Secrets to Answered Prayer: How to Get the Most Out of Your Prayers

Hey, everybody. You're listening to A New Beginning, which is a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners. If this program has impacted you, I'd love to hear from you. So just send an email to me at gregg.harvest.org. Again, it's gregg.harvest.org.

You can learn more about becoming a Harvest Partner by going to harvest.org. Our prayers are answered effectively, right? Yes, no, or wait. We don't like no, generally. We usually are happy with yes. We definitely don't like wait. But is there anything we can do to see our prayers answered more often in the affirmative?

I believe there is. So I want to talk to you about secrets to having your prayers answered in the affirmative. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. Again, you hear all the angels are singing. This is the day, the day where life begins. Prayer is one of our most important privileges and one of our most powerful tools. Yet many of us don't feel like we've maximized our prayer lives. Well, today on A New Beginning, hopefully we'll all take a giant step forward. Pastor Greg Laurie looks in the Lord's model for prayer to bring us practical counsel we can all put to work today.

He's on the island of Maui today, having just visited and preached at one of the satellite campuses of his home church in Southern California. This is the day, the day where life begins. When we're going somewhere, maybe in a restaurant or here or there, I'll say now we can go the regular way or we can go the secret way. Which way do you want to go? They always say we want to go the secret way.

And I just take them in a side door or something. But I think we all like secrets. It reminds me of three psychiatrists that were at a convention and they were hanging out together and one of them said, you know, the problem is we hear everybody else's problems, but we don't have anyone that we can discuss our problems with. And wouldn't it be nice if we could all just share what we're struggling with? And hey, if we can't trust each other, who can we trust?

They all agree. So the first guy said, you know, here's my problem. I have a real issue with overspending. Oh, so I'm always spending too much money, so now I overbill my patients and they pay for it. The second guy said, oh, well, I have a problem with drugs.

In fact, I actually have my patients go out and buy me illegal drugs. The third guy said, oh, well, my problem is I can't keep secrets and I can't wait to get out of this place. And guess what? God has some secrets too. In fact, the Bible says the secret of the Lord is with those that fear him.

Now in a way they're not really secrets because they're playing in the pages of the Bible, but I think for some they might seem like a secret because they've never heard these things before. So I want to talk to you in this message about secrets to having your prayers answered. Listen, in the affirmative. You know, all prayers are answered effectively, right?

Yes, no, or wait. We don't like no generally. We usually are happy with yes. We definitely don't like wait. But is there anything we can do to see our prayers answered more often in the affirmative?

I believe there is. So I want to talk to you about secrets to having your prayers answered in the affirmative. Jesus said, after this manna therefore you should pray. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil or the evil one. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. I love that prayer. As I pointed out, it's not just a great prayer to pray.

It's a template for all prayer. Heard a story of a father and his little boy who were praying before bed and the dad said, son, go ahead and pray. And the little guy prayed, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

What? Why did you call God Howard? Well, dad, that's what they call him down at church, the little guy said. The father said, what are you talking about? The little boy said, they pray, our father who art in heaven, Howard be your name.

No, it's not Howard. It's hallowed. What does that mean? It means set apart, honored, and glorified be the name of the Lord. For us as followers of Jesus, we need to understand that when we come into God's presence, we need to just stop and recognize we're speaking to the all powerful, all knowing, all loving creator of the universe. I think if we will do that, it will change the way that we pray. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Just let it sink in for a moment. And then we pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Effectively, we're saying to the Lord, if what I'm about to pray violates your will in any way, shape, or form, I ask you to overrule it. One thing you'll discover after you've walked with the Lord for a time is God's plans are better than your plans. And his will is better than your will.

Remember Jesus there in the Garden of Gethsemane praying, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. He was submitting to the will of the Father.

He said, but yeah, but Greg, then he was beaten and crucified. Yes, and all the sins of the world were paid for. Sometimes the will of God doesn't look good in the moment, but in the big picture, you'll see that it really was good. I'm convinced when we get to heaven and look back on the events of earth from an eternal perspective, we'll see everything differently. I think perhaps things we thought were good on earth we'll determine later may not have been as good as we thought.

And things that we were sure were really bad on earth ultimately worked together for God's good. So never be afraid to commit your purpose and your future to God. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Then Jesus taught us to pray, give us this day our daily bread. Basically when we pray that prayer, we're acknowledging that everything that we have has come from God. And everything that we need in the future must continue to come from God. But now we come to the first secret to answered prayer. If you don't get this one right, nothing else really matters.

Here it is. He teaches us to pray, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. If I have unconfessed sin in my life, all of the prayers in the world will really accomplish nothing. God says it's not that my ear is heavy that I can't hear, it's not that my arm is short that I can't save, but your sins have separated you from me. The psalmist said if I regard or hang on to iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. If you don't confess your sins it's like you just hung your phone up on God.

There still may be relationship, that doesn't go away because that's given to you as a result of your believing in Jesus. But fellowship and communication can be severed temporarily, but it can be reconnected to the confession of sin. Some say, well I don't really know that I have any sins to confess.

We have to go back to the first part of the Lord's prayer, our Father who art in heaven. The more we see God in his glory, the more we'll see ourself and our sinfulness. So here's the point, we have to come and admit our sin and we have sin. You know I've kind of light colored pants on today and I always notice whenever I wear light pants I spill on myself more. But you know what I realize is I am always spilling on myself.

I just wear dark jeans normally and I don't see the stains. And I think you sin more than you think you sin because there are sins of commission and omission. A sin of commission of course is doing what you should not do. A sin of omission is not doing what you should do. So just trust me when I tell you it's a good thing on a regular basis, on a daily basis, and maybe even on an hourly basis to say forgive us our sin as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Coming up on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg explains there's an important principle to answered prayer found in a famous Broadway show. Think you know what it is?

That's coming up. I want you to know tonight one thing, God loves you. In a new book on the life of Billy Graham, Pastor Greg Laurie brings us a deeper appreciation for the man and his message. No matter what you've done, no matter how you've lived, no matter what the color of your skin, no matter what your racial background, no matter what language you speak, God loves you. And he wants to come into your life.

He wants to give you a new beginning. Billy built bridges to people and he always shared the gospel and he always emulated Christ and I think we can learn from his example. So I write about that and a lot more in this new book I've written called Billy Graham, The Man I Knew. It's an evangelist's look at the life of history's greatest evangelists. Get your copy of the new biography, Billy Graham, The Man I Knew.

Go to Harvest.org. We've caught up with Pastor Greg today in Hawaii. He often preaches at the satellite campus of Harvest Christian Fellowship on the island of Maui. And today he's bringing us insights on prayer. Okay, now principle number two for having your prayer answered in the affirmative, another secret.

This is a big one. You must forgive others. Let's go back to the Lord's Prayer again. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Now I think we're okay with the part about being forgiven by God.

Here's the big one. Are we willing to forgive other people? Listen, forgiven people need to be forgiving people. See, if you're not forgiven by God, then you're wracked with guilt. But if you don't forgive others, you're consumed by bitterness. Unforgiving people are bitter people. No one wants to hang around them because they're always upset and they're always ranting.

They dine out alone, you know, when the announcement is made, bitter party of one. You need to forgive. Is there someone right now that you need to forgive that has sinned against you? Here's what Jesus says. If you come and you bring your gift in the temple and you remember that someone has something against you, go to that person and seek reconciliation with them, then bring your gift to the altar.

Isn't that interesting? He's saying that they have something against you. You might say, well, that's their problem. Actually, no, it's kind of your problem too. You need to deal with it and you need to go to that person and you need to forgive them.

It was C.S. Lewis who once said, Forgiveness is a lovely idea until we have someone to forgive. You know, another way that verse is translated, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us, is forgive us our debt as we forgive those who are indebted to us. And actually, that's accurate because the word that is used there for sin also implies debt, and that's why it's often translated that way. First, we have to be forgiving of our debt. Listen, your debt is so high, there's no way you could ever pay it back, the debt of sin. That's why we all have to just basically go chapter 11 spiritually and declare complete bankruptcy and come in total dependence to God who will forgive us. In Colossians 3, it says that Christ canceled the debts that were against us, taking them out of the way, nailing them to the cross.

See, the Ten Commandments condemns you, it condemns me, we all fall short. And so Jesus took that debt that we owed and he paid it for us. He came to pay a debt he did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay.

So forgive us our debts, our sins, as we forgive those who are indebted to us or have sinned against us. You know, one of my favorite stories is called Les Miserables, written by Victor Hugo, many years ago, actually, and was made into a Broadway show and then later into a movie. So the main character of Les Miserables is Jean Valjean, and he's a good man and he has a sister who's starving, along with their children, so he steals a loaf of bread to feed them. He's arrested and he's sent to prison. And eventually he's released from prison, but he can't find employment anywhere and so he stops communicating with them. He violates Perrault and an arresting officer named Gilbert is sent after him.

In the most recent film, Gilbert was played by Russell Crowe, Jean Valjean played by Hugh Jackman. And so Jean Valjean finds shelter in a monastery and they're very generous to him. They give him a warm meal, they give him a bed, and the priest has compassion on Jean Valjean. Well, in the night, Jean Valjean sees these valuable candlesticks. He decides to steal them and he's arrested immediately, brought back to the monastery, and the priest sees his dilemma.

If he goes back to prison, he may never get out again. And the priest said, no, I gave those to Jean Valjean. Once the police leave, the priest gives Jean Valjean the two candlesticks he stole that are made out of silver. It says to him, you've been spared by God. Now go and make an honest man out of yourself. And in Hugo's book, the priest says, Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil but to good.

It is your soul I buy from you and I give it to God. So Jean Valjean has violated parole and he's being hunted by Jaber, played by Russell Crowe. And so Hugh Jackman is running from him. So basically we have Gladiator chasing the Wolverine, right? And they come to a point where Jean Valjean could have killed Russell Crowe, i.e.

Jaber, but he chooses not to do it. Jean Valjean establishes a new identity as the mayor of a town. A girl that worked for him named Fontine is fired and she turns to prostitution. She has a child as well. She's trying to support this child. The child's name is Cosette, so there on her deathbed, Jean Valjean promises to take care of Cosette, the child of Fontine, the prostitute.

And then he raises her up to be a wonderful young woman. But here's the thing, I love this story so much. It's a story of a man who was forgiven, so he forgave. And that's the thing, if we know anything about God's forgiveness, we should be forgiving people.

And yet there are people today, Christians even, that are harboring this anger toward other people. And here's the problem, it's eating you up more than it's eating them up. You know, harboring unforgiveness is like drinking rat poison and hoping the rat will die. It's killing you.

It's eating you up inside. So Jesus says, say to the Father, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Listen to this, when you forgive someone, you set a prisoner free yourself. You know, there's actually a new field of research that's been developed on the subject of forgiveness. And recent studies suggest that those who do not forgive are more likely to experience high blood pressure, bouts of depression, problems of anger, stress, and anxiety.

One expert said there's robust psychological differences between non-forgiving and forgiving people. They said forgiveness isn't giving into another person, it's getting free of that person. You know, after the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was asked why he made friends of his enemies. Someone said, you should not make friends of your enemies, you should destroy them.

And Lincoln responded, am I not destroying my enemies when I make them, my friends? See, this is about being free of it yourself and just letting it go. Quote the great theologian, Elsa, from the film Frozen, let it go. Just let it go and put it in God's hands. The Bible says, avenge not yourself.

Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Scripture also reminds us, be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven you. You say, but Greg, they don't deserve forgiveness.

Okay, maybe that's actually true. But here's my response, do you deserve forgiveness? Do I?

Answer, no we don't. So because I've been forgiven, I want to forgive. Forgiven people are forgiving people. Good insights today on the importance of forgiveness from Pastor Greg Laurie. And there's more insight yet to come on this subject here on A New Beginning. Hopefully you were able to hear all of today's insight.

But if you missed anything, you can hear what you missed online at harvest.org. Just look for the title, Secrets to Answered Prayer. Well, Pastor Greg, we're talking about Billy Graham. Of course, many of our listeners are reading your new book, Billy Graham, the Man I Knew.

And you've been revealing some surprises to us based on the content of the book. One of them is that he knew how to use media like few other people of his time. He used it not only to help spread the gospel, but to build a platform for his ministry. Yeah, and that started early on in his ministry when he was having a short stint as a pastor. He was on a radio program that was simply called Songs in the Night. That's where he met George Beverly Shea who went on to become his song leader at his crusades.

And they were a team of Billy, Bev as they called him, George Beverly Shea, Bev, and Cliff Barrows. But Billy understood the power of media. You know, Howard Stern likes to call himself the king of all media.

The fact is, Billy was the first king of all media. As his ministry was taking off, he went on radio. Now, we're used to hearing Christian radio. There were no Christian radio stations for the most part back then. But he was going out in major radio stations with his program called the Hour of Decision. Some of our listeners may even remember it.

This is what his show sounded like. The Hour of Decision. Let's go back in time.

Listen to this. The Hour of Decision. The greatest word in all the world is forgiveness. Are you forgiven? Are you sure of it?

Are you certain that God has forgiven you? But then he also was one of the pioneers of Christian television. I don't even know if you would call it Christian television. He was a Christian on television. But he would buy time in the major networks locally, nationally, and broadcast the gospel. And so many of us remember watching Billy Graham on TV.

I remember I was living with my grandparents in South Gate in California. And we would watch Billy Graham on our black and white television set. And if that wasn't enough, he also started a film studio in Hollywood called Worldwide Pictures. And they made films that they released in theaters. And they were beautiful films that always had an evangelistic message. In addition to that, he wrote a column called My Answer that ran six days a week in newspapers across the United States and reached 20 million people. He founded two monthly magazines, Christianity Today and Decision Magazine. And he also was an early adopter of satellite tech and the Internet. I remember I was with them in Puerto Rico for an event that they called Mission World.

And they took these satellite dishes and beamed them all around the planet. So Billy utilized all forms of media to reach as many people as he possibly could. So that's just one of the many things I bring out in this book that I wrote about Billy called Billy Graham, the Man I Knew. I also tell a lot of personal stories, conversations we had, things that he said to me, impressions I got from watching him up close and personal.

And I want to share that with you. I feel after you've read this book, you'll feel like you kind of knew Billy Graham as well. So if you want to order a copy, we're offering it right now for your gift of any size. Whatever you can send to support Harvest Ministries, we'll then send you in return a copy of Billy Graham, the Man I Knew. Now some of you can send a lot, and that's appreciated because we'll invest it in teaching the Bible and getting the gospel out here in a new beginning.

But some of you maybe can only send a little. We'll send you a copy as well. So order your copy of my brand new book, Billy Graham, the Man I Knew. Yeah, it's a landmark overview of Billy's life with exhaustive, painstaking research that literally took years.

In spite of how well Pastor Greg knew Billy personally, he found out so much more during that in-depth research. And you'll benefit from these deep insights, so we hope you'll get in touch for your own copy of Billy Graham, the Man I Knew. As Pastor Greg said, we'll send it to you to say thank you for your donation of any size. Thanks for your investment right now, and to thank you tangibly, we'll send you a copy of the new book, Billy Graham, the Man I Knew. And we hope you'll contact us soon. We'll only be able to mention this a short time longer. Just write a new beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514, or call 1-800-821-3300.

We're here to take your call around the clock at 1-800-821-3300, or just go online to harvest.org. Ever start your day off wrong? You know, things started badly and just kept going downhill. A lot of it has to do with your focus, where your mind is centered as the day starts. Why not plug into Pastor Greg's daily devotions?

They're free of charge. It's good encouragement to keep your eyes fixed on Christ. You can read each day's devotion or listen to the audio version, your choice. Sign up today free of charge at harvest.org. Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here, encouraging you to join us this weekend for what we call Harvest at Home. It's worship. It's a message from the Word of God.

You can watch it with your family in your front room, or you can watch it on the go, on your tablet, on your phone or your computer. Take it with you. Take the Word of God with you and join us for Harvest at Home at harvest.org. Well, next time, more of Pastor Greg's insights on seeing our prayers answered. Join us next time as we present the finale to Pastor Greg's series on the Lord's Prayer, here on A New Beginning. Visit our website at harvest.org.