The School of Prayer | Part 5 | The Prayer Answer Key
We are in Matthew 7 and finishing up this series on “The School of Prayer”. 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. You may have been surprised as we walked through this series about 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, when the disciples of Jesus watched him pray, they asked him to team them how to pray. 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 which was entitled “Prayer 101”. 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 and I preached a sermon called “Any Questions”. We talked about how to bring our request to the Lord and 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 with just kind of some miscellaneous teachings on prayer that Jesus gave. But the interesting thing about these miscellaneous teachings is that they all have 1 theme. The theme is 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. So I want to give you four thoughts this morning or four keys for getting your prayers answered. And I’d encourage you to write these down.
Matthew 7:7 “7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:”. First he says “ask”. Then he says “seek”. Then he says “knock”. 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, seek, knock. If you turn these three words into an acronym, you’ll notice that the first letter of each word spells “ask”. This is really the theme that Jesus gives us in this passage of scripture.
Verse 8. “8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 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 ask him?”. There’s this emphasis that Jesus brings up with this idea of ask. He tells them that he wants them to ask, seek and knock. He wants them to bring their request and make their requests known unto God.
Let me just give you these thoughts. We’re talking about the prayer answer key. An answer key is like when you go to school and 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. It is basically keys on how to get your prayers answered. And I want to give you four of them this morning.
The first one is pretty simple but I think it’s worth stating. The first key to getting your prayers answered is to actually ask or request. That doesn’t sound very deep but it really is that simple. Most Christians who have never experience true, answered prayer is for this reason. Jesus told them to ask. He is telling them that God wants to answer their prayer.
James 4:2 “2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.”. Lust is saying to desire or want. This verse is referring to the person who complains about never getting answered prayer. They “kill, and desire to have”. This is taking matters into your own hands. “ye kill, and desire to have”. Isn’t it true that people cause destruction to try to obtain things? There are certain things that people want and they can’t get according to verse 2. Why is it they don’t have it according to verse 2? “because ye ask not”.
He says there are things you’re trying to get from someone. There are things you’re trying to get from your spouse. There are things you’re trying to get from your kids or career or social media or whatever. But the problem is that you’re asking the wrong person. He is saying that we should simply ask God. Maybe some of us don’t have answered prayer because you don’t have the first key of prayers answered which is to ask. It should be obvious to getting your prayers answered that you actually make a request. Go to 1st John.
1st John 5:14 “14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:”. Have you ever thought about the fact that most Christians don’t really have a prayer life outside of a short prayer right before eating? Most people don’t have any substance to their prayer life. We need to understand that God has given us this great privilege to pray. Whether you bow your heads or you raise your hands or you get on your knees or you sit in a chair, the truth is that when you begin to communicate with heaven and speak to your heavenly Father, the Bible says “that, if we ask any thing 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 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 think of this song which I’ve quoted to you many times on the subject of prayer. “What A Friend We Have In Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry, Everything to God in prayer!”. The truth is that the first key to answered prayer is that you would actually pray. Maybe you say “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 and take it out of context. We have to take the entire scriptures together. The Bible tells us that we should ask. James 4:2 “2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.”. What James is saying is that we don’t get our prayers answered because we don’t actually ask from God.
Verse 3 “3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”. Amiss means you ask incorrectly or inappropriately or out of place or out of bounds. You ask for things that are not appropriate for you to ask. If you pray to be rich then that is an example of asking amiss. Here’s the other secret to answered prayers. When you ask, you must ask according to God’s will. You can’t just ask for every little desire you want and think. We can’t expect God to line up with our will but we must line up with his will.
In James 4:2 the lesson is to ask. In James 4:3 the lesson is don’t be selfish. And by the way, if you were to pray through the Lord’s prayer like we’ve talked about, 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 and in heaven, if we understood that the person’s a prayer was to align ourselves with the will of God then we would stop asking for things that are selfish. We would stop asking in order to consume them upon our lusts. If we want our prayers answered, the first thing you do is actually ask and the second thing is you check for motives.
1 John 5:14 “14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: 15 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. However, God is 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. We must ask but we must ask according to the will of God. And God says if you ask and bring your request before God and you align them to the will of God then he 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 wants to answer your prayer. So what is the problem? The Bible 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 lust. So here’s a key for answered prayer. Key number one – 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 and not our little kingdom, if we would push God’s agenda and further his kingdom.
Let me give you a second thought. We’re talking about keys for answered prayer. Number 1 – Make a request. Actually ask and when you ask, ask according to the will of God. Look at Matthew 21:21 “21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.”. Notice verse 22 “22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”. Now don’t take this out of context. If we ask for a private jet, then that isn’t going to be according to God’s will. We must ask but we must ask according to his will. In addition to that, we must ask in faith. You must first make a request but you must also rely on God. See, the Bible says “22 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.
Mark 11:23-24 “23 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 that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. 24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”. See, a key to answered prayer is 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 “With God all things are possible.”.
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. By the way, that’s why we often don’t pray. We don’t have faith. Because when your alarm goes off and you wake up, immediately you start thinking that there are 30 things that need to be done that day. And I’m not talking about checking Facebook and having breakfast. I’m talking about that 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. The tendency is to just get out of bed and hit the ground running. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. But it’s actually an act of faith to stop for a moment and get down on your knees and pray. It’s actually an act of faith to pray. And the truth is that 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. If you want your prayers then there are steps. Step 1 – Ask. Step 2 – Ask according to his will. Step 3 – Ask in faith.
James 1:6 “6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.”. We must ask believing that God is able. I often think of an illustration that Brother Vijay gave me. He said that in India they had a time of a drought. Christians gathered together to pray outside that rain would come. The individual leading the prayer meeting came out and he had an umbrella with him. That person asked them where all of their umbrellas were. Likewise we often prayer without actually believing that God is going to answer the prayer. We must believe that God can. We must believe that when we align to God’s will with our prayer requests that God wants to answer that prayer.
Ephesians 3:20 is one of my favorite verses. Ephesians 3:20 “20 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 God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think? Pastor Curtis Hutson said “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 in faith and doubt not, then whatsoever you ask in prayer believing you shall receive.
But let me just say this. Believing that God can does not mean that God must. Faith is believing that God can and also believing that it may be God’s will to do something different. 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 or that raise. It may be God’s will that you don’t marry that individual. Sometimes we assume that things must be God’s will. And look, it may be God’s will. We should do our part to align ourselves to God’s will. Sometimes God’s will is different than ours. 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 3. In the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the 3 Hebrew children are threatened to be cast into the fiery furnace. They told King Nebuchadnezzar “We are not careful to answer thee in this matter.”. They said that God would deliver them. And they believe that he could. But they also understood that it might be God’s will for them to go into that furnace. In fact from the story, it’s obvious it was God’s will for them to go in the furnace though they were protected. We’re often asking God to keep us from the furnace but sometimes God’s trying to get us in the furnace. 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 to God that he stops us from going into the furnace but it may be God’s will that you do go in the furnace.
So don’t have the attitude “I believed that God would answer my prayer and he didn’t so I’m not praying anymore.”. If you believe in God then you need to have faith that God knows best. 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 want to go to the cross but he said the will of the Father be done.”. Think of Paul praying for the thorn in his flesh and God told him that his grace was sufficient for him. His strength was made perfect in weakness. Paul’s response was that he would glory in his infirmities if that was God’s will. How do we get our prayers answered? 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.
Matthew 7:7-11 “7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 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 ask him?”
I want you to notice that there’s something else emphasized in this passage. First we ask. Then we make sure that we are asking aligning to God’s will. We also make sure we ask in faith meaning we believe that God can. After asking though he tells us to seek. Seek involves action. Then he said knock in order for the door to be opened. What Jesus is teaching us is to put action to our prayers. When I was growing up, I would hear Pastors say “Put feet to your prayers.”.
What are the keys to answered prayer? Number 1 – Make a request. Number 2 – Rely on God. Number 3 – Take responsibility for your part. What does that mean? Here’s what it means. And here is another quote “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.”. Put feet to your prayer. When it comes to prayer, part of this is God’s responsibility but there are things that are our responsibility. And you must put feet to your prayers.
Here’s a common illustration I hear. Some guys say to me “Pastor, I’m looking for work and can you pray for me.”. Absolutely God wants you to work and provide for your family. But if I ask how many applications you have put in and the last one was 6 weeks ago and you’re waiting to hear back, you aren’t doing your part. Jesus told to ask, seek and knock. Here’s what I’m saying, if you are praying for God to give you a job then make sure you get up and go and look for one. Go fill out applications while praying in faith believing that God can answer your prayer. Don’t just ask God for a job while taking a nap 7 hours a day. It doesn’t work that way. He says “Ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.”.
By the way, let me just say that when you’re unemployed, your job is to find a job. That’s your job. That has nothing to do with prayer. It’s just common sense. If you are looking for a job to pay you for working 40 hours a week then spend 40 hours a week looking for one. Then you will find a job. I’m not trying to pick on you but just looking for a job for 30 minutes a week is not putting in effort. Start at 8 or 9 and look for a few hours then take a 15-minute break just like you would at a real job. Then you work for another 2 hours looking for work, filling out applications, knocking on doors, sending emails, talking to people, showing up on a job site and telling them that you are looking for work. Then you do that again for a couple hours and then go home. Next day you do the same thing. If you do that while also praying each day for God to give you a job then you will find one pretty quickly. Some people say they have looked for 6 years for a job and haven’t found one. That’s because they aren’t putting feet to their prayers. Ask, seek, knock.
We don’t just pray on a Wednesday night and say “Lord, build the Church. Help us reach people with the gospel. Lord helps us to be able to find people to get saved” but then not go out and try to win people. We need to put feet to our prayers. On Saturday morning we seek and we knock. We look for people to preach the gospel to. Here’s what I’m saying. You can pray all day long “Help my kids to grow up and love God.”. However, if you don’t actually teach your kids, if you don’t actually discipline and disciple your kids, if you don’t actually spend time with them then you aren’t doing your part. Pray like it all depends on God and then work like it all depends on us. 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.
By the way. I’m not picking on you single people. But if you pray “Lord, please give me a wife. Lord, I need a wife.”. Well that’s fine. I’m also praying for you. But at some point you’re going to have to go talk to a girl. At some point you’re going to have to take a shower, put on some deodorant, find a job. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings but I want you to understand that there is a responsibility that we have when it comes to prayer. I know this might sound counterintuitive to everything I’ve been teaching over the last five weeks but sometimes it’s not time to pray. Sometimes it’s so clear what the action is that we should be taking that God is actually annoyed by us praying about it. He gives us an example in Joshua 7.
We’ll look at Joshua 7 in a minute. If you remember, the children of Israel were instructed by God after they’d crossed the Jordan River when they went into Jericho. God said the first fruits belong unto him. They were supposed to take the city of Jericho and everything in Jericho was to be dedicated unto the Lord. By the way, that’s a picture of the tithe. After this event, God always told them to take the spoils. But Achan takes of the accursed thing and disobeys God in Joshua 7. When they went to their 2nd battle, they should have won against the small town easily. However, they lost. That’s the background of the story we are coming in to. Notice what the Bible says in Joshua 7:1.
Joshua 7:1 “But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel.”. It’s interesting that Achan did this but they all deal with the consequences as sin affects other people. Verse 5 “5 And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water. 6 And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the eventide, 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 about his face. He rent his clothes and he spent all day praying.
Verse 7 “7 And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan! 8 O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies! 9 For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of 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. Picture Joshua with his face on the ground and clothes rent praying to God. Notice how God responds in Joshua 7:10. “10 And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?”. God is telling him that it’s no time to pray but that he has to deal with the problem. Look, if God has already given you an answer in the Bible, you don’t need to pray about it. You don’t have to pray about whether you should stay married, whether you should go soulwinning, etc…Sometimes it is time to get up and do what you are supposed to. God loves prayer and I’m sure Joshua’s prayer was an amazing prayer filled of faith. But God’s response to Joshua was to get up and quit praying about it. By the way, when Joshua deals with the problem, God answers his prayer. The key to pray is 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. Just do what God tells us to do.
Let me give you the last point. Number one – make a request. Number two – rely on God. Number three – take responsibility for your part. Number 4 – Work on your relationship with Christ. John 15:7 “7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”. You say “But Pastor, I prayed for a yacht and didn’t get it.”. Here is the thing, if you are abiding in Christ and his words are abiding in you then you probably wouldn’t be making stupid prayer requests. I’m not against yachts and if you can buy one then then that’s fine. But if those are the things you pray for when a world is lost and going to hell and kids need to be raised for God then you should reevaluate your requests.
If Christ’s words are abiding in you then you’ll ask appropriate prayers. See, we’re told to abide in Christ. There is a connection between our relationship to Christ and our prayers being answered. Sometimes people say to me “God didn’t answer my prayer.”. Then I think to myself “That’s because you’re a lousy Christian. You don’t go to Church or read the Bible or go soulwinning or tithe.”. God tells you to do things and you don’t do them and then you expect God to just be like a little puppy ready to answer your prayer. Christ said “If ye abide in me and my words abide in you”. Maybe you aren’t getting prayers answered because you aren’t abiding in him.”.
Psalm 66:18 “18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:”. Isaiah 59:2 “2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”. 1st John 3:22 “22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”.
Go to John 14 and we’ll close up. There aren’t many things that God tells us to pray about. But James said that if we lack wisdom then we should ask of God. What’s interesting to me is that Jesus 1 prayer request that I can think of and that I’m aware of in the Bible. Jesus told us to “38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”. Jesus prayed for soulwinners. Why would God answer my prayer requests if I’m not answering his prayer request? People say they are too busy for soulwinning but that was the prayer request of Jesus Christ. It makes you wonder if God will reject our requests sometimes because we aren’t doing what he prayed for. All I’m saying is that our relationship to Christ affects our prayers.
John 14:13 “13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”. We talked about this a few weeks ago and I’ll make the point again. There is etiquette when it comes to prayer. 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. We address our prayer to the Father but in the name of Jesus. Jesus is the whole reason that we get come to God in prayer because of his shed blood on the cross and his redemptive work on the cross. So don’t forget the etiquette of praying in Jesus’ name because we want his power.
Ephesians 2:18 “18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”. Hebrews 10:19 “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 prayer, we make requests but make sure they aren’t selfish requests. 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. If your faith is so that you stop praying when God didn’t answer the request then you are just being selfish. When you know that God knows best then you will pray trying to line up with what you believe is God’s will. Not my will but thine be done. When is the last time that we prayed like that? We should pray in faith. Number 3 – Take responsibility for your part. Put feet to your prayers. 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.
John 14:13 “13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If ye shall ask any thing 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. 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, and into the throne of God spiritually speaking and bring our request. The Bible tells us to make our request 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 but that we’re not praying right. So let’s ask not that we may consume it upon our lusts. Let us ask in faith with the authority of Christ praying for the kingdom and the will of God.
Let’s pray.