Ask, and you shall receive

Matt 7: 7 – 12

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 27 Apr, 2008 (Rogation Sunday 2008)

TODAY WE will go around our area and pray for it. It is good to pray for our district, because God wants to work in our area and change the lives and future hope of the people we serve.

Jesus told his disciples,

Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

 I hadn't realised how many times Jesus told his disciples that their requests would be answered.

“Ask, seek and knock,” says Jesus, “because you’ll get what you are after.”

Another time, Jesus told his disciples,

  ^{MT 21:21} ...“I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, `Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. ²² If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Believe and receive. Is that total nonsense or one of the most incredible truths ever?

Jesus also told his disciples,

^{John 16:23b} I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ²⁴ Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

Is he saying that one of the major reasons for answered prayer is so that we will experience joy?

Here’s something more about answered prayer. Here’s what James, the brother of Jesus taught. Explaining to Christians how to cope with difficult situations in life, he tells us,

 ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. ⁶ But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

It’s about having the wisdom to know how to face problems. But it is just a specialised application of the general principle Jesus stated. The undergirding ideas are the same. Asking in faith leads to receiving what we asked for.

But you know, I know, that we pray about all kinds of things and only occasionally see definite results. Are these promises not so reliable? What’s the truth? Don’t all Christians struggle with this from time to time? A sick person you pray for dies anyway. The funds you really needed didn’t come through. You drove around in circles looking for parking, and the only free place was in the next suburb despite all your prayers.

What’s the drum?

On the other hand, you have come here and you have heard about Carolyn's sister, who dramatically recovered from cancer, literally overnight, when we prayed for her.

Or you have heard about the time when, after every effort, we were still over $1000 short of being able to pay our insurances and other bills. Then, after earnest and pointed prayer, we received some unexpected mail: a small bequest and an insurance payout for items we had already replaced. Suddenly we could pay our bills, and had a surplus!

We tell stories of the victories, but all of us also know of defeats.

I can’t answer every question, but here are a few principles.

The first is that an apparent failure to receive an answer isn’t necessarily a real failure to receive an answer.

There is nothing in our passage to cover this possibility, but there are several Biblical passages which point us to this conclusion.

For example, when Paul was missioning in Asia Minor, he kept wanting to go into the inland, but we read that he and his companions were prevented from doing so.

I’m sure that Paul prayed about these things. He was a strategist, and could see possibilities for evangelising Asia Minor.

But then the dream came of the man from Macedonia saying, “Come over and help us!” And it put a different complexion on everything.

Paul wanted to evangelise, but God had a bigger vision than Paul had. Paul wanted Asia Minor; God wanted Europe.

We’ve all seen it. People pray for God to heal a sick person; God plans to transform that person through the process of dying. People seek money; God gives them time to pay.

And the people who prayed can come out disappointed, because they had a vision for how God would answer their prayer, and there were no blinding lights or pennies from heaven. But God had the right outcome well under control.

Apparent failures aren’t always real failures.

The second possibility is that we are not ready to receive God’s answer. Martin Luther said “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.”

I remember a couple of times in my life when I really felt desperate for God’s blessing in certain areas of my life. I prayed earnestly and long. But I received no answer.

If I didn’t know that other people experienced God’s blessing, I might have just given up and walked away.

But I eventually realised that I was trying to dictate go God what he should do.

My motives were sort–of good. I didn’t want things to go wrong and cause people problems. But whilever I told God, “You can do this, but you can’t do that,” of course the one thing he really couldn’t do was answer my prayer.

When I came to the point where I could say to God, “I no longer care what you do, as long as you answer this prayer!” that was when the blessing came almost out of the blue.

It is when we are ready to receive that God is most ready to give.

That is why Jesus said,

Keep on asking, and you shall receive; keep on seeking, and you shall find; keep on knocking and the door shall be opened to you.

It is always continual active present tense.

The third issue is that we must be single minded about our prayer.

Too often we pray fruit salad prayers. ”God bless the church and the man down the street and my kids and the drought–stricken farmers and the missionaries, Amen.‘

There is a bit of everything, but we don’t stop to savour anything.

The times when God has clearly answered our prayers have been when we focused on a single point, and kept at it until we were sure we knew that God had acted.

Years ago, Mum phoned me at work and said one of my uncles had had a major heart attack and was in a very bad way.

I prayed, together with some Christian friends at work, until about 1 pm. Then I suddenly had peace that I didn't need to pray any more. I didn't know what it meant, but I mentioned it to the Chief Health Inspector, who was a Christian friend. While I was with him, a message came that Mum had phoned again. She told me my uncle had died. It was around the time I knew not to pray any more.

When we prayed for Carolyn's sister with the cancer, we prayed for her, and for nothing else. Then the time came when I knew that God had it all in hand, and we didn't need to pray any more.

The next day she went to the hospital, ready for surgery, she'd fasted and everything. They took scans to see how much the cancer had progressed in the past week since the last scan, and she was totally clear of cancer.

These were not fruit salad prayers. These were very single minded and focused prayers.

The same when we prayed about our financial situation and God provided a surplus.

How blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!

said Jesus.

As Soren Kierkegaard said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”

When our prayers are pure, when we will that one thing: that God will answer that one prayer, and when we stick at it, then God will answer, and, in that answer, we will begin to see God.

As James says,

^{JAS 1:6} But when [a person] asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

A divided mind destroys the effectiveness of our prayers, and single mindedness sees results from God.

There is much more I could say about prayer, but I want to finish with some practical issues.

Today we are going around the bounds of our area to pray for the district. We will mention people and organisations working here. We will look for God's blessing on our district and on our church’s work in the area.

Pointed, believing prayer will work wonders.

We chose this day because it is Rogation Sunday in the ancient church calendar.

But on Friday I got an e-mail link to the Baptist Union of Australia's newsletter, and guess what?

They are asking the churches of Australia to pray for their areas today.

They expect that the church people will sit in their pews and pray, and perhaps hope people will come to them.

We are going out into our area to pray where the people are. We are a step ahead of the majority of Baptists of Australia.

I believe that God has led us in a special way with our plans this year, and I believe he will continue leading us.

God is not willing that any should perish

— as the Bible tells us.

So let’s close this part of our service and continue out into the world around about us, armed with a knowledge that God is a prayer answering God, that he may not answer as we expect, and that he is looking for us to lay hold on his willingness to bless.

Let’s trust, and do as he has called us to do, and expect that the God who has done great things for us will continue his work in the people and the institutions and the structures of our district and our society.

May his name be blessed forever, and may all the glory be to him through Jesus his son and by the Holy Spirit's power!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)