The Power of Prayer - Removing the Roadblocks to Answered Prayer, Part 1

Roadblocks.

They stop you from getting where you want to go. Now, we usually think about roadblocks on city streets, but did you ever ponder it's possible to have roadblocks in your prayer life too? You see, there are things that get in the way of our prayers getting through and us experiencing God's answers. Today, we're going to talk about the first three roadblocks that keep our prayers from God's ears.

Stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. Well, we're in the middle of our series, The Power of Prayer, as Chip continues helping us build or rebuild meaningful intimacy with God through prayer. In this program, he'll identify the common obstacles to healthy communication with God and explain how we can break through them. And be sure to stick around after this teaching. We'll talk as Chip shares some additional insights and application for you to think about.

You won't want to miss it. Well, if you're ready, here's Chip now with his message, Removing the Roadblocks to Answered Prayer. that you really prayed and you meant, and then you somehow could come up on a computer screen, all the ones that really got answered.

Why is it so often an awful lot of them don't get answered? Now I want you to hold that question in the back of your mind, and I want to share a little parable, a modern day metaphor, if you will. And this is about the power of prayer, and I'll let you sort of fill in the pieces as I tell it, but picture number one comes right out of your home. If you're a lady, there's chances you've got the garden hose, and you've wrapped the hose around this part of the house, and then you've been around a barrow over here. And you're watering the flowers or the grass or something, and you're feeling good. You're just feeling like these flowers are going, boy, this water tastes so good.

And you're enjoying it and doing it. If you're a guy, you may be doing the same thing, or you may be washing the car. And as you're doing this, you know, the water's coming out, and then all of a sudden, when you look at that hose, I mean, there's just nothing. I mean, there's no water.

I mean, maybe just a little trickle. And so you do what very intelligent people do. You walk over and you check the faucet thinking maybe one of the kids or the dog or someone turned it off, and it's on.

There's no problem with the power. There's all the water that you need, but then you go back and you look at the hose, and there's nothing coming out. Now, as an adult, you know what's going on. But imagine if you were a kid, and this is the first time it happens, and you discovered what we all now know is the great principle of the kink in the hose, right?

Isn't it amazing? You can be washing the car, and you look, and it looks fine, and under the third tire, there can be just one little bend, can't there? One little bend, and the water pressure is almost gone. We're going to talk today a little bit about some kinks in hoses. I call those roadblocks. This morning we want to talk about removing the roadblocks to answered prayer. You need to hear the spirit of this because some of you have grown up, and I don't know where we got this, but a lot of people, at least in my generation and older, grew up with this view of God that He's always pointing His finger, that He's got His hands on His hips, and He's just waiting for you to mess up. You know another place that things get clogged are in people's arteries, don't they?

You know those blood clots? I want you to think of God as a supernatural cardiologist who loves you and sees there's a clogging in the artery, and because He cares about your life and He wants the life-giving oxygen and nutrients in that blood to get to your entire body, He comes by and very lovingly, although painfully, may take a scalpel and make a major incision in your heart and open it up and do whatever is necessary to remove that blood clot. See, God is here this morning, not down on anybody.

The fact that you're here says that your heart is tender and open and you want to hear from God. But when He points out the roadblocks, sometimes it makes us a little uncomfortable. So you need to hear His purpose for removing the roadblocks is not to make you and I feel guilty. That's the enemy's job.

It's to restore, to convict, not to condemn. I've written here roadblocks are anything, notice, known or unknown that hinder our prayers from being answered. And you know, just like in a hose, it doesn't take a big kink sometimes, does it? It doesn't take a big wire.

It just takes a little something that can cut off the power. Roadblock number one, you find in James chapter 4 verse 2, he says, you want something but you don't get it. You kill and covet but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and you fight. Did you notice all those verbs?

Kill, covet, quarrel, fight, they're words of human activity, of energy. There's a desire and there's energy going in to reach the desire and then he explains why this goal is being blocked. You do not have because you do not ask.

Kind of simple, isn't it? Roadblock number one is prayerlessness. We simply fail to ask. God really once longs to give you, to show His evidence and His power and His love, but many times the kink in the hose is we don't even ask. And I know some of us grew up, oh, this is too small, I couldn't ask God about this. I mean, this is too personal. You know, some of us have grown up thinking that the only prayers God really wants to hear is our major crises.

It's not true at all. He longs to answer. He wants to answer down to the minutest details of your life. God wants to take the little kinks out of the hose and block number one is often we don't have simply because we don't ask. Roadblock number two comes right out of this passage.

It's verse three. Some people's problem isn't that they don't ask. It's they do ask, but you're going to find that they ask for the wrong reason. Verse three of James chapter four says, When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives. The King James, if you have it, says amiss.

The word means with an evil desire that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. In fact, roadblock number two is wrong motives. We ask selfishly. We can actually, I've learned we can actually pray for the will of God, pray something like we've talked about, aligned with God's word, and it can really be even his will, and we can pray for God's will and pray for the wrong motives and for the wrong reason, and God will say no.

Most vivid example is a bit embarrassing, but it just so makes the point. I was a Christian, oh, not much over about six or eight months, but I would never say this now because I was so selfish and so self-oriented back then, but I was naive and unsophisticated, and so I just let it show. And now I'm still very selfish, but I'm very sophisticated, and I know all the words to cover it up that make me sound spiritual, a lot like a lot of you. And so not knowing any better, I took masking tape, a zealous new Christian. I took masking tape, and in two feet high, I put on my dorm room wall to the glory of God.

I spelled out the letters of masking tape. So when you came in my room, boy, you knew where this guy stood. And then I got on my knees every night, and I said, oh, God, my dream was to play college basketball, and you've let me come here, and Lord, I don't want to be a starter.

I know I'm only a freshman, but I don't want to be a starter. I want to be a star, and I want to score 25 points a game. And then I had this picture, and when the Wheeling Register interviews me for the sports page and says, well, how in the world as a young freshman did you come here and average 25 points a game? I'm going to say, to God be the glory.

You can kind of see through this one, can't you? I prayed that prayer for about three and a half years. Two hamstring pulls, a pulled quad, a stress fracture, five different coaches, a drug bust on the team. I was tackled in practice once, a guy who was on some illicit drugs. My college career, I spent hours upon hours on the bench, never scored 25 points. And about the last third of my senior year, I remember getting very real and very honest with God and saying, God, I love this game.

If I never, ever get to play this game again, it's yours. See, God knew that if He gave me the desires of my heart, He would have such an egomaniac on His hands, He could never use me for anything. And He just allowed adversity, adversity, adversity, adversity. Instead of giving me my dream, what He started doing was building my character and my dependency. And by the last third of my senior year, God began to open some doors, and after a very unsuccessful, frustrating, quote, college career, I got a note in the mail from a person I'd never heard of in my life that ended me up playing with a basketball team that traveled all over South America. And when I got on the team, I was shocked because the other guys were from UCLA and USC and Oregon, New Mexico State, and they were, you know, 7-1 and 6-11 and 6-10. I'm thinking, what am I doing on this team?

And I did the same thing the next summer and then the following winter all throughout the Orient and the Philippines. See, God longs to give you the desires of your heart. I got to play against Olympic teams all over the world and share Christ. But until the motives got right, God was not going to allow me to have the desires of my heart.

You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll get back to our series, The Power of Prayer, in just a minute. But first, if this teaching has ministered to you, consider becoming a monthly partner. Your regular financial support goes a long way to help us encourage pastors, create resources, and share Jesus with today's youth. Visit LivingOnTheEdge.org to learn how to support us.

Well, with that, here again is Chip. You know, think about what you're praying application time. What are you praying for? I mean, even good things like that your mate will grow closer to Christ. Why are you praying it?

Even good things like that your kids will do well and that business will go well and finance is old and you'll have an impact. Why are you praying it? Because see, this isn't the first time I've dealt with this and it's not the last.

Probably you not either. In John 14, Jesus teaches us how to pray with the right motives. John 14, 13, Jesus prays and He says, I will do whatever you ask in My name and then get this, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. Jesus' motivation in prayer was not self-fulfillment, a better self-image, a happier life, a bigger home, a nicer business, and a connected family. It was the glory of God. If you get any of those things, God bless you. That is not God's primary desire for your life.

Those are all byproducts. The word glory in Hebrew means a great weight, a massive weight of magnitude. The best way I can describe it is wanting God's glory is to enhance His reputation. Jesus prayed, my life, my heart, my prayers are so that when you answer them, people won't think what a neat person I am, but they'll see who you really are, your greatness and your power and your love and your mercy.

If that's your motive, you're on praying ground. But you can pray a lot of biblical things and honestly praying for selfish reasons, and you can have a kink in your hose. The greatest example in Scripture to me is Moses. Exodus 32 through 34, you ought to read it sometimes, it's a great. And Moses has taken these people out of Egypt, and they are rebellious, stiff-necked, and I mean they have just pushed God to the limit, and God says, Moses, step aside, I'm starting over. I'm going to clean this place out, I'm sick of these people, I'll start a new nation just with you.

No, I don't know about you, but I'd say it sounds a good idea to me. Great, let's get rid of them and let's, you know. And you know what Moses said? Lord, Lord, what about your name? What are the Egyptians going to say? The Egyptians are going to say that God had enough power to take them out of Egypt, but the God of the universe didn't have enough power to lead them through the wilderness?

Oh no, no. And Moses literally stands in the gap before God. He says, for your name's sake, for your reputation's sake, for your glory and reputation among all, he said, if you're going to blot them out, you need to know I'm going to step right in with them and you blot me out too. Unselfish. He coveted God's glory. He coveted Christ's reputation. That's what God wants for us.

Roadblock number three is sin in the heart or the life. The context of this passage, Isaiah 59 verses one through three, is that the nation of Israel was very religious, very religious, going out to the temple, doing all the right stuff, offering the sacrifices, but they weren't getting the answers to their prayers. And so they come to Isaiah and they say, you know, maybe God's kind of winding down. You know, maybe he's tired. Maybe he's having a bad day. Maybe he's just not up to the job anymore. Because we pray and it's obvious that we're good and righteous people, but he just can't come through.

You know, maybe he's just, you know, maybe he just doesn't have what it takes anymore. And so Isaiah responds to that in verse one of Isaiah 59. He says, surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. You can almost hear Isaiah saying, hey, look, Buster, there's a problem here, but it ain't with God.

Trust me. His arm is strong to do whatever. His ears aren't hearing your prayers. It's not because he has a hearing problem. And in verse two, he says, you want to know what the problem is? He says, but your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.

And then he didn't leave it vague. In verse three, he gives him four examples. He says, for your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt, your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things. The Scriptures teach that when there is sin in my life, when there's sin in my heart, this isn't reference to, you know, having a few ups and downs and struggles and failing here and there. I mean, we all have that. We're talking about God revealing this is wrong in your heart and your life, and you say, tough.

I'm not changing this one. It's him showing you that you're selfish or there's an attitude toward another person or an unforgiving spirit or a moral issue, and you say, I'm not changing. In fact, the principle here is in verse 18 of Psalm 66. It says, if I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear. You might ask, why?

Why? You know, God's first and primary goal in your life on this whole planet is not to make you happy or successful or have a connected family or boost your self-esteem. His primary purpose on your journey through this planet is to make you like his son, period. As a byproduct of your relationship with him, your self-esteem will grow. They will be blessing you.

You'll have joy that's incredible. But his number one agenda for your life is to make you just like Jesus, loving, holy, pure, compassionate, honest, a man or woman of integrity. And so when you have an issue in your life that's unresolved and you pray for these things, God doesn't answer because what he wants to allow is some frustration to occur so that as you pray, your prayers will shift from the outward focus to asking the question, first, is this God's will? And then you check the Scripture and say yes. To where you and I would start asking, Lord, is there a kink in my hose anywhere?

Is there a short in the wire? Is there something you want to do in my life that I'm unaware of? This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Removing the Roadblocks to Answered Prayer, from our series, The Power of Prayer. Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. Prayer is an absolutely essential part of our relationship with God. It's how we talk with him, and as his children, we have free access to him anytime, anywhere.

But how does it actually work? What do we say? Well, in this series, we'll learn what a dynamic, consistent prayer life looks like. Chip also explains how to remove the barriers that hinder our prayers and why we can approach our Heavenly Father with confidence that he'll hear us and act.

So whether you are a new Christian or a seasoned follower of Jesus, you don't want to miss a single program. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now, and Chip, we are an international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. But many of our listeners may not know what that means or the impactful work we're involved in. So if you would, take a minute and share some examples of how Living on the Edge supports and encourages people everywhere.

I'd be glad to, Dave. One of the great joys of my life is the letters, emails, Facebook messages that I get from people literally all around the country and all around the world, and they tell me these amazing stories of how Living on the Edge has been a tool used by God to change their life. Maybe you're one of those people that have really been impacted by the ministry. I mean, I hear from people from every age, profession, background, every person imaginable, and what I hear is this same constant drumbeat of, God spoke to me, I took a step of faith, now God's using me. And what I want you to know is that that's the heart of our ministry. We want to put teaching and tools and small group materials and downloadable things that we actually give away to help people not just live like Christians, but be ambassadors and agents of change and grace in their homes, their schools, and their workplaces.

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It would really help us to know that X amount of dollars are coming in from a monthly partner. But literally, even more than that, it's about a group of people saying, we want to be a part of this mission to make a difference in the crazy world that we're living in. We want to make an impact and we want to make an impact with you all.

God's spoken to us, God's changed us. We want to help you help others. And so here's my request today. Would you pray and just simply say, Lord, if this is part of your desire for me to partner with Living on the Edge on a monthly basis, will you show me and then show me what that looks like and how much? And what I will say is whatever amount that is, it's perfect, whatever God shows you.

But what I long to see is people who partner that are on the team, a part of the family, and we make a difference together each and every day. Thank you in advance for doing whatever God shows you to do. Great encouragement, Chip. Well, if you want to be part of supporting believers all across the world, consider becoming a monthly partner. Your regular support will go places and accomplish ministry work like you wouldn't believe. So set up a monthly gift today by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap donate.

Well, here now is Chip with some application for this message. As we close today's program, I want you to know that if you're feeling overwhelmingly guilty, welcome to sort of the NFL of the Christian life. I don't know that there's any topic that when we really dig down deep into it that we don't feel more guilty and more inadequate than in the area of prayer. And I think sometimes we have some real misguided thinking about prayer, thinking that, you know, the longer you pray, the better you pray. And yet, I think if we're honest, all of us struggle in this area because it is a challenge.

It is a battleground. I mean, the enemy doesn't want us to pray. So let's get to the solution side. We know that number one, the reason we don't get answers or a roadblock is prayerlessness. We just don't pray. But what if it wasn't about trying harder?

What if it was a warped view of God? I'm going to say to you, I think the biggest breakthrough in my life in prayer was not me trying harder, setting a clock. I'm going to pray longer, harder.

Somehow I'm really going to do it this time. But it has been to see God as my Father, to see that He's approachable, to see that He loves me, to believe that He's not down on me, to just literally study the attributes and the characteristics of God. And the book and the series that we have here at Living on the Edge called The Real God is probably the journey that's helped me pray more than anything else, because what I realize, it's just keeping in company with God. And yes, I have seasons of prayer in the morning, but I talk with Him all day, and that's what He wants for you.

He's not down on you. The second is praying with selfish or wrong motives. And I think here we have some misconceptions about what the whole purpose of prayer is. And so I think you pray with the wrong motives when you fail to see that the goal of prayer is for God's will to get accomplished, for God's name to be glorified. Now, we all struggle with that, and we're going to struggle with that until the day we die. But I think when you can be open and honest and you're at a roadblock and you're praying and you're praying and, you know, something, there's not an answer, ask yourself, you right now listening to my voice, ask yourself, is my motive for me or is my motive really for God? Do I want this relationship to work out?

Do I want her to like me? Do I want this new job? Do I want my son to get into this school or make the traveling team or be first team or get the house remodeled? Is this really about honoring God or is this this unconscious, oh God, you're the genie in the bottle, you're supposed to make my life work out? That's a hard one to face, but it's transformational when you do. And then third, is there sin in your life? And I think that's pretty self-explanatory, but I will end with this because we're going to develop this more in our next broadcast. Sin is deceitful.

This is the kind of thing that when I'm not living the way I know I should, it just makes me not want to get around God because I know the white hot light is going to expose my darkness and that's uncomfortable. You know, if you haven't downloaded the message notes, let me encourage you to do that. We want to help you learn to really pray. Thanks, Chip. You'll find the message notes Chip just mentioned in a couple of places.

Go to livingontheedge.org and click the broadcasts tab. App listeners tap fill in notes. You'll get his outline, all of his scripture references, and plenty of fill ins to help you remember what you hear. They'll really help you get the most out of every program. So I hope you'll take advantage of this resource the next time you listen. Well, be sure to join us next time as Chip continues his series, The Power of Prayer. Until then, I'm Dave Drouy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.