The Power of Prayer - Three Conditions for Power in Prayer, Part 2

Do you have a situation in your life that seems to drag on and on, and you wonder why God isn't answering your prayers?

Maybe you're not sure why, but it feels like there's some distance or there's something wrong, but you can't quite put your finger on it. If that's you, stay with me, because today we're going to talk about how to restore your intimacy with God and experience His power in your prayers. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge features the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram on this daily discipleship program. I'm Dave Druey, and we're currently in a series called The Power of Prayer. Now, if you've missed any of the previous messages in this series, they're available on either the Chip Ingram app or at livingontheedge.org.

Just click the broadcasts tab. Well, if you're wanting to learn how to access God's power in your prayers, let's join Chip for part two of his talk, Three Conditions for Power in Prayer. What the Lord wants us to understand is that these promises He's talking about where He'll supernaturally work, there's some paperwork involved. You need to meet the conditions. You need to come with a clear conscience, and you need to come with an obedient lifestyle. Now, some of you at this point, I hope you're asking, well, that sounds pretty open to interpretation. What's it mean to have an obedient lifestyle? What's it mean to obey His commandments?

Well, He's going to tell us. Look at verse 23. He explains very clearly what commands He's talking about, and this is His command.

Is that clear enough for you? There's two things. The first one is to believe in the name of His Son and to love one another as He commanded us. The tense of the verb here for believe, it's a tense in the verb that means at a time, at a point in time, the very first thing you need to do to fulfill this commandment is that if you've never asked Jesus Christ to be the Savior of your life, if you've never looked to the cross and said, Jesus died on the cross for me, His death paid the price for my sin, and He rose from the dead to forgive me all my sin, has offered that free gift. If you've never received that free gift, He says that's the first step of obedience.

And until you've done that, this promise doesn't apply to you. God's not going to hear your prayer. See, we've got this idea that sort of God is sort of a benevolent king of a democratic society and that there's all these hotlines that go to heaven and He answers them all the same.

He doesn't. Some people call, He answers very regularly. Other people call and call and He says, you know, I've left a few messages on your recorder. And when you take care of the few messages that I've left on your recorder, call me back.

See, we do have a part. And see, we don't deal with that and yet, you know, we keep calling and calling and calling and then we get hot at God because, you know, He doesn't answer. He answers. So the first step is that if you've never asked Him to come into your life and forgive you, do that today. In fact, I encourage you to skip out on the rest of this message and glaze forward like this to make people think you're listening and have a private conversation with God and ask Him to come into your life and forgive you. The second thing though, it says, a different tense of the verb, this is present tense, ongoing habitually. It says, what's the second part of the, what's His commands? To love one another. He says that in loving one another, that command needs to be fulfilled. There ought to be a love for one another in the body of Christ that is so radical that that has to be fulfilled before you meet the condition for God to hear your prayers. And at this point in time, you know, again, that gets great. What's it mean to really love each other? I'm here today, aren't I?

I sang the songs. Well, that is neat, but this passage will explain what's it mean to love one another. Look up at verse 16. He gives us the definition of love, the measuring, the litmus test. This is how we know what love is.

Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. Love is a choice. Love is radical sacrifice. Love is seeing the needs of someone else and putting aside your wants, your desires, and extending your time, your energy, your resources, and even your life, if need be, to give to someone else. That's what love is. So now we've got to back it up and say, am I loving people like that or do I just love them when it's convenient? Is my attitude in the body, what do they have for me? Are you meeting my needs? I'd like a little bit more of this.

Do you think you could start earlier or start later or whatever? Did you notice the next line in verse 16? And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

Now you think about this condition. See, the people that are seeing God do graphic, supernatural works of power in their life are people that are radically loving their brothers and sisters in Christ, who are expending and giving their life, their heart, their time, their emotions, and their finances to meet the needs of other people. That's who qualifies for this promise. In fact, verse 17, he gives us the first illustration.

He says, if that's too vague, I'll picture it for you. Look at verse 17. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need, but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Apostle John, you can almost see him scratching his head. You say that you belong to God and that you were desperate and God forgave you and gave all that he had for you and now you're forgiven and you're a part of his family and here you are a part of his family and other people who are a part of his family have these needs over here and you've got this time and these spiritual gifts and these money resources and you know they have needs and you don't share what you have with them and John goes, huh, how can God's love be in you? See, the reason Jesus talked more about money in the New Testament than heaven and hell combined is because the fact of the matter is money will tell you who's your God and when other people have needs and I can't give of my time or my emotional energy or if I can't give my finances off the top to love other people, then the love of God isn't operating in my life.

I'm saying it's my time, it's my money. Who gave you the job? God did.

Who gave you the health? God did. Who gave you the family? God did. Who gave you the home?

God did. And then we tell them that I can't afford to give any of it back to you. You can't afford not to because when we are not radically loving and giving, not just of our money, our energy, our time, then we're not loving other people and if you're not loving other people, you're not keeping His command and if you're not keeping His command, this promise does not apply to you. God will not hear your prayer. That's a condition. You know, it's like saying, oh God, oh God, I need a loan, I need a loan, I need a loan, I need a loan and He says, fine, have you filled out the paperwork? And you say, I don't do paperwork. He said, fine.

When you do the paperwork, then you qualify to be a recipient of the eternal God of the universe who wants to give you more than you ever dreamed, who wants to do stuff in your family, who wants to do stuff at work, who wants to do things in relationships. It would take a miracle. God has miracles. I think heaven, we're going to get to heaven and we're going to open a door. There's the miracle room and we're going to say, wow, those shelves are all full. He said, yeah, I tried to give them away but people wouldn't take them.

They were going to work it out themselves. I mean, it's a storehouse. You know, the Old Testament says, you test me, I'll pour out, I'll open the storehouse of heaven, I'll meet your needs. The third condition goes beyond a clear conscience and an obedient lifestyle. Condition number three is you can write the words a yearning heart, a yearning heart. And what I mean is a heart that longs to please God. God answers the prayers of those who do the things that are pleasing in His sight. Did you notice that in verse 22? And we know that we have whatever we ask because one, we keep His commandments and two, building on that, we do what is pleasing in His sight, says the New American Standard.

See, there's some of us, it's part our personalities and part our background. We want to find out where the lines are. We're supposed to keep these four rules, okay, I'll keep them. These five rules, okay, I'll keep them. Are there 29 rules? I'll get them, I'll list them.

These people make charts and then they go check them. Are you supposed to read the Bible? Okay, two chapters a day, pray for so long. And what God wants you to understand is that He wants a yearning heart, not rote exterior legalistic obedience. He wants you and I not just to do what's right, to say, okay, I don't do this or I don't do this or I don't do that. But instead, He wants you to have a heart inside that longs to please Him and your obedience flows, not out of duty and obligation, but out of a love relationship. He wants you to not, He wants you to go beyond just exterior obedience. Well, I kept the commandments, okay God, you got to come through.

I filled out the loan papers, said it doesn't work that way. I spent the good portion of the first two or three years of my Christian life finding out where the lines were. Having never read the Bible, I didn't know many of the rules, nor did I know that God had them for my benefit. But here's what I do, I find out, okay, now that line right here is sin.

Okay, and this is what I did. Okay, I'm not sinning, I'm not sinning. See God, you know, I didn't break the letter of the law.

That kind of heart doesn't meet the condition for the God of the universe to answer prayer. I remember I just began to grow and I started getting in the Bible and then I got in a Bible study and I started to share my faith and even a couple guys at least prayed a prayer with me to become Christians. And then I'd see them in the hallway and they'd see me and they'd duck and turn and go down the other stairs. It's like I had cooties or something. And I was doing all the quote right things but there was no fruit in my life.

Nothing was happening. And then I began to pray, seriously, God, how come you're not using me? And then he convicted me about a relationship with my girlfriend. Oh, now, I wasn't sleeping with her.

We didn't do the big one. But I'll tell you what, our relationship did not honor God. And the things we did do did not honor God. It was not pleasing to God. Oh, I drew a line and said, you know, as long as we didn't quote have intercourse, I guess I'm okay. Let me ask you, is your focus in the Christian life trying to see how close you can get to sin without sinning or is yours one of a child's heart running to the Father and saying, you know, I'm not sure if this is right or wrong.

I want to do what you want me to do. You want to see a picture of that? Look back at number, at the Psalm of David. Do you remember how he's described? He's described as a man after God's own heart. You want to hear his yearnings? You want to hear his heart? Listen to how he approaches God. This is why God answered his prayers.

He met the condition. I will sing of loving kindness and justice to thee, oh Lord. I'll sing praises. Now, does that sound someone like, oh gosh, it's time to have a quiet time. Is it duty or is it delight?

You get it? He wants to be with God. He says, I will give heed to the blameless way.

When will you come to me? I'll walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. Look at his character. He wants to be morally pure. He wants the insides of his heart to be clean, his motives and his thoughts. Is that you?

Is that me? That's a heart pleasing to God. He goes on, I will set no worthless thing before my eyes, a perverse heart.

It'll depart from me. See, I think if David was living today, I bet he would put that on the front of his VCR and his TV. I will put no worthless thing before my eyes. He wouldn't say, okay, now is this G or is this PG or is this PG-13 or is this an R1 that I heard is kind of clean? He wouldn't play those games.

He'd stick it and say, could I sit down on the couch with the Lord Jesus and say, do you like this movie, Lord? Not, well, it's okay except for this, this, this or that. See, I'm not talking about legalism here. I'm talking about longing to please God instead of always seeing how close we can come. And I just can't get the idea that the Lord had just watched people's head getting blown off and all the junk that we see and say, oh boy, is really encouraging, isn't it?

Huh? Ask yourself, does your heart yearn to please God in what you see, in what you do? Notice verse five, he says, I'll get rid of anyone who whispers evil things about someone else, his relationships to others. You listen to gossip? It's, I mean, it's tantalizing, isn't it?

Or do you, you know what David would say? I don't hear that trash. You got a problem with that person, you go talk to him. That's ungodly. I don't put up with that stuff.

Not, well, gosh, boy, I've heard the same thing and if you talk to Betty, you're really fine. Look at his relationships. I approve of those who are faithful. Those are completely honest, no liars, no hypocrites. He wanted to run with people that had a heart for God. Proverbs 13 20 says, he who dwells with wise men will be wise, but the companion of a fool will suffer harm. Who do you run with?

Who do you hang out with? Ask God to give you a desire and a yearning, because here's the deal. God wants to do marvelous, supernatural, tremendous works in your life, but some of us have not filled out the loan papers and you're not on praying ground. When you pray, you haven't put yourself in a position to realize God really loves you and you can have a clear conscience. You haven't put yourself in a position to obey his commandments because you honestly love sacrificially others. And you haven't put yourself in a position where you can say in your heart of hearts, God, I blow it.

We're not talking perfection. It's up and down and up and down and struggle, but it's that sense of, oh, Lord, I want to be your man. I want to be your woman.

I want to be a student that would really be pleasing to you. And I know I fail, and I know I struggle, and I know you understand that. You see, the flow of New Testament Christianity and Old Testament faith has to do with abiding, deep relationship of fellowship, that obedience and love and expenditure of energy and time and resources flows out of love, not duty.

And if you don't want to give of yourself, of your time and your resources, it just tells you a whole lot more about you that you really want to know. It tells you about your relationship or lack of it in your heart of hearts with a living God. I would just hate to see all the miracles get stuck up in heaven that he'd like to open up for you. Verse 24 summarizes it all, and it's for you and me as we meet the conditions. He says, those who obey his commandments, you ready for this? Live in him.

Is that great? And he in them. So when you live this way, the power, the sweetness, the fellowship, the grace of God lives in you and you live in him. And this is how we know that he lives in us. We know it by the Spirit which he gave us. God wants to do great mighty answers to prayer. And what we need to learn this week, it's not that he's unwilling.

It's that a great majority of his people haven't filled out the loan papers. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, Three Conditions for Power in Prayer, from his series, The Power of Prayer. Whether you're a new Christian or a seasoned follower of Christ, prayer is absolutely essential to our relationship with God. It's how we communicate with him. And as his children, we are given free access anytime, anywhere.

But how does that actually work? In this series, you'll discover the steps to developing a dynamic prayer life, how to remove common roadblocks to answered prayer, and what it means to pray with confidence. For a limited time, the resources for The Power of Prayer are discounted, and the MP3s are always free. For additional ordering and pricing details, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or give us a call at 888-333-6003.

Atlas Nurse taps special offers. Well, Chip, we're just under a week away from the end of our mid-year match, and I've got to say we've been blown away by people's generosity and partnership with us. But there still may be some people out there who don't know what this mid-year match is or why we do it. Now, could you take a minute and explain that?

Dave, absolutely. You know, this is something that we've done for a number of years that literally spontaneously happened about eight or nine years ago. And a small group of our ministry partners have this passion to support the ministry but also to inspire others to support the ministry and actually even beyond our ministry to learn to be generous. And so this month, dollar for dollar, every dollar a person gives all the way through July 6 will be matched.

So, you know, one becomes two, a hundred becomes two hundred, you get the idea. And what a lot of people don't know is that, you know, like 30, 40 percent of the total giving income comes out of this mid-year match. And so it supports everything from the daily broadcast to staff to pastoral training.

And we'll talk throughout the month about what it does and the impact that it has. But I just want to encourage people as they kind of get this broadcast and whether it's on the app or a podcast or they order something from Living on the Edge at our headquarters, this match is critical to the mission of Living on the Edge of helping Christians live like Christians. And so my prayer is that as the Living on the Edge family listens, that they would really become a part of the family and help us help others. So thanks for asking, Dave. Well, if you're already partnering with us, thank you.

What's happening here is part of your story, too. And if you'd like to get in on what Chip just described, becoming a financial partner is a great way to do that, especially right now, because thanks to a handful of donors, every gift we receive between now and July 6th will be doubled. To send a gift, just call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003. Or if you prefer, you can donate online at livingontheedge.org.

App listeners, just tap donate. And let me thank you in advance for your generosity. As we close today's program, let's do a brief review of the three conditions for answered prayer. Now, I think a lot of us have come to the point in our walks with God that, one, prayer is a challenge. Number two, we often don't expect God to really answer. And number three, we don't have a lot of friends that are experiencing powerful, dynamic prayers. And so what I'm trying to say is, I think we're missing something. And I think we're missing something big because we don't really understand these three conditions.

So let's review them, and then I want to give you a great word of encouragement. Condition number one, according to the Apostle John, is a clear conscience. A clear conscience gives us boldness and confidence before God in prayer.

Second, an obedient lifestyle. God answers the prayers that keep His commandments. And that wasn't just some moralistic thing. It was His commandments to love one another. It was His commandments that when we see someone in need that we meet those needs.

In other words, God isn't a socialist. What I mean by that is He doesn't answer everyone's prayers the same. He looks into the heart of His servants. And He's wanting to develop a relationship with you. He's wanting to change you.

He's wanting you and me to learn to trust Him. And part of that journey is as we are obedient and as we are walking in faith, the door of prayer and the power of prayer becomes real. When we come with confidence and in faith, and guess what? God shows up in very powerful ways. And the third, the one that we talked about mostly in this broadcast, was a yearning heart. God answers the prayers of those who do things that are pleasing in His sight. You know, it's not just that we do what's right. I want to remind you that He delights in you, that He longs to give you the desires of your heart, that you're His son, that you're His daughter, that He literally wants to do miraculous things that your friends, your relatives, the people at church, the people at work would go, like, are you kidding?

How did that happen? I mean, aren't you just a normal person like the rest of us? And your experience would be yes, but you're on this internal quiet journey where you're saying, Lord, search me. Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24 is a prayer that David prayed that has made such a difference, at least in my life. As I've prayed, I've said, Oh God, search me and know my heart. Test me.

See if there'd be any wicked way in me, and then lead me in the right or the everlasting way. And you know, when you come before God with, Lord, if there's something wrong, show me, He will. And Lord, if there's a relationship that I need to address, He will.

But here's what I want you to remember. You're His son. You're His daughter. He's for you.

He loves you. What we're talking about here is I don't think talked a lot about when people talk about prayer. I think somehow we think that God is a cosmic vending machine and, you know, you say a few words and He's obligated to do this or to do that. Prayer is the sensitive, intimate relationship between the God of the universe who has adopted you, if you're a follower of Jesus, as His son or daughter. And it's one in where He wants to shape your life, draw you close to Himself, and literally give you the desires of your heart. But the conditions are a clear conscience, an obedient lifestyle, and a yearning in your heart to say, Lord, what would be pleasing to you?

When God sees that, He shows up in power. Just before we close, I want you to know that as a staff, we ask the Lord to help you take whatever your next faith step is. Now, if there's a way we can be helpful, we'd love to do that. Maybe give us a call at 888-333-6003, or connect with us at livingontheedge.org. And while you're there, you'll find resources on all kinds of topics, many of them absolutely free. Well, I'm glad you've been with us, and until next time, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.