How to Deal with Unanswered Prayer, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with Jiddy Greer. You see, when you and I stand with unrelenting, persistent boldness before the throne of God, and say, you are my only hope, and you can help, and I believe you will help, that brings glory to God. If you're praying, and you're praying, and you don't have an answer yet, don't give up. Welcome back to Summit Life with pastor, author, and teacher J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Okay, so have you ever knocked on the neighbor's door for a cup of sugar or an egg? No big deal, right? But what about in the middle of the night?

I mean, to knock on your neighbor's door in the middle of the night, you'd have to be pretty desperate, right? Well, it's a picture that pastor J.D. paints us today, showing us that's exactly how we should approach God in prayer, desperately, boldly, and persistently. If you'd like to get your set of the five things to pray books, visit us at jdgreer.com or call us at 866-335-5220. But for now, let's join pastor J.D.

in the Gospel of Luke. One of the ironic ways that we can trust in man is we can master biblical principles and think that those by themselves guarantee spiritual life. Jesus did not save us by teaching us principles.

He saved us by giving us resurrection power. It is a tragedy to master the principles and then forget the relationship that gives them life. Yes, you should learn the principles, but most of all, most of all, you should cast yourselves on the mercy of God in prayer.

That's where our hope is who will Himself lift us up and establish us. That realization by itself has enabled Veronica and me to have a more regular prayer time together. I mean, relatively speaking, I'm a fairly self-disciplined person, but for years, Veronica and I struggled to have a time where we consistently pray together. Even with all the self-discipline I could muster.

Now that we've got four kids approaching the teenage years, we pray together all the time. Seriously, it's not discipline, it's desperation. The core of effective prayer is desperation, not discipline. That's where the core is.

That's where you should be looking. And so let me just say this really practically before I move on to number two. Some of you should probably therefore focus less on setting a long morning prayer time and more on just teaching yourself to pray about everything because of how much you know you need God's help. Now, let me be clear, an established morning and or evening time is good. And of course, it's awesome if you do it for a long time, but I think it's even better to learn to pray over everything throughout the day. One of my prayer heroes used to say that he never in his life, listen to this, never in his life prayed for longer than 20 minutes. Yet he also, he said, I never went longer than 20 minutes without praying.

I think that's actually a healthier attitude than the person who prays for an hour out of self-discipline and then charges throughout the day without thinking much about their need constantly of the power of God. Maybe a long prayer time just doesn't work for you. You start praying and your mind starts wandering, right? Don't look at me like that, like you're so spiritual this don't happen. You start out praying for missionaries and you end up five minutes later thinking about stranger things, right? Or you kneel down to pray by your bed and you wake up two hours later. That happened to anybody?

Guilty right here. Maybe you need to write your prayers out. Maybe that's how you can stay focused. What I do on my phone, I have a, just a daily day by day list. And whenever I encounter something that overwhelms me or whenever I talk to somebody who just really has a need, I just open that little thing up and I jot their name down on a, on one of the days. And so I'm reminded to pray for them on that day. When I'm really concerned about somebody, I put their name down on that day.

Some of your names are on that list by the way, right now. I just put it down because I'm trying to keep myself focused and disciplined. Some of you like to sing. Maybe you could sing your prayers to God. Others of you, you can't sing worth a lick. And God would probably say, please don't sing your prayers to me.

You'll want to stick to writing. Some of you, how about this one? Some of you should, should listen.

You're going to reject this, but I'm totally correct. You should pray out loud when you pray, even when you're by yourself and you're like, oh, but I feel weird. Every prayer Jesus prayed in the new Testament, every single one that I can find, he prays out loud. So get over yourself and talk out loud because it will help you understand. This is a conversation with God and it'll keep you focused.

Point is the form is less important. Prayer at its core is a desperate conversation with your heavenly father, where you lay before him all that you need, all that you're afraid of, all you're overwhelmed by, all you're worried about, all you can't handle, all that you are in desperation for, and you just confess to him how much you need him. Number two, from these stories, Jesus teaches us that we should pray, not just desperately, but boldly. The two people in Jesus's parable come with extravagant, huge requests. And then Jesus says, if this is how they came to a stingy friend or an unrighteous judge, how much more boldly should you come to your heavenly father? As I noted, these two stories that Jesus told are comedic for their hyperbole. No, Jesus is not comparing God to a slumbering friend or an unjust judge. Jesus is contrasting him with one. This woman approached the judge as a stranger. We, by contrast, come as beloved children of God.

She had no right to claim in court. We have the blood of Jesus, by which we come boldly before the throne of grace. The judge that we approach is not one who doesn't care about justice or us. No, the judge we approach as a father who cared so much about us that he got out of the judge's chair and satisfied the demands of justice for us so he could share with us the riches of his kingdom. The friend that we approach is not asleep.

No, he never slumbers asleep. And he says he's so attentive to us that not a hair falls from my head or a sparrow falls from the sky without his intimate knowledge, a friend who not only gives us bread from his cover, but gives us the bread of his own torn flesh. And when you understand that, you will pray boldly. You know who most naturally approaches me boldly at any time they have a need? Who is it?

You know who it is. My children. I open my eyes at 3am and there's two little eyes staring at my eyes right there. And the request is, dad, I need some water. Now, seriously, imagine if anybody else did that, right? If you show up in my house at 3am, stand by my bed, say I need some water, one of us is going to jail, right?

Or the hospital or something, right? I mean, even if my wife did that, you know, if I open up my eyes at 3am, she's like, I need some water. I'd be like, get it yourself, right? I mean, but when I open my eyes and there's one of my kids standing there and they're like, dad, get me some water. I do what any good dad would do.

I'm like, your mom is right there. So I had her to help you. No, no, of course I help them. But the point is my kids approach me with undaunted confidence in my goodness and my willingness to help them. That's how God tells us to approach him.

We are like children who are welcomed right into their daddy's bedroom at whatever hour of the night and with whatever need that we have. I mean, look at how he presses this point home in Luke 11, 13. He's going to keep going.

This is all one extended teaching on prayer. After the story, he says, if you who are evil love to give good gifts to your children, now stop there for a minute. Why does he use the word evil in this context? Is he just like gratuitously insulting us? Oh, by the way, you stink.

Now, why did he pick out that? Here's why. In this context, most of us would probably be at our best and most generous with our children. Even if you're stingy in every other area of your life with your kids, you're probably generous. And Jesus says, here you are at your very best with your kids.

Even if you're a stingy jerk everywhere else, you're good to your kids. Yet even at your best moment at your most generous compared to God's tenderness and generosity to his kids, you're still evil. So if you would give your kids what they need and you're evil, don't you think your heavenly father who is nothing but good all the way through, don't you think that he'll give you what you need when you come to him?

Here's my question. What was your prayers for others? And what would your prayers for you look like? What would your prayers for your family look like if you really believe God had that kind of love that he says that he has for you and for the world? And I give you the answer, you'd pray boldly, right?

Which leads me to number three. You'd also, number three, pray persistently. Persistently, if anything, my kids know how to wear me out. Isn't that right, parents? By asking me repeatedly for my children, no is not an answer. No is an invitation to an extended negotiation in which I almost always crumble simply because I can't stand the siege mentality, right? It's just, okay, just be quiet. I'll give it to you. And as we saw, Jesus makes clear in these parables that the reason God answers these requests is because of the persistence of the one asking.

Hey, by the way, here's a little insight. All of Jesus' parables that he teaches us about prayer, all of them in the New Testament, are stories where adults act like children. So chapter 11, verse eight, it is because of his impudence. Impudence is a good word to describe our kids. Chapter 18, verse five, because of her continual coming.

Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, right? The answer was given. The rest of the scripture bears this out as well. Acts 11 tells us the church prayed all night for the release of Peter. In other words, they didn't just mention it one time in a prayer meeting and then pick up a John Piper book and meditate on the sovereignty of God. They prayed until Peter was released.

Paul understood this. In at least one place in scripture, Paul literally had to be told to stop asking for something. He said, God, take this away. God, take this away. God, take this away. And finally, God sends an angel, 2 Corinthians 12, nine, and says, Paul, cut it out.

Okay? God's not going to answer this request the way that you think, because he's got a purpose for that. One of my favorite scenes in the Old Testament, Exodus 17, the children of Israel are in battle and Moses somehow figures out that when his hands are up in prayer, they win. And when his hands go down, they lose. By the way, it makes me wonder, how did he figure that out? And what did he do when he figured that out?

Was he like, you know, was he testing it by going like this and like, you know, sort of like, I don't know, but the point it's a very graphic picture. Is it not when our hands are up in prayer, God's given the victory. And when they're not, God's not given the victory. The point is this, if he's not answering, keep praying. Listen, I know, I know, I know.

Some of you right now want to point out all the exceptions. Yeah, yeah. But one time I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and God didn't give it. I never got that.

I really do. Jesus gets that. I mean, John chapter 11, Mary and Martha pray for their brother Lazarus not to die. And Jesus lets him die and shows up and tells Mary and Martha that God let this happen because God had a greater plan.

So yes, Jesus is aware of the exceptions. But here in Luke 11, Jesus is saying to his disciples, listen, you asked me how to pray. So I'm telling you how to pray.

Don't let go until you absolutely have to. This is Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. We'll return for the conclusion of our message in just a moment, but I wanted to remind you to contact us right away for our latest resource. Deep down, I think many of us really don't feel like prayer makes a difference.

And even more, we then don't realize the love that God has for us and wants to shower us with. So this month, we are offering a bundle of resources to help make praying regularly a little easier. It's three books, each called Five Things to Pray. They cover how to pray for your city and community, how to pray for your kids, and how to effectively pray for your parents. Grow in this most important discipline right now by supporting the ministry of Summit Life with a gift today.

Give us a call at 866-335-5220 or visit us online at jdgreer.com. Thanks for being with us today. Now let's get back to the final moments of our teaching. Here's Pastor JD. Now you say, why does God work that way?

Why not give it to me the first time I ask? I don't know, but that is clearly what he is teaching. I do have a guess.

Here's my guess, and I think it's right. God is glorified through our persistent boldness. I mean, these people in Jesus's parable have one absolute conviction, right?

What is the one conviction that drives these two people? You can help me and you will help me. And I'm not going anywhere else because nobody else can help me. So I'm going to stand right here because you're my only hope. And when you and I demonstrate that about God through persistent unrelenting prayer, that glorifies God and he gives our request. I remind you here of the story I often tell you guys about Alexander the Great.

Supposedly a true story. I don't know if it is or not, but Alexander the Great at the end of his life, one of his generals comes to him, says, I've served you faithfully for 40 years now. I have one request. I've never asked you for anything. Alexander said, okay, what is it? He said, I want you to pay for my daughter's wedding. And Alexander said, you've been a great general.

I will happily pay for your wedding. Go talk to my treasurer. Treasurer comes back to Alexander a couple of days later, says, you need to punish this general. And he says, why?

He said, because he is trying to take advantage of you. He is requesting funds for the largest wedding Greece will ever have seen. I think he invited everybody. He wants ice sculptures and Justin Bieber is going to show up and give a concert.

Nick Cage is making an appearance and it's just exorbitant. He has taken advantage of your generosity. You should punish him. The story goes that Alexander thought for a minute and then he said, nope, nope. I want you to give him everything he's asking. And the treasurer said, why? He said, because my general is paying me two compliments. Compliment number one is he thinks I'm wealthy enough that I can afford this. Compliment number two, he thinks I'm actually generous enough that I'll do it.

And I love the reputation of being wealthy and generous. So I will give him his request because my general honors me. You see when you and I stand with unrelenting persistent boldness before the throne of God and say, you are my only hope and you can help. And I believe you will help. That brings glory to God.

So if you are not hearing anything else from me this weekend, hear this. If you're praying and you're praying and you don't have an answer yet, don't give up. How many, I haven't been a pastor this long, okay.

I've only been a pastor for less than two decades. And already I can tell you stories of faithful men and women who have prayed and prayed and prayed for things that seemed impossible. And at the last minute, at the end or years later, something happens.

It's just amazing when you see it happen. I mean, every once in a while, maybe more than every once in a while, God responds. God responds to one of those. I'm just not going to give up. I'm going to keep asking and seeking and knocking and asking and seeking and knocking until you answer.

He responds to one of those. There are so many stories right here from our own church. One that from a book that I read years ago, George Mueller, who wrote one of the most influential books on prayer and Christian history tells a story about when he was a man, probably about my age, maybe a little bit younger, committing to pray for five young men, friends of one of his sons. He committed to pray for them every day until they became believers.

So they got saved every day, right? He prayed for 18 months before the first one came to faith in Christ. In his journal, after the first one came to Christ, he says, I praise God for the answer, but there were four more left, so I kept going. Five years, the second one came to Christ. After five years, more years. After six more years, the third one came to Christ. He's like, praise God, we got three of the five, but there's two left. 36 years later, 36 years later, he's an old man.

He writes this in his journal, right? The last two were still not converted, but I hope in God and I pray on and I look for the answer. They are not converted yet, but by God's grace, I believe they will be. Then in 1897, 52 years after he started praying, the final two were brought to faith in Christ. By the way, a few years after George Mueller died, Luke 18 one, Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

Some of you got a brother or a father or a daughter or a friend or a son or a roommate that has not yet become a believer. If you hear anything from me, hear this from the bottom of my heart. Don't give up.

Don't give up. Pray persistently. Well, finally, Jesus teaches us that we should pray.

Number four, trustingly. We pray trustedly. After the parable in Luke 11, Jesus acknowledges that there are indeed some times we don't receive the answers that we think we ought to have. And Jesus says, I know that happens sometimes. And I want you to know that it's not because God doesn't love you and it's not because God is not listening. It is because God, your father has a greater plan. I love how Jesus explains this.

Watch this. Again, this is all part of the same teaching on prayer. Luke 11, 13. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, one side of that fish, give him a serpent. Or if your son asks for an egg, we give him a scorpion. You parents, right? You ever do this? Your kid comes to you and says, hey dad, I'm hungry. Can I have a chicken nugget?

You're like, sure. Close your eyes and hold out your hand. And you put in their hand a scorpion.

Anybody do that? No, you're a parent. You love your kid. You only give your kids good gifts. Say it is the same with God. Now let's reverse that.

Cause I think this is what Jesus is teaching. What if your child parents comes to you and asks for a scorpion? What if they're like, dad, I need a scorpion to eat.

What am I going to do? Oh, sure. Here you go. You asked for a scorpion. Here's a scorpion.

No, I'm going to say, here's a chicken nugget, right? You want a scorpion. You don't want a scorpion. You want a chicken nugget.

And that's what I'm going to give you. You see sometimes, listen, sometimes what looks to us like bread is actually a scorpion. And sometimes what looks to us like a scorpion is actually bread. I mean, think of the cross. If there were ever anything that looked like a scorpion, it was the cross.

Yeah, the cross was the greatest act of our salvation ever happening on earth. So it makes sense that there are some times that I'm like, God, that's a scorpion. I don't want it. And God says, that's exactly what you need. Here is something I've held onto throughout times of unanswered prayer.

It's a statement I've given you before. Sometimes God answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for if we knew what he knew. Sometimes God says, I know you're asking for that, but that's not, that's not bread.

That's a scorpion. And I'm going to give you this. I don't know how to answer all of your questions about why God did or did not answer a particular prayer. Some of you say, well, my dad died. My parents got divorced. I got abused. I know, I know.

We'll come back to that in a couple of weeks. What I do know is that you have a heavenly father that you can always trust. Who says Psalm 84, 11, that no good thing will he ever withhold from those who walk uprightly before him.

No good thing will he withhold. All that he gives to you is good. And he proved that when he died on the cross for you. And he showed you in the cross that whatever is happening in your life, it's not because he's forgotten you or not because he doesn't love you. He is working in all things in your life.

Every cross, every seeming scorpion, he is working for your good. Sometimes God delays an answer because there's something in us that God wants to change. For example, how many stories do we know of, of parents who prayed and prayed and prayed for a wayward child. And after months or years, the parent comes back and says, we realized that we were the ones whose hearts needed to change.

In fact, I know of one who was like, no wonder my son left. No wonder my daughter left, but it was in praying and grappling with God. It was in declaring God, why don't you hear me?

Why won't you change his heart? It was in that unanswered prayer, seemingly unanswered prayer that God revealed to me how I needed to change. That may be what God is doing. I don't know. I'm not saying it's always what he's doing, but see at the end of the day, the word that we say in our prayer that is supposed to begin every prayer, the word Jesus said should start every prayer word we'll delve into and more depth is the word father.

My kids asked me a lot of things. Some things I give to them, some things I don't give to them. Not in spite of the fact that I love them, but because I love them, I don't give them that, but I am always working for their good, even more so with your heavenly father. I want you to commit to pray desperately, boldly, persistently and trustingly because some at church, my conviction is this. God wants to do great things in this church.

I mean, praise God. We've already seen some great things, right? So hundreds of people come to faith in Christ, planted 43 churches here in the United States over the last decade. We sent out right out a thousand people on church planting teams, but I still feel like we're leaving a lot on the table.

I mean, we live here in the triangle, one of the fastest growing and most strategic places in the United States. Every year, people from around the world pour into this place, internationals, movers and shakers from around the country. They come to college here.

They start their professions here. We got a lot of people to impact for the gospel. A lot of you have friends and family who have yet to be impacted by the gospel. And I want you to know that God did not simply call us to manage a respectable church, to get a nice little institution that we feel comfortable in.

He gave this church the commission to charge the gates of hell. He told us to cast our nets so wide that we would take in so many people who are coming to Jesus that the nets of this church would break. So let me just close all this by asking you directly, what about you? What are your prayers about? Are you one of those people who praise those trite little housekeeping prayers?

Oh God, help me with the job and help me with the test and God give us traveling mercies and just be with us Lord in Jesus' name. Amen. Are you praying big things for God's kingdom, things that are in line with Jesus' sacrifice for the world? What are you so passionate about for God's kingdom that you're just like, I'm not letting go and I'm going to stay here and I'm going to keep praying until heaven listens. Because I'm telling you, if you're not praying this way, if all you're doing is praying these trite little prayers out of discipline and not bold prayers out of desperation, then I can tell you that you're missing out on an opportunity to see something God, God do something great in this world through you and your family and your circle and through this church. Why don't you bow your heads if you would.

Which of these four characteristics do you struggle with the most? Desperately, is that kind of where you are? Let me just be honest, you're like, I don't pray because I'm quietly confident that given enough energy and time, I can figure out what I need to figure out. Maybe you just need to repent of that this morning. Boldly, is it you're just unsure about whether you got a heavenly father who's listening?

I mean, this is an easy answer for me. God has declared his love for you on the cross and you just embrace it, receive it. And if he didn't spare his own son when you were his enemy, how much more will he not give you everything you need now that you're his child? Persistently, if you've given up, if you stop praying for somebody and you just need to say, God, I'm not letting this one go.

I'm not letting go. In this new series, we'll see that the gospel of Jesus not only teaches us how to pray with boldness, desperation, and trust, but it also shows us a God who is eager to listen and ready to answer. So JD, how can we know what to pray? For instance, in one of our new resources this month, we learn how to pray for our cities.

Why is that important? And what is it going to teach us? I start with the assumption, Molly, that a lot of us sit down to pray and basically it comes out, you know, God bless all the missionaries and everyone everywhere. Amen. We don't exactly know what to pray. And so for me in my own life, having a kind of a clear map of categories I'm praying for and then scriptural instruction about what to pray for those things has been very, very helpful.

This particular one on cities, your city that you live in, even if it's a small town, it's full of people with needs. This will help you pray for the lost in your city. It'll help you pray against the injustices there. It will also help you celebrate the good things God is doing in your city. And, you know, prayer is one of the best ways of discipling yourself in the scriptures because as you pray, you learn to think rightly about about the world that you live in. It's how to pray for your city book that's a part of, you know, two others that we're giving about your kids and how to pray for your parents.

It's something I think will really, really help you to that end. This bundle of prayer books comes with our thanks when you donate to support this ministry right now. The suggested giving level is $35 or more, and every penny you donate is used to advance the gospel message through this ministry. Give today and ask for your set of five things to pray books when you call us at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. It's even easier to give on our website at JDGrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Join Pastor JD next time as he continues teaching us how to pray. We'll see you next week, right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.