Requirements for Answered Prayer

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, January 26th. God promises to hear and respond to prayer, but there are a couple of things to know about approaching Him on His terms. Here's more on the requirements for answered prayer. I want us to look at this 14th chapter of John, and I want to talk about the requirements for answered prayer, and not just these prayers, but all prayers.

And so the first one here is complete dependence upon the merits and mediation of Christ as the only ground of any claim for blessing. And so I want you to look in John chapter 14 and this 13th and 14th verses. Following what He said about greater works than these shall you do, He said in verse 13, and whatever you ask in My name, He says that I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son. That is the Father, He says, will be glorified in His Son as He answers our prayer. Listen, if you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. He says if you ask anything in My name, now the unbeliever can't ask anything but mercy and forgiveness for their sin as they trust the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior. When you and I come to make a request before God, the only grounds upon which you and I can come is not our righteousness, not our good conduct. You and I can't come to Him and say, Lord, but I've done this and I've done these things over here and I've done all this, therefore you should answer My prayer.

No. The only basis for answered prayer is the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that He is the one who has accepted us and He is the one who is interceding before us at the Father's right hand. Our basis for answered prayer is who Jesus Christ is, the Son of God, what He's promised in His Word, and who He is within us.

Our righteousness is only to be found in the presence of Jesus Christ who lives inside of us. So the only ground for any claim of answered prayer is that we're coming through Him. He said, whatever you ask in My name that is coming through Him, that I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. To ask it in His name, of course, would be to ask those things that would be in keeping with the character and the nature of Jesus Christ.

Well, there's a second thing I want you to notice here. The second reason here is separation from all known sin. Now Psalm 66 18, look at that for just a moment. Psalm 66 18 says very clearly in this particular passage and there are others that relate to it. He says if I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear. To regard wickedness in my heart does not mean that a person that they sin, God will not hear their prayer. But if we sin and deliberately willfully continue in sin, that is if I regard it, if I hold on to it, He says He will not hear and answer our prayer. And one of the primary reasons is I don't believe that we can continually live in sin and at the same time have the kind of faith that we need to ask God and really anticipate and expect God to hear and answer our prayer. Well, there's a third thing I want you to notice here.

A third very important reason and that's this. He says if you will ask in my name, I will do it. But listen, faith in God's word of promise as confirmed by His oath. He says in the 13th verse of Hebrews chapter 6, for when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself saying, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you. God said to Abraham, He made him an unconditional promise. He didn't say, now if you do this and so on, if you do that, this is an unconditional covenant promise that God made. And He said, I will multiply you and thus having patiently waited he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves and with them an oath given as a confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way, God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose interposed with an oath. He said, look, God is going to demonstrate that He is unchangeable in His promise. If He makes an unconditional promise, for example, here is one. He says, if we place our trust in Jesus Christ as personal Savior, we're saved. That is a conditioned promise. A person is saved upon what condition?

Expressing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But He said to Abraham, I am going to bless all the nations of the earth through you. He didn't say conditioned upon anything. There are few unconditional promises. Most of them are conditional promises. As we in our Christian life look at our life and look at the way we live our life daily and the promises of God and answer prayer, most all of those are conditioned upon our response, our faith, our conduct and so forth. But God makes unconditioned promises.

Now, here's what He said. This is unconditional on the other hand, that God says, if you do this, here's what I'm going to do. While it is conditioned upon what we do, God has said, here's the oath. He says, if you obey Me, this is what I'll do. If you ask anything in My name, I will answer you. He says, if you ask anything according to My will, I will do it. So we have the promises of God, and therefore we can come to Him with strong faith for the simple reason we know that God isn't going to make a promise that He is going to fail to keep. If you and I come to Him asking anything according to His will, we can rest assured and expect God and anticipate Him to answer our prayer. So He says, verse 18, in order that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge and laying hold of the hope set before us, this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

Now, the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross, went to the presence of the Father. All of us who've trusted Him as our personal Savior have to become His children. As His children, we have the oath of God that He is living on the inside of us. He will never desert us nor forsake us.

We have an oath from God. If we meet certain conditions, He is going to hear and answer our prayer. We can come to Him, and this is why He says, come boldly before the throne of grace.

Why? He says that's where we'll find help and mercy in time of need, because God always honors the faith of His children. If we expect God to hear and answer our prayer, we must come to Him in faith with anticipation. We must come to Him with a pure heart. And we must come to Him on the basis that our answer is not on the basis of anything found within us, but ultimately on who Jesus Christ is, seated at the Father's right hand, making intercession for us. Well, there's a fourth thing I want you to notice here, and that is a very important one, and that is asking in accordance with His will.

And if you just turn to one passage, 1 John, look at that for a moment, chapter 5 is the verse. And in these verses, He says, this is the confidence, the boldness, the assurance, however you want to interpret that, it's all the same. This is the confidence, the boldness, the assurance which we have found before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, in whatever we ask, we know that we have, that we possess at that very moment the request which we have asked from Him. Now, first of all, He says, we must ask according to His will. You say, well, how do we know a certain thing is the will of God?

Well, some things are very clear in the Scripture. If I pray for someone to be saved, I know that's the will of God. You say, well, does everybody, is everybody saved that we pray for?

No, because God has given them a certain amount of free will. There are other things that I can pray for that has nothing to do with anybody else's free will that I know is God's will that I am certain God is going to hear and answer that prayer. He doesn't always answer it when we expect which we're coming to that in just a moment. But He says here in this promise, listen, this is the confidence that we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, which means you and I must learn how to discern the will of God. And to discern the will of God is to find the mind of God in a certain thing.

Well, one of the ways you go about that is to get in the Word of God and ask Him. Now, look, don't find some favorite passage and say, aha, here's what God says. That's perfectly fine. Thank you very much, Lord.

I'll move on with that. All of us have some favorite verses. If we really and truly want to find the will of God, we'll get in the Word and ask God to search our heart.

And here's what I found so often. When I really and truly want to find the will of God, God doesn't start out by showing me His will. He starts out by making me examine myself. And as I begin to examine myself, I have to say, well, now, what's my motive? And second, how does this fit into God's plan?

How does this fit into my life? How does this fit into God's purpose? Would this be in keeping with His will?

Would this fit His plan? And so what happens is that God, as we begin to seek His will, what He does is He allows us to sift all the pros and cons. And somebody says, well, you put all the pros on one side and the cons on the other, you can. Is that the way you find the will of God?

No, but that's just one step. Because God knows that you and I naturally want to do the right thing. We think about all the reasons we should have this or ought to do this and all the reasons we should not. And so as we begin to sift them out, here's what happens.

At first of all, you've got ten reasons you should and should not. Then what happens is that little by little as we pray, God begins to give us discernment. So what does He do? He shows us that that's not important. This one's not important. This one's not important. Well, this one's not important. That certainly is not important. This one's not.

This one's not. And finally, you end up with the right one. What does He do? He gives us in a process of elimination. He will show us what is really vital, what is a priority, what fits your self, what fits His purpose, what is the will of God. And so as you go through the process of eliminating those things that are not essential, we finally come up with the one basic thing.

God, this is the most important thing of all. And if this is the essential thing, then this has to be your will. And God will gently lead us to discover His will. And He says when we know it, He says if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have it.

Now, listen, that is a present tense. Not that we're going to have it, but when we ask according to His will, we know that we have, that is, I have already by faith exactly what I've asked for. Now, I must live it out in God's time and wait.

Now, here's what I've discovered, at least one principle in a way. When you go through a very difficult time finding the Lord's will, and you say, well, God, why all this struggle? Oftentimes that's because He knows that you're going to be in the middle of something, that you're going to desperately need to know for sure that you're right where God put you. When He knows that you need to know it crystal clear, I do believe that God will move heaven and earth to make His will known to you. And so when you and I come to discover His will, which is usually the biggest problem we have in coming to Him for answered prayer. I mean, you know, we can get our life cleaned up. We can find the Scriptures and search the Word of God.

And we can trust Him. And sometimes it's finding His will. And so that's the reason I spend the time here. How do you find the will of God?

And I want to say again, it depends upon what the situation is. But oftentimes you can just, and I think writing things out on a sheet of paper are very good to find it and say, Lord, this is what this looks like and this is what this appears here. And one by one, God will lead you and bring you. Sometimes it may be a dramatic answer. It is what lies in your future that determines how dramatic God's going to be. God is not going to, He does not major on dramatic answers to finding His will. He wants us to be able to discern the mind of God in those simple things in life that we have to make a decision. Now sometimes we can make a wrong decision.

Here's what I do believe with all my heart. When you and I are committed to doing the will of God, sometimes when we are fully committed to doing the will of God, we're going to make a mistake. You know what God's going to do? When He knows our heart is right and we want to do the right thing, He's going to turn our mistake out for our good no matter what.

You know why? Because He's a good God. He's not up there saying, you make a mistake and you've had it.

That's not the way God operates. He knows it's difficult sometimes in certain situations and things that influence us we can make a mistake. And so He says in this passage crystal clear. We know that He hears us in whatever we ask. We know that we have the request which we ask of Him. Sometimes He makes it dramatically clear. And sometimes it's a still small voice and sometimes it's a verse of Scripture and you know in your heart. And so all of these issues, that is the most important one when it comes to knowing the will of God. That is, what shall I even ask for? And oftentimes when we discover what God's will is and God withholds it, then we begin to straighten up whatever needs to be straightened up in order to get ourselves in a position. Well, that was a long one for that one, but let's go to number five.

But that was worth it. Last of all, persistence in our requests. Oftentimes we want to turn to James, if you will, for a moment.

James fifth chapter. Oftentimes we want God to answer right now. I know that I do and that not many things I don't think I've ever asked God for that I didn't expect Him to do or at least would like for Him to do it immediately.

Amen. Most of us want an answer rather quickly. And He doesn't always give an answer quickly. And there's a reason He doesn't. One of the reasons He doesn't is because, listen, God in this whole issue of prayer wants us to see Him. He wants our focus upon Him.

And so oftentimes He doesn't always do it like that. He says in verse seven, be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets there early and the late rains. Now what we want to do, we want to rush the seasons up.

We want it to rain now. And so what happens is probably one of the greatest mistakes we make is we pray for a season. God doesn't answer in our allotted time.

And so what do we do? We stop praying. And so persistence in prayer means that I just don't pray a few times and give up and quit, but just keep hammering away. Now, if that is, if I know it's the will of God, persistence means if I'm not certain about something, but I think something is the will of God, I'm going to keep hanging in there until I know for sure.

And if I know for certain, then I'm going to thank Him and praise Him and bless Him for the answer whenever He chooses to bring about that answer. God in His wisdom knew this was not the right time. This is the right time.

That is not the right time. And usually what we do, we get in trouble when we say, well, Lord, I've been praying for so long time, so here's what I'm going to do. And how many people I have met in life over these years who have said, well, I prayed and prayed and prayed and I never heard anything.

God didn't say anything. So I just decided, here's what I'm going to do. And God, I'm going to trust you to bless me.

That is dangerous business. You and I are better off waiting, even when it's hard to wait, difficult to wait, trying to wait, than to step ahead of God and do something because we think God isn't on time. And so oftentimes, a person gets in a financial bond. They say, well, I've got to do something. If I don't do something the next 10 days, thus and so. And 10 days goes by and God says, don't do that. And every time I've ever heard God say, don't do that, and I did it anyway, I got in trouble every single time. You see, you can't argue with infinite wisdom, can you? We all know that.

You can't argue with infinite wisdom. So my impatience will get me in trouble. My impatience says, I want it now.

I want it this way. But if I'm going to watch God answer prayer and see Him deal with the big things in life, big things in the ministry, big things in our personal life, or the little things in our personal life, all of these are essentials. Now, more than likely, you may look at those five things and say, well, this is the one I have the most problem with, or this one here, or that one. And so I just lay these out and just to share them with you, for you to jot them down, look at your own life.

The next time you're facing something that you're dealing with, you have to ask yourself the question, are these things true? That is, am I really coming to Him on the basis of who He is and not the fact that I'm good, bad, or indifferent? Am I coming to Him knowing that my heart is as clean as I know how it to be at this point in my life? Am I coming to Him believing with all of my heart that I know the will of God, that I know this is how God wants to operate in my life?

Am I coming to Him really believing that He is going to hear me? And am I coming to Him willing to keep asking until I know for certain this is the will of God? Now, sometimes He will withhold the knowledge of His will. Well, why would God withhold the knowledge of His will? Because it may be that God wants to do something in our life before He, you see, sometimes you and I can ask Him about something that is the will of God, unquestioned with the will of God. And yet somehow there's some sense of hesitation on our part. And we struggle with it. We say, well, it looks like the will of God.

Sometimes He will not make it clear until He gets to what He's after. And so when we come to Him, prayer is a major, major issue in our life. And here's a God who says, you ask me anything in my will, I'm going to do it for you. Then it is very, very important that you and I understand how to find His will and get ourselves in a position whereby when we come to Him, we can come to Him with boldness, assurance, and confidence, knowing this is the will of God, we can expect and anticipate God to hear and answer our prayer. Father, we love You and praise You. And when we think about You being an infinite, omnipotent God, willing to listen to the petitions of Your people, willing to make such an oath as that You will hear and answer our prayer when we ask in Your will, Father, how very, very, very grateful we are. Teach us how to pray.

Teach us how to trust You. Teach us how to find Your will. Teach us how to keep hanging in there, God, until we know Your will and can thank You in advance of seeing the answer that a loving, good Father is taking care of His children one more time. But we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to Requirements for Answered Prayer. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.