Keys to Answered Prayer

Today I want to talk about something that at one level is very basic to all of us. Something that we have all done, something that we all regularly do, something that we must do every day of our life if we're going to be who God wants us to be and if we're going to be in this kingdom. Simply put, that's prayer. Prayer is one of those things that, even if you haven't been in the church, people talk about prayer. It's been a puzzle to some outside of the church. Common refrain among people outside is, God doesn't seem to listen to prayer.

He doesn't seem to answer prayer. What kind of world do we live in? Or what kind of God is it if this is a world that goes on the way it is and He doesn't answer prayer? Of course, we know the answers to those questions because this isn't God's world. Satan is the God of this world that says in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, but prayer among God's people is something that we must very much have. And even among God's people, I hear from time to time, it just doesn't seem like God answers prayers today.

And maybe it doesn't, if what we're looking for is just an answer quickly. But you know, the Bible says that God does answer prayer, and He does give us an answer, but there are conditions for it. Let's go back to John. I'm sorry. Let's go back to Luke 11. No, let's go back to John 16. I'm sorry.

I'm getting one verse ahead of myself here. John 16. John 16 and verse 23, as Christ was talking to His disciples then, as He talks to us today through the words of the Bible that have been preserved for us, He says this in John 16, verse 23. He says, In that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.

Whatever you ask in My name, He will give you. Pretty straightforward. Sounds like if we ask, if we pray in God's name or Jesus Christ's name, He'll answer that prayer. And yet, so many times, we pray and we wonder, well, where is that answer? Why isn't God answering quickly? Why doesn't He answer at all when He says that He will? Well, if you've been going through this month's home Bible study lesson on prayer, you'll remember that, or if you've gotten to the end, there's a section there that says, within a few weeks after you receive that lesson, we'll have a sermon on some of the keys to answered prayer that we find in the Bible.

Well, today is that sermon. We're going to talk and look a little bit more at prayer from Christ-owned words and the words of the Bible to see what is it? What do we need to do? What is God looking for from us if He's going to answer our prayers? He promises He will, says He will, and yet, so many times, prayers are not answered. Prayer can be something that we take for granted, just like so many other things in our life. We do it every day, and maybe we've gotten used to it. Maybe we find ourselves going through some repetitions of things, kind of checking the box off in our mind.

We need to pray for this. We need to pray for this, and we check them off mentally as we go through. Is that the kind of prayer that God is looking for? Let's look at some of the things that Christ said, because the disciples wondered, too, about prayer.

They walked with Jesus Christ for three and a half years. They watched Him as He went off and prayed, sometimes for maybe half an hour, sometimes for hours, sometimes an entire evening. They watched as He prayed, and people were miraculously healed. He watched as He prayed, and 5,000 were fed. They watched Him pray over food. They watched Him to pray, even for water to be turned into wine. God answered every single one of those prayers. As they watched Him, they probably thought, how do you pray?

How do you pray that you get God to Father to answer in the way that He does? Back in Luke 11, they asked Him the same question that we can ask God ourselves if we aren't sure that our prayer life is matching up to what God would have it be. Luke 11 and verse 1. Luke 11 and verse 1. It says, It came to pass, as Christ was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught His disciples.

Teach us how to do this. This is an important part of our life. We want to do it the way you want us to. And then Christ answered to them and gave them a model prayer, if you will. He told them, well, in this manner, pray. And some churches would say, all you have to do is repeat verbatim these next few verses and that you're praying. Well, we know that's not the case, because Christ said it's not vain repetition that He's interested in.

He's interested in what's coming from our hearts and who we are. But let's go just briefly through this model prayer here and get some of the context of what Christ told them that day when they said, teach us to pray. He said, when you pray, say, our Father in heaven.

Addressed God the Father. Recognized Him. The God who made all things, who all the things that you saw in the videos that were just played. And so much more besides. He is our Father. There's a family atmosphere. There's a family feeling in that sentiment.

Fathers provide. Fathers see the future. Fathers make sure that their loved ones and their families have what they need. Fathers deserve respect. They earn respect by the things they do. And whatever respect and love we have for our physical fathers, which we should have, it should be magnified with God. Our Father, which art in heaven. Hallowed be Your name. Respect His name. Start your prayer off acknowledging whose presence You're coming into.

God the Father. God the Father. Far superior than any man on earth. If we came before the audience of the President, we would probably be in awe.

We would probably have some respect. We come before God the Father every single day. Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. God's plan is that for this earth is that His kingdom will come to earth. Finally, mankind will understand the purpose for which God created us. Finally, mankind will experience all the benefits of knowing God. When this world or this society, I should say, passes away, Satan is bound, and God's law is the law that has lived in all the land. Your kingdom come. Do we pray with that attitude? I know we say the words. We probably say them every day.

Thy kingdom come. But do we mean it? Is that something from our heart? And that's what Christ was trying to pass on to disciples here. Want what God wants. Your will be done. We all have our wills. We all have the things that we would like to do. But we should pray for God's will to be done.

It's His will that really makes the difference for all of mankind. Our will means nothing. His will has all the answers. His will is the future for humanity. Verse 3, give us day by day our daily bread. No, we do rely on God for all of the things that we have. Our daily bread, our shelter, our jobs, all the things that He knows we need. We pray and ask God to provide that. But we also pray that He provides our spiritual bread. It's important that we have the physical things of life. It's important that we have more important, I guess, that we have the spiritual things of life because that's what eternity is made of.

Pray for those things and forgive us our sins, recognizing that as long as we're alive, as long as we're in the physical body, we will stand. Not one of us will be perfect until the time Christ returns and makes us perfect spirit beings. Forgive us our sins, an ongoing repentance that we all live until the day we die. For we also forgive everyone who has indebted to us.

He's looking for mercy from us. He forgives us. He wants us to be willing and ready to forgive others as well. And so we see this outward, outward love that we're supposed to have for other people. We just don't hold them accountable and hold them at bay. We are merciful and we ask for their forgiveness as well. And don't lead us into temptation.

Well, we know it's not God who tempts. We're told that in James. Satan tempts. But we would ask God not to let us walk down that path of temptation. Don't let us walk down that. Give us the strength to resist that temptation. Don't let us go down that path. Let us resist it with the power of His Holy Spirit. And only with the power of His Holy Spirit can we really resist it. And then he says, deliver us from the evil one, because it is only by God and His power.

Only He can overcome Satan. Only He can put him away. Only He can free the world, free mankind from His influence. And that will occur at the time that Christ returns and Satan is bound. And then the world at last will be free. Free to know God. Free to experience His way of life. Free to be what He created them to be. As they go through the process, as you and I do, of developing this attitude that's in this prayer. Now in Matthew's version of this modeled prayer, it concludes with, For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

So we begin acknowledging God. And we conclude our prayer acknowledging God. It's His kingdom. It's His power that makes it all possible. And everything we do should be done to His glory. It all belongs to Him. We are just thankful that He has made us part of this work. Part of His calling at this time. Part and understanding the world we live in. So what Christ gave us in this modeled prayer that we should be praying is kind of a picture of the Christian life, isn't it? He kind of paints for us in these few words we see.

What a Christian life is like. Acknowledging God, relying on Him for our resources, asking Him to deliver us from our own minds, our own wills, and then acknowledging that all the future lies in Him. But of course we live day to day, and God realizes that. He put us here on earth, and He wants us to enjoy this life as well. But in this prayer, He gives us the model of how our prayers would be structured.

Now I know many times during the day we may pray a one or two sentence prayer. We find ourselves in a problem. We ask God, deliver us. We ask God, give us the answer to this.

I don't know the answer to this problem that's confronting me. Help me with this and help me with that. And certainly God hears those prayers, but He hears those prayers under maybe looking at who we are. Because, you know, answered prayer has some keys when we look at the Bible. You know, what God wants is for all of us to have eternal life. He's called us toward that. His will is that everyone comes to repentance. Everyone turns from His way to follow God's way. He wants everyone to have eternal life. But we've talked many times about all the ifs in the Bible. He will give us eternal life if we remain steadfast along the way, if we do His will, if we allow Him to change us, to convert us, to become who He likes, who He wants us to be.

There's a big if. He will give and He will freely give, but we have to show by our actions, our choices, that we make He say that we want that. And so it is with prayer, too. God will answer prayers. He wasn't just talking in John 16, verse 23, when Christ said, anything you ask the Father in My name, He'll give. He meant it. But there are some things we have to do as well. Some things we have to do if God's going to hear our prayer and if God is going to answer our prayer.

Now, this is where I want you, if you brought a pen and paper, to take your pen and paper out because I'm going to go through some points here from the Bible, Christ's words and the Apostles' words, that have to do with prayer and God answering them. And I'm not going to spend an enormous amount of time going through each of these points. I'm going to discuss them a little bit. But I want you to write them down and I want you to take them home and I want you to think about them. And over the next week, month, or whatever it is, think about prayer.

Think about what these verses say and put it all together. You'll understand prayer and what God is looking for in our prayers and what our prayers say about us, maybe a little more than we do today.

Let's begin with the very common verse here, back in Mark 11, verse 22, I believe, is where we're going to start. You can mark down, if you want to say, keys or elements or something that toward answered prayer, this would be your point number one. Let's pick it up in Mark 11, verse 22. Jesus answered and said, Mark 11, verse 22, Have faith in God. For as surely I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, and doesn't doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Now, those are big words, aren't they?

If anyone just says, if he has faith and if he says to that mountain, move, it'll be done. And I have to confess, a few times I've looked at some of the mountains I've been passing by, and I thought, you know, if I have faith, I can say, let that mountain move. Not once has it happened, so I know I've got some faith to build, but he says, if you have faith, that mountain would move.

I don't think any of us have had that done. You know, Christ was making a statement here, and we think of physical mountains, but we have mountains in our lives, too, don't we? Mountains that are really hard to get over. It seems like we just climb and climb and climb and climb that mountain. We never get to the peak. We never can see over the top of that mountain, and those mountains just seem to hold us back. Maybe it's something in our background. Maybe it's a health condition that we have that just never, ever, ever seems to go away, and it impedes us.

And we know how it is that we have just a little ache or just a little pain that kind of affects our days. But some people have pain all the time. It's a mountain. It can be something that just stands in our way, something that's really hard to traverse. Maybe it's a financial condition. Maybe it's emotional problems that plague us. Maybe it's anything that's a mountain in our life that just sort of stands there, and it stands between us and being everything God wants us to be.

God can move that mountain. In some cases, it's only God who can move that mountain. And we have to learn to rely on Him and have absolute faith. That health problem, that emotional problem, that financial problem, that whatever problem it is, God can remove it. If we have faith, as the first part of an effective prayer, if we just have faith—an easy word in Hebrews 11.6, without faith, it's impossible to please Him.

Well, without faith, God doesn't hear our prayers either. If we go on here in Mark 11, verse 24, it says, Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. Believe it! God heal this emotional scar that has plagued me all my life. God heal this tendency or this sin that has just plagued me all my life.

I just keep walking down the same road. God, this financial thing is just so overwhelming to me. Only you can remove it. Believe that He can. Believe that He can and know that God knows what's in our heart. It's not a matter of just saying the words. Yes, we need to say the words, but we need, during the course of our life, to really develop that faith that goes along with it. We all believe that God is. We all believe He can do these things.

But there's a belief when we live in the world that transcends all the physical things that we can do, where we just believe He can do it and we don't doubt. Doubt is one of those enemies of faith. You remember, Peter, when he was walking on earth, doing the physically impossible. As long as he kept his eyes on Christ, he walked on water, something none of us could do. The minute he took off his eyes, the minute he looked around and doubted what he was doing and thought, there's no way I can be doing this.

He's thinking, and Christ said to him, Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt? Why did you doubt? Why didn't you know and know deep in your soul, I can do this and I want to do it when you have the faith in me that you need to develop during the course of your life? Let's turn back to James, James 1. James 1 verse 5. I think we might have even read this verse last week. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

Very straightforward statement. But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. When we pray to God, we ask Him, heal this disease. Fix this situation at work that's plaguing me. Fix this relationship or show me what I need to do to fix this relationship that's causing problems. Heal this emotional problem that just keeps me going back to square one and I keep going to the foot of that mountain and still just having to climb it over and over and over again.

He knows when we ask if we really believe he can do it, or he knows if we kind of doubt it. We must do it. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but we need to examine ourselves, not just to pass over time throughout the year. Do we really have faith in God? Do we really believe he can do these things that we ask him to do? Or do we kind of just, as I say, hedge our bets? We cross off that check mark and say, yes, I asked God, but here, let me go and do all these other things myself, because I just don't know if God's going to answer that or not.

Now, He expects us to do the things that we can do for ourselves, but where is our heart? Is the faith there? Is there doubt? Over the course of our lifetimes, we have to let God remove that doubt and ask Him to remove that doubt. Going on here in verse 7. Let's read verse 6 again to keep it in the context.

Let him ask in faith with no doubting. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. We don't want to be that. We want to come to God with singleness of heart, knowing, trusting in Him and having no doubt. So, faith and belief would be one thing that God is looking for.

A key, if you will, to have answered prayer. Do we have that? And does God see that in our hearts when we pray to Him? Second point, let's go back to 1 John. 1 John 3. The Apostle John walked with Christ three and a half years. He watched Him as he prayed. He watched Him as He performed all those miracles. He was there when it was asked, Lord, teach me to pray. And He learned how to pray over the course of His life.

1 John 3, verse 22, he writes this, Whatever we ask, we receive from Him. And then he tells us why. Because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. Whatever we ask, we receive because we obey Him. Our prayers aren't being answered. We might look around and say, are we obeying God? Do we follow His principles? Do we follow Him with all our heart? Are we growing in that more and more with each passing day, each passing week, each passing year? Do we obey Him?

Now, from the world standpoint, I know that God hasn't opened their minds. Do they obey God? And if He sees people who are going even against standard moral procedures, why would He answer that prayer? We know that what we ask of Him we receive because we obey Him. You can mark down your notes there, John 14, verse 15, where Christ said, If you love Me, keep My commandments.

The words that He said on the night before He was arrested, parting words to His disciples, If you love Me, keep My commandments. The Apostle John said, if you want your prayers answered, obey Him. Because we keep His commandments, He will hear prayers and He will answer prayers. Now, none of us are perfect.

All of us have a long way to go. All of us sin, but what God is looking for is the intent of our heart. Are we really working toward obeying Him? Are we really letting His Holy Spirit lead and guide us? Change the way we think. Give us the strength to overcome. Change the patterns of our life. Change the patterns of our thinking so they more reflect Him as our life goes on. If we sin, and we don't repent of that sin, we know from Isaiah 59, verses 1 and 2, it separates us from God.

There's a door there. There's an obstacle there that we've put. We've put the sin there. We committed it. Without repenting of it, it remains as an obstacle and it separates us from God. We always need to keep our eyes and ears attuned to Him because He will show us where those obstacles between us and Him are, if we listen and if we respond when He makes it known. Let's turn over to Proverbs 28. Proverbs 28, verse 9.

Solomon, inspired by God, puts it pretty succinctly in this verse. Proverbs 28, verse 9. One who turns away his ear from hearing the law. I just don't want to listen to it. I don't want to do that. I don't want to keep the Sabbath. I don't want to believe that I... whatever it is. One who turns away his ear from hearing the law. Even his prayer is an abomination. Even his prayer is an abomination. God hears the prayers of those who are trying to follow Him, who are obeying Him, who are letting Him inside, touch their hearts, touch their minds. Change the way they think. Change the way they behave. Back a few Proverbs here in Proverbs 15. In verse 29. Proverbs 16.29. The Eternal is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous. Now we know the definition of righteousness. Those who obey God. Those who follow Him. Those who walk in His way. I can Psalm 66, verse I read a few times here recently, but it bears repeating again here today. Psalm 66 and verse 18. Psalm 66 verse 18. If I regard iniquity in my heart, if I make a place for it, if I say, you know what, this thing I just can't let go of. This is just too much me. I just can't let go of this thing. Even though I know it pleases God, we might think it's that big a deal. Is God going to really keep me out of His kingdom if I just have this little thing that I reserve for myself over here? The answer is yes. He wants all of our hearts and all of our souls as we discussed last week. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. He won't listen. We can't give place to it. We all have it there, but we all have to listen. And when God shows us what's right and what we need to change, we need to be ready to do it. And we need to have that attitude just like David did. And he was blinded from some big sins from Bathsheba and Uriah and what he did with them. He didn't see the error in it until Nathan came and showed him. And immediately, when Nathan showed him the sin, David repented. So our sins may not be that big, but they're there. And when God reveals them to us, we have to be ready to let them go. And not regard them in our hearts, not hold a place for them. But to show him through our actions, our choices, our attitudes, whatever you say, that's what we will do. I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. And one final one to this section. Let's turn back to Isaiah 1.

Isaiah 1 speaks of the people of God back in Old Testament times. They were keeping the Sabbath. They were keeping the other ceremonies they kept during the Old Testament time. And yet God has some stern words for them. Should they have been doing the things that they did? Should they have been keeping the Sabbath, the calling of assemblies, the new moons? Yes, they should have.

Yes, we need to regard those things as well, but we need to give much more than just our physical presence. Isaiah 1, verse 12. Inspired by God, Isaiah writes, When you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts? What attitude are you coming in to my courts with, he says? Bring no more futile sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, the Sabbath, and the calling of assemblies. I cannot endure iniquity at the sacred meeting. Yes, you should be there, but yes, you should be working toward letting God clean up your life. You should be working toward letting God, or allowing him, through his Holy Spirit, to change you, to become more like he wants.

Not just coming and punching the time clock and saying, I did it, I must have pleased God, I was there. No, do it, because he says to do it, but give him your heart. Show him that through the week you're committed to him, and that you're not living life in a different manner than what he calls you to, and thinking that just checking the box or punching the time clock is all that's required, because he requires a lot more than that.

Verse 14, your new moon's an appointed feast, my soul hates, God says, because of the attitude with which they were keeping them. They're a trouble to me. I'm weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, like we do when we pray sometimes, when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear.

Your hands are full of blood, full of sin. Do you want God to hear your prayers? Do you want God who is supreme in all the universe, we say, but really all of infinity, because the universe, there's so much more than just the universe we know. To hear your prayers, then yield, acknowledge, obey.

In heart, as well as in just the physical keeping of these things. So, conditions of prayer, these all build on each other. We can't have faith and not believe and then say, God, answer my prayer. We have to have faith, we have to believe, and we have to obey, God says. Let's go back to verse 3 and look at another key to answered prayers.

That again, the Apostle John gives us here in verse 3.

First John 3 in verse 22.

We read this before, but to pick up the context, he's speaking of prayer.

We read in verse 22, Whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight, and this is his commandment, that we should believe, we talked about that on the name of his son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment. Have to obey, have to believe, have to acknowledge God as you're praying, and have to go about loving and developing the love for one another. Back a few verses here in chapter 3, he talks about love. Let's go back to verse 16.

It says, See that outward concern for someone else? He laid down his life for us. We would be willing to lay down our lives for brethren. What he's really getting at here is, we have a concern for them. We watch out for each other's needs.

Laying down our lives is the extreme other, but there's needs that we all see that each other have. How much attention are we paying to those? He might ask. We also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, but whoever has this world's goods, sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him. How does the love of God abide in him?

So if we see someone in need, we will look, remember we talked about the Good Samaritan, and how the priest and the Levite just walked on by. Just kind of ignored him. The man that was laying beside the side of the road.

If we see someone who has need, and we just kind of shut our minds to it and think, it'll work out somehow, how does the love of God abide in that person?

When God sees our needs, is he just going to close his eyes and say, you know what, I don't care what they need? They'll work it out somehow.

I won't turn back to Matthew 25. You remember Matthew 25. It begins with the parable of the Ten Virgins, and it concludes talking about Christ separating the sheep from the goats. Remember the criteria whereby he separated the sheep from the goats? He said to the sheep, When I was hungry you fed me. When I was naked you clothed me. When I was thirsty you gave me water. When I was thick you visited me. When I was in prison you visited me.

I saw that love in your heart. You had faith. You believed. You were obeying. You loved God and kept His commandments, and I saw that love, that emotional care and concern for other people. I saw it in you. And he said, you go on my right hand. But to those who are of the same flock, he said, you, goats, go to my left hand. And what was the criteria he used there? You saw me when I was hungry and you didn't feed me.

You saw me naked. You didn't give me any clothes. You saw me sick. You didn't even bother to stop by and visit me or call or show any concern at all. Go to my left hand. Think God is interested in how we treat each other? Do you think God sees how we respond to each other in the body that is here in Orlando and the other bodies that we may visit from time to time? He's looking to see how do we get along with each other?

Are we just there to punch the clock? Are we really getting to know each other? Do we really see each other's needs? And are we there to help out, provide what we can when that opportunity arises? Is there that love? Is there outgoing concern? Is it there? Well, John says if we're going to have an answered prayer, we have to keep that commandment of love that shows that outgoing concern for other people. It's something we grow in.

Now, the things I'm talking about here, we don't have on day one, in most cases, when we're baptized and hands laid on us and we receive the Holy Spirit. But we grow in that over the course of time. Year by year, decade by decade, God wants to see us looking more like Him, acting more like Him. If we look back in our lives, and remember how we were when we were in our 20s, if we'd been in the church that long, we'd probably shake our heads and are embarrassed by some of the things that we did, even in church.

And we wonder how we could have done that, but that's the growth you see over the course of your life. You see that, and that's what God is looking for. Do we have that attitude? Are we His little children? That He can grow us, and that we grow up in His knowledge and way of life. So, He's looking to see, do we have that love? Let's look here at verse 18 and verse 3. He tells us how we demonstrate that love. It says, My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue.

Let's just say the words. Let's just say we would do that if we had the case, or I had the opportunity to do it. Let's not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. You know, James said, I know your faith by your works, or I'll show you my faith by works. And we say, faith without works is dead. Well, love without works is dead, too.

We could say we have love, but we show it by the way we are with each other. And God sees that in our hearts. And when someone who has faith, who obeys God, who He sees that love of Christ in their hearts, when He sees that son or daughter, come before Him and ask, just like a father, who sees a son or a daughter who is trying to please Him, He wants to give Him the things of life that He can.

So God responds to us. Okay, so that would be the third point. Let's go back to Mark 11. Look at another element of an effective prayer. Mark 11. We already read verses 22 through 24, where He tells us to believe when we pray. Let's pick it up in verse 24, but we're really going to look at verse 25 here. But just to follow in the context, this is all part of one quotation from Christ. Verse 24 of Mark 11. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them.

Verse 25, And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive Him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. So when you're praying, if there's someone that you're holding a grudge against, someone that just kind of bugs you, something that they said to you, something that just sticks in your craw, and every time you see Him, you just kind of want to give them that little far back so they feel the way you do.

Something that maybe you thought was done to you that just wasn't just. And you just can't let it go. Maybe you're even nicer to that person than when you see them in the store, in the community, or in the Oran Sabbath services. God says if there's anything that you're not forgiving, forgive them. Not forgiving stands between you and God hearing your prayer. Have to do all these other things, but can't do all those other things and just say, you know what?

So and so, I am just never going to forgive that person. I will never forget. I will never get over it. And I'm going to carry it with me till the day I die. You know, we all have things that are said to us. We all have things that are done. And any time something like that happens to me, I go back and I remember, and I said this before, I go back to Jesus Christ.

And as He was on that stake or that cross or whatever you want to call it, with His hands nailed and He had gone through enormous torture before that place and He was going to die in that situation, He was able to say and look down, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do.

And I know I've never gone through anything like that. And I know you've never gone through anything like that. So I have to ask, what possibly could have happened in your life that you would say, I won't forgive that person? And if there is that thing, then that is something you could pray about. And ask God, if that's the mountain that's standing between you and Him, then ask Him to remove that mountain. To give you the attitude that His Spirit would cleanse your mind, purify your heart, get that out of there so that you have the ability to come before Him.

As you identify these mountains or these hills that keep you from God, ask Him. That's what He wants to see, that we want what He wants, that we want to be like Him. And He'll give us the help, not only in the physical things, but in the spiritual things as well, so that we get to that point that He hears us. You know, as I say all this, God is very interested in all of us. He's very interested in us. I don't want to leave the impression that, because we might have sin in our lives, He's very interested.

He never leaves us, we leave Him. But as we talk about these principles here today, we're talking about how we approach Him and what we need to do so that He sees us as a son that He wants to give everything to, someone who is very pleasing in His sight. You know, as we talk about forgiveness, let's turn over to 1 Peter 3, verse 7.

Another verse that I've seen to you, have used here several times recently. We can talk about things that happen at work, happen with friends, happen with family members. You know, there's an area where there's a lot of unforgiveness that goes on, and that would be in the case of marriage.

And so many times, as we know people that are outside the church and they end up divorced, there's something that happened in their life that they just couldn't get over. And whatever it was, stood. And was a wall between them. And they wouldn't talk, and after a few more days, they wouldn't talk, and all of a sudden it was an insurmountable mountain and they separate. And in 1 Peter 3, God talks about the marriage relationship and the whole chapter 3, the first part of it here, but in verse 7 He says, Husbands likewise dwell with your wives with understanding, giving honor to the wife and to the weaker vessel, and is being heirs together of the grace of life.

Understanding, I would say to husbands, if you're ticked off at your wife, go back and reconcile. But so many times in marriages, it's we just don't understand the background of someone else. And if we just understood what it was that was triggering that response, we could tailor it. And if we really loved that person, we would tailor that response. We wouldn't just find a little sore point and keep going to it over and over again. We would avoid it. And it goes for wives, too. Because husbands have, we have our weak points, too.

We have our own baggage and things that we bring in the marriage. We don't want to cross each other. We don't want to be mad at each other. We don't want to be bitter with each other. God says here, your heirs together of the grace of life, do that.

Stay together, forgive one another, be partners. That your prayers may not be hindered. That your prayers may not be hindered. God's very interested in our relationships. He's very interested in how we're handling them. That shows us how we respond to Him. That your prayers may not be hindered. Be forgiving. Show mercy, just as God has shown mercy to us. Okay, let's move on to another point. Let's look at Psalm 10. Psalm 10 and verse 17. Psalm 10 verse 17. Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble. You've heard the desire of the humble.

You've listened to what He's asked for, or what she's asked for. They've approached your throne in the proper attitude. They're humble. They recognize you as supreme. There's no pride in their heart. Or if there is, their attitude is such that they're looking for you to clean that pride from them. They don't see themselves as the crown that you were able to fish out of the sea. They see themselves as someone very thankful that you will look down at someone so low and give them the opportunity that God has given us.

You hear the desire of the humble. When we keep Passover, the first ordinance we do is wash each other's feet. Humility is one of the basic attitudes of a Christian. Over across the page, or maybe one chapter back here in Psalm 9, verse 12, the last half of that verse says, God does not forget the cry of the humble. He hears what they say. They're growing in faith. They're growing in belief. They're letting God wipe out the doubt. They're growing in obedience to Him. They're learning to love one another.

They're forgiving and they don't hold grudges against one another. They're growing together as a family. They're humble. Going back over to chapter 10, verse 17, where it says, Lord, you've heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart. You'll get them ready. You'll be the one through your Holy Spirit that are getting them ready to hear what you have to say.

That you will lead them. You will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear. You'll pay attention to that man. But to the proud, God says He resists them. So humility is another point we could add to our list of effective prayers. Let's go back to John 9 and look at another point here. John 9. And verse 31. John 9, verse 31. Now we know that God does not hear sinners. We've talked about that.

But if anyone is the worshipper of God and does His will, He hears Him. If anyone is the worshipper of God and does His will, He hears Him. We have to seek God's will. We have to do His God's will. And that's another thing that we learn over the course of our lives, to do His will. Now you might think obedience and this point of doing God's will is one and the same.

It's not. We obey God. We pay attention to His commands. We let them be written in our minds and hearts. But to do His will is something beyond even that. Obedience is part of that. But we need to subject our will to Him, to His. We need to understand what His plan for humanity is. And even though that plan may include some points that we really wouldn't want to go through, that really look tough to endure, it's His will. At the very beginning of the vital prayer that Christ gave His disciples, you and me, people who are to be learning about Christ, studying Him, letting God make us be like Him.

We pray, thy will be done. Words we say probably every day, or several times a week anyway, but do we know what that means? Do we really understand, thy will be done? You know the Apostle Peter had to learn about God's will. Remember the occasion back when Christ was telling them, was telling the Apostles or the disciples, the Son of man is going to be lifted up, He's going to be crucified, and He's going to be raised the third day. He was telling them He was going to be put to death. And Peter said, no, no, no. Not you, Lord. Nothing's going to happen to you. Now, Peter was saying that very innocently.

He didn't want anything to happen to Christ. Who would want their friend, someone who you respected, someone who you saw as the Son of God, why would you want them to die? Remember what Christ did? He rebuked Peter and He said, get away from me, Satan. It's God's will that this will happen. It may not be what you want, Peter.

It may not be the way you wrote the script, but that's the way it was planned. And that's the way it's going to be done. And Peter learned a lesson, and I'm sure he was smarting at that incident. But I'm sure he thought about it, he meditated about it, he prayed about it, and God showed him we have to submit to God's will. It may not be what we want. It may not be the way we would want it done. It may not be the easiest thing for us.

It's the way God is going to have it done, and His will is supreme, and we yield to it. And we pray for it, because we know He is the one with all the answers. We know He is the one who will save humanity from itself. We know He is the one who will usher in the society, the civilization, the government, that will save mankind from extinction, but also show mankind just how good life can be in the absence of all the evil influences that we have among us today.

Pray for His will to be done. And when we pray, recognize that will. Not that we pray that God would change the plan and say, you know, could we just have it this way instead of that?

You know, as I was putting this together, I was thinking about Christ and all the prayers that He must have prayed to God during His life. And how every single one of them was answered. We talked about how every single person that was brought to Him, He healed them. He did all those miracles. He prayed to God. He was involved with them. He was that close with Him in a relationship. And He was just that type of person that God was going to give His Son everything that He asked. But there was one time that God didn't answer Christ's prayer. Remember when that was? Or He didn't answer His prayer with a yes. It was when Christ prayed on the night of His arrest. And as He, as a human, sat there and looked face to face at the agony that He was going to endure over the next day, the next 18 hours or whatever it was. And He knew the pain that He was going to endure as He was going to be scourged. He knew those prophecies. He knew what He was going to go through. He knew He was going to be nailed to the stake, the cross. He knew He was going to die an awful death. And as He looked at it just as you and I would, He prayed, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from Me. Remember that? Now, a loving Father, a loving Father wanted to say, yes. Yes, we will let that pass from you, but He couldn't, because it wasn't the will of God. It wasn't the plan that Jesus Christ Himself as God, with God the Father, ordained for this earth. It was going to happen exactly as they had planned. They had agreed. What Christ asked wasn't a sin that He asked. Any human would ask that He was responding and showing us that what it was going to be like for Him. But God said, no, that's not according to My will. If you pray something not according to My will, I'm not going to give it. And so our prayers, Thy will be done. We come to understand God's will. We come to understand His plan. And as we pray to Him, we can ask Him, let us know more of it. Let us know Your will, that what we are asking is in accordance with Your will and not ours. Your will be done. John said, if anyone is a worshipper of God and does His will, He hears Him. Back in 1 John 5. 1 John 5, verse 14.

Now, this is the confidence, the faith, the belief. This is the confidence that we have in Him. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. If we ask anything of His will, He hears us. Know what God's will is. Know what His will in your life is.

Ongoing repentance, working toward perfection, yielding to Him, allowing Him to create in you a clean heart, just like David prayed back in Psalm 51.

Let's go back to 1 John 2, verse 4. 1 John 2, verse 4. He who says, I know Him, and doesn't keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him. We have to come to know God.

And you know we know more about God with each passing year of our lives. We come more and more to see Him as a loving Father, a merciful Father. We see the wisdom in His plan. We see the wisdom in His way of life. We understand that if people were to live this way, how good life would be for everyone. And all the upsets, all the trials, all the misery of this life that we bring upon each other because people don't live by His law would disappear.

God wants a relationship with us. And it's true prayer, and a prayer that is growing over time, a prayer where we recognize these things that God wants to see in us as His children, that we get to know Him. We talk to Him, but you know in your prayer He responds.

By the thoughts that come in your mind, the things that you understand, that when you pray and by the end of that prayer you know what the answer is. You have the understanding. You know that God is listening, and you come to know God.

Back in John 15. John 15. Again, in Christ's final words to His disciples before He was arrested and crucified. In verse 7 He said this, John 15. Verse 7, If you abide in Me, if you abide in Me, if you make your home with Me, if you get to know Me, if you make Me part, an intimate part of your life, and My words abide in you. Because prayer goes hand in hand with Bible study. I haven't talked much about that, but that goes without saying. We can discuss that another time. If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, if they become part of you, they live, they direct your life. You will ask what you desire, and it will be done for you.

Another point. Grow in your relationship with God. Let Him live in you. Abide with Him. Make Him your bosom buddy. Make Him the reading. Get to know Him. Don't just read words, but ask Him to help you understand Him.

Ask in faith. Ask in belief. Obey. Do the other things that we've talked about. Grow in that way. One other last thing that we'll talk about today. We find a chapter back here in chapter 14 of John.

John 14, verse 13.

He says, Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.

Asking God in the name of Jesus Christ.

You heard the opening prayer? Every opening prayer, every closing prayer you hear at a Sabbath service, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Your prayers, when you finish them, you say, in the name, or by the authority of Jesus Christ, amen.

In His name.

What did Christ mean when He said, pray in His name? Did He mean, this is just your standard closing? Just say those words, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

What is a name? What is a name?

When you hear My name, there are some things that probably conjure up in your mind. I hope most of them are good. When I hear your name, there are things that pop up in My mind.

When we hear other people's names, there are things that we think of. They kind of have a reputation. They kind of have something we use. The people we know or we come to know, we don't think of just their name. We think of who they are. We think of what they stand for. We think of what they're like. Back in Proverbs, Solomon addressed this concept of a name. Proverbs 22 verse 1.

They may not agree with everything that you do, but they know that you're dedicated and sincere in what you do it. And for that, they respect you, that you have the least and you stand up for what you believe. A good name is to be favored or chosen rather than great riches.

One book over in Ecclesiastes, Solomon repeated. Ecclesiastes 7 verse 1.

People come to know the name stands for something. There's nothing in the magic in our first and last name. It's who we stand for or what we stand for.

So if our name means something, what does the name Jesus Christ mean?

It means more than anything we can even define, doesn't it?

His name means salvation. His name means eternity. His name means forgiveness of sin. His name means perfection. He is the standard to which we all adhere and we all want to live up to. His name. His name, what He did on earth.

That's the only name through which salvation comes.

His name is all authority. Remember what Christ said in Matthew 28 verse 19? He said, All authority is given to Me in heaven and earth. All authority.

And He says, when you pray to God the Father, pray in My name. And your prayer, or maybe even begin your prayer. What's the thought that you are coming to God in Christ's name as His representative with Him by your side?

And you know, I have thought and I have thought and I have meditated on this. And there is just no good words.

I don't think there's any English words to explain really what His name means.

The closest thing I could come to when I was trying to come up with an analogy is from the old movies, and you'll remember this. Remember when the sheriff comes by and he says, Stop! In the name of the law.

And when we hear that, we think, Oh, in the name of the law? Well, if you say, In the name of the law, I'd better stop.

And I know some of you are thinking about Diana Ross right now, aren't you? She had a take on that as well.

But when we hear, Stop! In the name of the law, we know, Hey, the law bears authority. We'd better stop.

If we don't stop and pay attention to that, we could find ourselves in deep trouble.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

I don't know. I don't know how long it will be before we understand the significance of that.

But with all the things that you take home today and the notes you've taken, meditate on that one, too.

Understand that when we say those words, in His name we pray. Amen. Just what that means.

We're coming by His authority. And what God is looking for and what Christ is looking for are people who are looking to be like Him who are His disciples.

Who are really trying and really giving themselves to God.

And when we are, when we come before God in prayer, in a prayer that reflects to Him what our lives are about.

That we believe that we obey, that we are caring for each other, that we're growing in all those traits, that we are doing and submitting to His will.

All those things we've talked about, how powerful is that to God? When He sees that in our hearts as well as the words that we bring to Him. In His name.

You know, as I was looking around for some quotes, I came across one, where the man said that prayer is really the reflection of the Christian's life.

And just like that model prayer that we talked about, actually the exact load is, all the Christian virtues are locked up in the word prayer.

And that's true, isn't it? All the Christian virtues are locked up in the word prayer.

If we're coming before God, if we understand what prayer means, if we come to Him and He sees in our heart that we are really living our lives that way.

With Christ by our side, praying in His name, with Him standing right there saying, Yes! Yes! This is a disciple of mine. God's going to listen. So take these home. Think about it. Think about prayer, something we do every day. Meditate on it.

If there's anything you don't understand in there, ask God to help you in your understanding of it.

He wants to help. Remember, He wants every single person here to receive eternal life. He wants every single person to be in His kingdom.

He won't withhold anything when it's asked for the right reason. Ask.

I'll just conclude with Luke 11, verse 1. Lord, teach us to pray.