read this for you.
But you remember the three Hebrew children.
They're being threatened to be cast into the fiery furnace,
and they said to King Nebuchadnezzar,
they said, we are not careful to answer in this matter.
He said, we don't have to think about this.
We don't have to consider it.
They said that we're not going to
we're not going to do this.
They said that God is going to deliver us from your hand,
and they believed that he could,
that God could deliver them from the fiery furnace.
But they also understood this,
that it might be God's will for them
to go into that furnace.
In fact, I would say,
I think it's obvious from the story,
it was God's will.
See, we're often asking God to keep us from the furnace.
Sometimes God's trying to get us in the furnace
because it's in the furnace that the fourth man appears.
It's in the furnace that Jesus Christ shows up.
It's in the furnace,
oftentimes that we get to know God the best.
So sometimes we pray, we say,
God, don't let me go into the furnace.
Don't let me go into the furnace.
It may be God's will to meet you in the furnace.
This is why the Hebrew children, they said,
if it be so, our God whom we serve
is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace,
and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But then they said this,
and if not, if he doesn't deliver us,
we still won't bow.
So please understand that believing and faith,
while I had faith that God was gonna answer my prayer,
and then he didn't answer my prayer,
so I stopped believing.
Hey, then you had no faith.
I prayed, I believed that God was gonna do this,
and then when he didn't, I stopped believing.
That proves there was no faith,
because if you believe in God,
if you have faith in God,
then you have faith that God knows best.
You have faith that God can answer,
but is not obligated to answer.
Who made you the God of the universe?
Who died and made you God?
Who decided that your peanut brain
and my peanut brain was enough to understand
what was the best thing?
Jesus said, I don't wanna go to the cross,
but God said, the Father said,
best thing's for you to go to the cross.
So he said, not my will, but thine be done.
Paul said, would you heal me of this thorn in the flesh?
And God said, my grace is efficient for thee.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
And Paul's response was not,
well, I'm gonna stop believing in God.
His response was, well, if that's the case,
then I will glory in my infirmities.
That the power of God may rest upon me.
So how do we get our prayers answered?
Well, first we make a request.
Then we rely on God through faith
and believe that he can actually answer our prayer,
but he's not obligated to answer our prayers.
Because having faith also means
that we believe that God knows best.
That God has a point of view,
that God has a pointage view,
that God is in heaven, God is higher,
God knows what I need more than I know what I need.
Let me give you a third one.
Go back to Matthew 7, if you would,
Matthew 7 and verse 7.
I wanna show you these verses where we started.
Again.
Remember, there was an emphasis,
I showed you that little prayer acronym,
ask, seek, knock, gives you the acronym, ask.
And then throughout the passage,
he emphasizes asking, asking, asking who.
Nobody asked their dad for something.
He says, if you being evil know how to give good gifts
unto your children, how much more
should your heavenly father given to them, which ask.
Now I want you to know,
there's something else emphasized in this passage
and it is this, action.
Notice the words again.
Ask, and it shall be given you.
But then he says, when you're done asking though,
that's where you need to start, ask, ask, ask.
You have not because you ask not.
And when you ask, don't ask,
you may consume it upon your lust,
align it to the will of God.
And when you do ask, make sure you have faith in God,
which means that you not only believe that God can,
but you also believe that God knows best
in case God decides to do something different.
And then he says this, Jesus says,
ask, and it shall be given you.
Then he says these words, seek.
Is there a word seek?
I want you to ask, then I want you to seek.
Seek involves action, it involves getting up.
Seek and ye shall find.
Then he says this, knock, knock,
like walking up to the door and knocking on the door.
He says, and it shall be opened unto you
for everyone that asks will receive it.
And he that seeketh findeth,
and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened unto you.
You say, what is Jesus trying to teach us here?
Go, if you would, to the book of Joshua
in the Old Testament, if you would, Joshua chapter seven.
In the Old Testament, you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua,
Joshua chapter seven.
Let me say this, what Jesus is teaching us here
is to put action to our prayers.
Here's how I grew up,
how pastors would say it when I was growing up.
They would say this, put feet to your prayers.
Ask, and it shall be given you.
Seek and ye shall find.
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
You say, what's the key?
Here's the key, key to answered prayer.
Number one, make a request.
Number two, rely on God.
Number three, take responsibility for your part.
You say, what do you mean?
Here's another quote for you.
Someone said this, work like it all depends on you,
and pray like it all depends on God.
But don't get so busy working you forget to pray.
You say, I don't understand ask, seek, knock,
put feet to your prayers.
What do you mean by that?
It means this, that when it comes to prayer,
there are things that are God's responsibility,
things that God does,
but there are things that are our responsibility,
and you must put feet to your prayers.
Here's a common illustration you hear a lot.
Some guy said to me,
pastor, will you pray that I'm looking for work,
I'm unemployed, I'm looking for a job?
Absolutely, God wants you to work,
God wants you to provide for your family.
Let's pray, let's pray that you find a job.
Then you ask him, how many applications you put in?
Well, I put in an application six weeks ago,
I'm still waiting to hear back from him.
Well, wait a minute.
Jesus said ask, yeah, ask,
but he also said seek.
He also said knock.
Here's what I'm saying, here's how prayer works.
Lord, give me a job,
then you get up and go look for a job.
Then you get up and go fill out applications.
You go and seek and you go and knock
while praying in faith, believing
that God can answer your prayer.
You don't say, well, Lord, just give me a job,
well, I'm gonna be taking a nap here
for the next seven hours,
but you find me some work.
No, no, it doesn't work that way.
See, he says ask and it shall be given,
and then he says seek and he shall find.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
By the way, let me just say this,
when you're unemployed, your job is to find a job.
That's your job.
That has nothing to do with prayer,
that's just common sense.
Let me help you out.
You say, I'm looking for a job.
What kind of job are you looking for?
I want a job that pays me 40 hours a week.
Okay, keep me employed 40 hours a week.
Then you spend 40 hours a week looking for a job,
and you'll find a job that gives you 40 hours a week.
I don't understand this idea.
I spend 35 minutes a week looking for a job
that I wanted to keep me busy before.
Look, if you're unemployed, I'm not picking on you,
I'm just trying to help you out.
If you're unemployed, here's what you do.
You get up tomorrow morning,
you start at eight, you start at nine,
go ahead and start at nine,
you work for a couple hours looking for a job.
You spend two hours looking for work.
Then you take a 15-minute break,
just like you would at a real job.
Then you work for another two hours looking for work,
filling out applications, knocking on doors,
sending emails, talking to people,
showing up on a job site, saying,
hey, I'm looking for work.
And then you take a 30-minute lunch break,
just like you would at a real job.
Then you do that again for another two hours,
and then you take another 15-minute break,
then you do that again for a couple hours,
then you go home.
And you say, what do I do next day?
Do it again.
Why do it next day?
Do it again.
Why do it next day?
You're not going to be doing it for that long
before you get a job.
And then you say, hey, God answered my prayer.
He gave me a job.
See, some of you are saying,
well, I've been praying for a job for the last six years
and God hasn't answered me a prayer.
That's because you're lazy.
That's because God doesn't say,
ask and I'm going to give you everything you want.
He says, ask and it shall be given you.
Seek and ye shall find.
We should put feet to our prayers.
Knock and it shall be open for anyone that asketh,
receiveth, and seeketh, findeth, and knocketh,
and shall be opened to seek.
We don't sit there.
We don't sit here on a Wednesday night
and get down on our knees or pray to God
in our home down our knees or here on a Wednesday night
and say, Lord, build the church.
Help us reach people with the gospel.
Lord, help us to be able to find people to get safe.
Hey, we pray that, but you know what we also do?
We also put feet to our prayers
and go out there on a Saturday morning
and we seek and we knock
and we look for people to preach the gospel to.
We don't sit there and say, Lord, just answer these prayers.
Look, here's what I'm saying.
You can pray all day long.
Help my kids to grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Help my kids to grow up for the glory of God.
But if you don't actually teach your kids,
you actually discipline your kids,
you don't actually disciple your kids,
you don't actually spend time with your kids,
you don't actually develop them and help them to grow,
you're not doing your part.
We pray like it all depends on God,
and then we get up and we work like it all depends on us,
and we ask God to answer our prayer,
but we take responsibility for our part as well.
That's how prayers get answered.
That's how you get a job.
That's how you get out of debt.
By the way, you single people.
I'm not picking on you.
Lord, give me a wife.
Lord, please give me a wife.
Lord, I need a wife.
Well, that's fine.
I'm praying for you too,
but at some point you're gonna have to go talk to a girl.
At some point you're gonna have to take a shower,
put on some deodorant,
find a job.
I'm not picking on you.
I'm just telling you there's our part.
There's what we do.
Sometimes we need to put feet to our prayers.
We must take responsibility for our part.
And let me say this,
and this might sound counterintuitive
to everything I've been teaching over the last five weeks,
but it's this.
Sometimes it's not time to pray.
Say, what do you mean?
Sometimes it's so clear what the action is.
Sometimes it's so clear what the action is
that we should be taking
that God is actually annoyed by us praying about it.
Say, give me an example.
Joshua chapter seven, look at verse one.
Remember the children of Israel?
Were instructed by God after the great victory,
or after they'd crossed the Jordan River?
I hope this sermon is making sense.
I don't know.
I'm not feeling well.
Sometimes you're not feeling well.
You just feel like you're not making any sense.
Children of Israel crossed the Jordan River.
When they went into Jericho,
God said, the first fruits belong unto me.
They were supposed to take the city of Jericho
and everything, everything in Jericho
was to be dedicated unto the Lord.
By the way, that's a picture of the tithe.
After Jericho, God said, once you take other lands,
you'll be able to take their riches,
and that'll be your bounty.
But Jericho, all of that is to be dedicated unto the Lord.
And if you remember Achan, he broke that law,
and he took of the accursed thing, the Bible says.
He took the first fruits that belong to God from Jericho.
So when they went to their second battle,
an Ai, a battle that they should have won easily,
a small town that should have been won easily,
they lost it.
That's what we jump into in Joshua chapter 7 verse 1.
Notice what the Bible says,
but the children of Israel committed a trespass
and the accursed thing for Achan, the son of Carmi,
the son of Zabdai, the son of Zerah,
of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing.
By the way, I'm not preaching on this,
but let me just point this out to you.
It's interesting to me that the Bible says
the children of Israel committed a trespass
and it was Achan who took of the accursed thing
and the anger of the Lord was kindled
against the children of Israel.
You say, why was God mad at all of them
when Achan did it?
It's because of this.
Your sin affects other people.
They all dealt with the consequences of the sin of Achan.
Notice verse 5.
And the men of Ai smote them,
about thirty and six men,
and they chased them from before the gate,
even unto Shebaarim and smote them,
and going down wherefore the hearts of the people melted
and became his water,
and Joshua rent his clothes.
Notice, and Joshua takes an appropriate step here.
They lose this battle.
And the Bible says,
And Joshua rent his clothes and fell to the earth
upon his face before the ark of the Lord.
You remember the ark of the Lord
represented the presence of God.
He says, the Bible says,
unto the eventide,
and he and the elders of Israel,
and put dust upon their heads.
Joshua goes to the ark of the Lord,
which represents the presence of God.
He fell to the earth upon his face.
He rent his clothes,
and he spent all day praying.
Look at verse 7.
And Joshua said,
Alas, O Lord God,
wherefore hast thou all brought these people over Jordan,
to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites,
to destroy us?
Would to God we had been contented
and dwelt on the other side of Jordan.
O Lord, what shall I say
when Israel turneth their backs before their enemy?
For the Canaanites and all they inhabit
to the land shall hear of it,
and shall environ us round,
and cut off our name from the earth.
And what wilt thou do unto thy great name?
Here we have Joshua in mourning and sorrow,
crying out to God.
I mean, picture before the ark of the Lord,
his face down on the ground,
rent his clothes with ashes.
He's praying to God.
The sorrowful prayer,
this emotional prayer.
I want you to notice how God responds.
Verse 10.
And the Lord said unto Joshua,
Get thee up.
Isn't that interesting?
Here we have Joshua in this emotional prayer to God,
and God says,
Get up.
Get thee up.
Wherefore, lies thou thus upon my face?
It's no time to pray, Joshua.
Achan took of the accursed thing.
You need to go handle this.
Yeah, I'm gonna pray that.
I'm gonna pray if it's God's will that I leave my wife.
You don't need to pray about that.
It's not God's will.
I'm gonna pray whether I should be a soul winner.
You don't need to pray for that.
Jesus already prayed for it.
He said,
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,
that he would send forth labors into his harvest.
Here's what I'm telling you.
Look, I'm not telling you we shouldn't pray.
I've been spending the last five weeks
trying to encourage you to pray,
but I'm telling you this.
Sometimes it's not time to pray.
Sometimes it's time to get up and do something.
And God loves prayer.
And I'm sure Joshua's prayer was an amazing prayer,
filled with faith,
but God's response to Joshua was,
Get thee up.
Wherefore, lies thou thus upon my face?
And he tells him you need to get up.
It's not time to pray.
It's time to act.
It's time to do something.
And here's what I'm telling you.
And by the way,
when Joshua takes care of Achan,
God answers his prayer.
They take Ai.
You say,
What's the key to answered prayer?
Here's the key.
Ask, seek, knock.
Take responsibility for your part.
Put feet to your prayers.
Sometimes it's not time to pray.
When it's clear what God wants you to do,
when God has already spoken and given you direction,
we just do what God tells us to do.
Let me give you the last point.
We'll finish up.
Go to John chapter 15, if you would.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
John chapter 15.
We're talking about keys for answered prayer.
Number one, make a request.
Number two, rely on God.
Number three, take responsibility for your part.
Here's number four.
Work on our relationship with Christ.
John 15, look at verse seven.
This is what Jesus said.
If ye abide in me.
By the way, Jesus is the word.
He says,
If ye abide in me and my words abide in you,
ye shall...
Don't miss it.
You see our word there?
Ask.
Ye shall ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you.
But Pastor, you don't understand.
I prayed for that, you know,
for that yacht.
I didn't get it.
Yeah, here's the thing, though.
I think that if you abide in Christ
and his words abide in you,
you probably wouldn't be making stupid prayers like that.
And I'm not against yachts.
If God blesses you and you can buy a yacht,
praise God for it.
Invite your pastor.
But if that's your prayer,
while people are dying and going to hell,
that's your prayer.
While their kids need to be raised for the glory of God,
that's your prayer.
See, if ye abide in me, Jesus said,
and my words abide in you,
first of all, you'll ask appropriate prayers.
But he says, ye shall ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you.
See, we're told to abide in Christ.
See, our relationship to Christ,
there is a connection.
There's a connection to our relationship to Christ
and our answered prayer.
Sometimes people say to me,
God didn't answer my prayer.
And I think to myself,
it's because you're a lousy Christian.
It's because you suck as a Christian.
You don't go to church,
you don't read the Bible,
you don't pray,
you don't go soul winning,
you don't tithe,
you don't do anything that God tells you to do,
and then you expect them to be just available
like a little puppy,
ready to answer your prayer?
Oh, no, no, no.
If ye abide in me,
and my words abide in you,
ye shall ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you.
Maybe your prayers aren't being answered
because you're not abiding in him.
Maybe your prayers aren't being answered
because his words aren't abiding in you.
You don't have to turn your heart,
just read this for you.
Psalm 66, verse 18,
the Bible says this,
if I regard iniquity in my heart,
the Lord will not hear me.
Isaiah 59, verse 2,
you don't have to turn there,
it says this,
but your iniquities have separated
between you and your God,
and your sins have hid his face from you,
and he will not hear.
1 John, if you would,
if you kept your place there,
1 John.
Keep your finger right there in John 15.
We're going to come right back to it.
Go back to 1 John, chapter 3.
1 John 3, 22.
Notice this verse.
And whatsoever we ask,
we receive of him,
because we keep his commandments
and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
See, the Bible says,
we like this part,
and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him.
But here's the part that concerns God,
because we keep his commandments,
and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
I often tell people this,
go back to John,
John 14, if you would.
We're going to finish up.
We're going to be done right here.
I need to be done,
because I'm going to run out of my voice anyway.
Pray that if it's God's will,
I can preach tonight.
John 14.
Some of you are like,
I'm praying you never preach again.
You're praying that you may consume that upon your loss.
But here's my concern.
You know, there's not that many things
that God tells us to pray for.
There's some things God tells us to pray for.
James says,
if any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God,
that it may be given him.
What's interesting to me is that
Jesus made one prayer request
that I can think of,
and that I'm aware of,
or that I haven't missed.
He said,
pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,
that he would send forth labor into his harvest.
You know what Jesus prayed for?
He prayed,
and he said we should pray for soul winners.
I always have this concern.
Why would God answer my prayer
if I'm not answering his prayer?
If he prayed for soul winners,
and I said,
no, I'm busy.
I'm not interested.
Doesn't the Bible say you read with yourself?
Doesn't the Bible say you should treat people
the way you'd like to be treated?
I just wonder.
If Jesus made one prayer request,
and it was,
pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,
that he would send forth labors into his vineyard,
and my response to his prayer request is,
not me,
I'm not available,
I can't.
I just wonder how many times
I would bring requests to God,
and his response would be,
yeah, sorry, I'm unavailable.
Not me, sorry.
Here's all I'm saying.
Our relationship to Christ
our prayers are
contingent upon our relationship to Christ.
John 14, verse 13,
and whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do,
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
And we talked about this a few weeks ago,
and I'll make the point again.
There is etiquette when it comes to prayer.
Remember, please, please remember
that we are to pray in the name of Jesus.
When you end your prayers,
you should pray in Jesus' name,
in Christ's name,
in the name of Jesus,
in the matchless name of Christ.
We're not praying in the name of the Father.
You don't address a prayer to God the Father,
our Father,
and then end the prayer with,
in your precious name,
we're not addressing our prayer.
We're addressing our prayer to the Father,
in the name of his Son.
So, does that really matter?
It's the whole reason you get to come to God.
You don't get to come to God in prayer,
because you're something special.
You get to come to God in prayer,
because of the Lord Jesus Christ,
because of his shed blood on the cross,
because of his redemptive work on the cross.
I come in the power of Christ.
So we should pray in Jesus' name.
Lord, I'm bringing those requests.
Remember that I don't have a reason to bring any requests,
but I'm bringing these requests in Jesus' name,
for Christ's sake,
in Christ's name.
That's etiquette, but let's not forget,
the etiquette is there because it means something.
It literally means that I can come to God
because of Christ.
Ephesians 2 18, I'll just read this for you.
It says,
Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Hebrews 10 19,
Having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
The Bible says that we should forgive as God has forgiven us for Christ's sake.
It is for Christ's sake that we come in the presence of God.
So when it comes to answered prayer,
a key to answered prayer is that you actually make a request,
and when you make a request, don't make a selfish request,
but pray according to God's will.
A key to answered prayer is that you rely on God,
and what that means is that you have faith that God can,
but you also have faith that God knows best.
And if you say,
Well, I had faith that God could, and then he didn't,
so I stopped believing in God.
That just shows you never had faith.
You're just selfish.
Because if you actually believe that God knows best,
then you say,
Here's how you pray.
You say,
Lord, here's what I'm asking for.
Here's what I believe is your will.
Here's what I believe lines up to your will,
but Father, you know best.
And if I'm wrong here,
I'm looking at the situation wrong.
If it's your will that this happened, and it's your will,
that's not my will, that's not what I want,
but if it's your will,
then please, Lord, not my will, but thine be done.
When's the last time we prayed like that?
We should pray in faith.
Here's key for answered prayer number three.
Take responsibility for your part.
Put feet to your prayer.
Sometimes it's not time to pray.
Sometimes we need to just get to work.
And then number four, work on your relationship with Christ.
Look down at John 14 again.
Look at verse 13.
And whatsoever ye ask in my name, that will I do,
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
And if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.
I hope that the last five weeks that we've been
in this school of prayer,
as we've studied this idea of prayer,
I hope it's encouraged you and motivated you to pray.
Because there really is a God in heaven
that wants to hear and answer your prayers.
You and I get the privilege of going to God
in the throne of God, the throne of grace,
spiritually speaking, and bring our requests.
The Bible tells us to make our requests known unto God.
But I think that we have a lot of false assumptions
about prayer.
We have a lot of wrong philosophy
and theology about prayer.
And oftentimes, it's not that God won't answer our prayers
that we're not praying right.
So let's ask, not that we may consume it upon our lusts,
in faith, with the authority of Christ,
praying for the kingdom and the will of God.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, we do thank you
for these lessons on prayer,
and the fact that Jesus taught us so much about prayer.
And Lord, I pray you'd help us to learn to pray,
help us to become prayer warriors.
Lord, I ask that you would help us,
that you would help us, Lord.
Sometimes we struggle with faith,
and like the blind Father, Lord,
we can say, help thou might unbelief.
Lord, we love you.
In the matchless name of Christ, we pray.
Amen.