Jesus' Most Outrageous Sayings - Ask And It Will Be Given To You - Part 8

Well, as you know, I take trips to Israel every year. And one of the places we always go is the Wailing Wall. The Wailing Wall is the last remaining part of the Jerusalem temple complex that was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Roman army. Now I find that most Christians, when they go to the Wailing Wall for the very first time, are totally unprepared for what they see there. What they see are scores of Jewish men draped in long robes, standing in the open air, rhythmically rocking back and forth and praying. And not praying quietly, mind you, but praying out loud, vocally, for everyone to see and for everyone to hear. Now we're just not used to that.

It catches people off guard. You know, it's interesting when we dial the clock back 2,000 years to the time of Jesus, we find that the Jewish leaders in His day were doing the very same thing. And that Jesus actually made a comment about this practice. It's a comment that we're going to look at today because today we're going to talk about prayer. And we're going to talk about how, as followers of Christ, we can pray with greater power in our prayer lives. And so, remember we're in a series entitled Jesus's Most Outrageous Sayings. We're going through the Gospel accounts and we're looking at the most radical things Jesus ever said and taught. And we're spending a week on each one of them asking the question, well, so what?

We've already done seven and today we're ready for number eight. And so if you brought a Bible, I want to ask you to open your Bible to the first book in the New Testament, the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew chapter 6. Now while you're turning, let me remind you that Jesus here in Matthew 6 is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. He has already addressed a number of different topics and now He's ready to address the topic of prayer.

And that's where we pick up. Verse 5, Matthew chapter 6. And when you pray, Jesus said, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.

I tell you the truth, they have their reward. But when you pray, verse 6, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen, then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Now let's stop before we go on and let's define prayer based on what Jesus says right here in these verses. He tells us in these verses that prayer is a one-on-one activity between a human being and Almighty God Himself. You don't need any other people involved. You don't even need any other people to see what's going on. It is a one-on-one activity between you and Almighty God.

It is an activity in which you are communicating directly with the living God of the universe. I think we all know that somewhere in the White House there's a red telephone that when the president picks it up, he is immediately connected to Moscow to the president of Russia. There are no intervening switchboards or secretaries.

There are no intervening operators. It is a direct line. And what Jesus is telling us here in Matthew chapter 6 is that prayer is like a red telephone to heaven.

It's a direct line that gives us immediate access to Almighty God Himself. When we call heaven in prayer, Almighty God Himself always picks up the telephone. When we call heaven in prayer, we never get an answer like this.

Hello, you have reached heaven. All of our customer service agents are currently busy. Please remain on the line and your call will be answered by the next available angel. We never get a message like that. Friends, when we ring heaven, we never get a busy signal. We never get placed on hold.

We never get lost in voicemail prison. When we ring heaven in prayer, we get God Himself on the other end of the line. May I stop and say that if you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your real and personal Savior, that one of the things that comes along with a commitment to Christ is this kind of access to Almighty God. Yes, you get eternal life when you trust Christ. Yes, you get a ticket to heaven when you trust Christ. But you also get access to God exactly as we've described.

I mean, think about it for a moment. If someone were to come up to you and tell you that they were going to give you a direct and immediate access to the President of the United States, why, most of us would be so honored, we wouldn't even know what to do. We actually get his cell phone. You're going to give me his cell phone number?

He's going to pick up when I call? Oh, my gosh. Well, friends, we're not talking about access to some ruler of a country here on puny little earth. We're talking about access to the Creator, sustainer and orchestrator of the universe.

I mean, how cool is that? And that's what comes as part of the package deal when you embrace Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. If you're here today and you've never done that, I hope not only will you think about it, but I hope you'll do it. Now, Jesus goes on in the Sermon on the Mount to make an unbelievably outrageous promise about prayer in Matthew 7. An outrageous statement, and that's where we want to focus the rest of our time here in Matthew. Look at Matthew 7, verse 7. Jesus says, Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find.

Knock, and the door will be opened unto you. For which of you, if his Son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if the Son asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, even though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to his children who ask him? Now, notice the promise here in Matthew, chapter 7, is not for every human being alive. It is a promise for those human beings who have become God's adopted children by means of their faith in Jesus Christ.

But if you are one of these people, look at the outrageous promise that you are made here by the Lord Jesus. He says, here's the deal. You ask, and the God who created the universe, the God who runs the universe, the God who orchestrates every event in the universe, you ask, and that God will answer. He will intervene in the world on your behalf. He will inject himself into the circumstances of your life on your behalf.

What an outrageous promise. You know, the rest of the Bible reiterates this promise. Jeremiah 33, 3. Call unto me, God says, and I will answer.

And I will show you great and mighty things that you don't even know. God says, you pray, and I will move the world in response to your prayers. James, chapter 5, verse 16, the prayer of a righteous man or woman is powerful. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed that it would not rain, and it did not rain in Israel for three and a half years. Man, I would call that praying with power, wouldn't you?

Wouldn't you? All right, thank you. I just came back from leading a tour called In the Footsteps of St. Paul. What we do on this tour is we trace the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul from Acts, chapter 16, when he first crosses into Europe, all the way through the end of the book. And so we start right up in the northern part of Greece, going to the cities Paul first went to in Acts 16.

We go to Philippi and Thessalonica and Berea, and then we swing south and come down and go to Athens and Corinth, just like Paul did. Well, anyway, we were getting ready to do this trip, and I was watching the weather on the internet, you know, from over here. And it called for rain, rain, rain the first two days we were there when we were going to be in northern Greece. And I said, Lord, no, you know, this is not good. I mean, every place we go is outside.

They're all archaeological sites. I mean, rain is no good. So when we actually got there, the afternoon we landed, they were still calling for rain the next two days. And so I got the whole tour group together and I said, here's what I want you to do, gang. I want every single person praying that God would take that rain and send it north to Bulgaria. That's what I want you to pray. And I said, and I'm going to pray the same thing. And I did that night.

I went in my room and I said, Lord, you know, a lot of people have waited for this, and there are people here that don't even know Christ, and this has got to go well. And for your sake and for their spiritual sake, I'm just telling you, please, Lord, send that rain to Bulgaria. You say, well, Lon, didn't you feel bad sending it to Bulgaria? No?

No? I don't think there were any tour groups in Bulgaria that I knew of, and they probably needed the rain. So that's what I prayed. Do you know we had the two most gorgeous, beautiful days you've ever seen in your life, the next two days? And guess where, friends, guess where it rained?

Cats and dogs. You won't believe it. Where do you think? Bulgaria. Honest, it was in the paper. They had these huge rain storms in Bulgaria. But that happened. Ask anybody on the tour.

That happened. Now, what's the point? The point is that I believe as Christians, prayer is the most underutilized weapon in our spiritual arsenal. I believe that prayer is the greatest untapped source of power in the universe.

As followers of Christ, here in Matthew Chapter 7, the Lord Jesus tells us we need to use this power. He tells us that if we will ask, He will answer. Unbelievable. How outrageous is a statement like this?

I can't even get an appliance repairman to answer and call me back for four days, but I can get the living God of the universe to agree to answer any prayer I make? How outrageous is that? Now, that's the end of our passage for today, but we want to ask our most important question. And you know what that question is, and so are we ready. All right, nice and loud. Here we go.

One, two, three. So what? You say, Lon, so what? I didn't even know where Bulgaria was. And frankly, I could care less if it rained in Bulgaria.

What difference does any of this make in my life? Well, let's try to make that connect for you, all right? How many of you guys here like fishing? Raise your hand. Okay. Well, I don't.

And let me tell you why I don't. There are three reasons why I don't like fishing. Number one, it's smelly. Number two, it's messy.

And number three, it is incredibly boring. And that's why I'm not a fisherman. But I married into a family of fishermen, and so a few times I've been. One time a few years ago, my father-in-law and my brother-in-law took me up to a lake in Pennsylvania. We were sitting there trout fishing, and we threw these lines in.

I don't know. We had seven or eight lines in from the shore, and we hadn't caught squat. We'd been there all day, hadn't caught a thing. And there were these two guys sitting out in a boat about a hundred yards offshore from us who were pulling in fish like it was going out of style. And they had this unbelievably annoying habit. Every time they would hook a fish, they would yell loud enough for the whole lake to hear, boom. And so they were sitting out there just going boom, boom, boom.

And we hadn't boomed all day, not one boom all day. Now, I sat there and I thought, how come they're catching fish and we're not catching fish? You might say, yeah, Lon, that's worth knowing. How come they're catching fish and you weren't catching fish? Well, you know what?

I'll tell you what the answer is. The answer is they were locals. They knew that lake. They had studied the fish in that lake. They knew everything about how they ran, when they ran, where they ran, what kind of bait they ate, at what time of the day, in what locations. And they had adapted their fishing habits to the habits of the fish.

Do you understand what I'm saying? We hadn't done that. We just walked up there as complete strangers, stuck bait on the end of the hook, threw the thing in the water. And that's why they were catching fish and we weren't. Now, I run into Christians all the time who say to me, Lon, I pray, but I don't ever see God answer my prayers with the kind of power that He talks about in the Bible or the kind of power I hear you talk about. Well, wait a minute.

Let me tell you why that may be. It may be because you haven't realized yet that praying with power is a lot like fishing. Friends, if we're going to pray with power, we need to be like those guys out in that fishing boat.

We need to be students of how God answers prayer, why God answers prayer, in what way God answers prayer, what kind of prayers God answers. And then, like the guys out in that boat, we need to adapt our praying and bring it in line with God and His habits. That's what they had done. They had adapted their fishing and brought it in line with the habits of the fish. And that's why they were catching fish. And you see, I think as followers of Christ, we don't do that. We don't study and then adapt.

We just throw our line in the water. And when something, when nothing bites, we go, we'll see there. No, no, no, I'm sorry. God answers prayer. But He answers prayer that is prayed a certain way with a certain set of conditions that He tells us about in the Bible.

And that's what I want to talk to you about in the little bit of time I've got left. I want to talk to you about how we can pray on God's terms, how we can adapt our praying so that we are positioned perfectly for God to answer our prayers with power. There are four principles I want to share with you.

Principle number one is this. You want to pray with power? Then number one, you and I need to pray with clean hands and a pure heart. Psalm 24, verse 3, Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? Answer the person who has clean hands and a pure heart. That person will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God, His Savior. Psalm 66, verse 18, If I regard, if I cherish, if I embrace sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear and respond to me.

What God is telling us here is that as followers of Christ, you and I, when we come to Him harboring sin in our heart, known wrongdoing, deliberate disobedience of God, when we're clearly out of step with God, that that will hinder the power and the effectiveness of our prayers. You know, I walked in my kitchen, this was a few months ago, and looked in the kitchen sink. And the kitchen sink was half filled up with water, ugly water, brown water, nasty water. So I thought, what in the world? Turned on the garbage disposal, turned on the water, and guess what? It didn't go anywhere. It just went around and around and around. And I said, uh-oh.

Time for me to call my good friends that I call at least once or twice a year at my house. And here they are, you know them, Roto-Rooter. See, in my house we put all kinds of interesting things down the garbage disposal, but that's a matter for another discussion.

You understand what I'm saying? But we have a visit from Roto-Rooter once a year or so or more often. And so what do they do? They come out, they take a snake, they put it in the pipe, they route that pipe out, they get all the junk, all the gunk, all the trash out of the pipe.

Why? Because water cannot flow through a pipe that is all clogged up with gunk. Well, friends, listen, God's power cannot flow through you spiritually when you are all clogged up with gunk either spiritually, the kind of gunk you and I pick up every single day just living in this world. All of us as human beings every day do things, say things, think things that are offensive to God, that are like spiritual gunk that just clog up the pipes. And before we go in to pray and ask God to do something in power in our life, we got to clean the pipes out if we expect the power of God to flow through them. Most of us rush into the presence of God and start asking for us without ever Roto-Rootering.

Well, it doesn't work that way. We first need to go and ask the Holy Spirit to examine our heart and show us where we've done things that have offended God, show us where we're harboring sin in our life, show us where we're deliberately disobeying God so we can confess those things and get them right before Christ so we can approach Him with clean hands and a pure heart. Then we're in a position where God can really do something.

We skip the Roto-Rooter step. We're not ready for God to move in power in our lives. Number two, principle number two is we need to pray with a forgiving spirit. Mark chapter 11 verse 25, And when you stand praying, if you have anything against someone, Jesus said, forgive them. Now, did it ever strike you interesting that Jesus would discuss forgiveness when He was standing here with the disciples talking about prayer?

I mean, did that ever strike you as unusual? Well, it shouldn't because, friends, one of the most frequent hindrances and roadblocks to praying with power is an unforgiving, bitter spirit. When you and I approach God with unforgiveness and malice and hard feelings and hatred in our heart towards other people and refusing to forgive them, God is not going to honor our prayers and move until we've dealt with them. Remember what the Lord's prayer says, Forgive us our trespasses as what? As we forgive others. Jesus said after that, you know, if you don't forgive, God's not going to forgive.

You've got to forgive if you want to see prayer make a difference. In Israel, there's a place called Masada. It's a big mountain down by the Dead Sea where the last Jewish revolutionaries faced the Roman army between 70 and 73 A.D. Now, Jerusalem fell in 70 A.D. They burned the temple to the ground.

But 960 revolutionaries escaped to Masada and lasted three more years. Eventually, they all died. A lot of people think that was the end of Jewish nationalism. It was the end of Jewish revolting against the Roman Empire, but not true. There was one more Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire that happened 60 years later, led by a fellow named Bar Kokhba.

It lasted three years. And at the end of those three years, Emperor Hadrian had gone to Israel and taken command of the troops himself, of the Roman army, and he finally put down this rebellion. When he did, Emperor Hadrian did a very interesting thing. He decided that he had had enough Jewish nationalism.

It was never going to be a problem again. And so he took the city of Jerusalem and he completely burned it to the ground. He completely plowed the city under, and then he spread a thick layer of salt all over the city of Jerusalem so that nothing would ever grow there for years.

And you know what? Nothing ever did. Now friends, what I'm here to tell you and what Jesus says in the Bible is that when we come to God in prayer with unforgiveness and malice and bitterness and hard feelings and grudges in our hearts towards other people, it is like trying to pray with a thick layer of salt on top of our prayers. And God says the power of Christ cannot grow in that environment.

The power of Christ cannot prosper in that environment. You will never see God answer prayer and power in that kind of an environment. And for many of us here, the secret to having God answer our prayers with more power is that you and I got some things we got to clean up in our hearts towards other people. You've got to come in with a clean slate towards other people if you want to see God do something in your prayer life.

Principle number three. Want to see God do something powerful in your prayer life? Then principle number three, we need to pray in faith believing. Matthew 21, Jesus said, In all things, whatever you shall ask in faith believing, you shall receive it. In Psalms 98, God says the thing He had against the Israelites back in Moses' day is that they limited in their unbelief the Holy One of Israel, and one of the greatest obstacles to powerful answered prayer is unbelief, is limiting God in our own human logic and our own human unbelief. You know how it goes.

We come to God and we go, Oh Lord, I really want you to do this, but you know there are so many obstacles and there are so many things in the way and it looks so impossible that you know what, God, I'm going to ask you for it, but I know you're not going to do it. It's okay. I forgive you.

I won't hold it against you. Amen. Now would you answer a prayer like that? I wouldn't answer a prayer like that. That kind of a prayer is an insult to Almighty God. That kind of a prayer is an affront to Almighty God.

Or sometimes we come and we do it this way. Lord, I really want you to do this for me and I know there's a lot of things, and I know you always answer according to your will, and I'm sure it's according to your will not to answer this prayer, so if you want to do it that way, it's okay. Amen.

What kind of prayer is that? You say, well, now wait a minute, Lon. Wait a minute. The Bible says, doesn't it? 1 John 5, verse 14, that this is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to His will, we will have what we ask of Him. Doesn't the Bible say that? Yes, it does.

Friends, it is true. God promises to answer every prayer that we pray according to His will. But look here.

Look here right now. But God never intended that to be an excuse for unbelief. Never in the Bible. That is not an excuse for unbelief. You say, well, Lon, so how does the balance work then?

Well, I'll tell you, it works like this. Praying in faith means we come to God and we ask for the moon, friends. We ask for the moon knowing that we're praying to the God who opens the Red Sea for a living. We're praying to the God for whom no human obstacle is the slightest problem. We're praying to a God who can do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ask or ever even imagine.

We come ask for the moon and then once we've asked, we leave the slate open for God to actually answer our prayer according to His will, according to what He knows is best. But, and don't miss this, but we don't make that decision for Him. We don't decide in our puny human logic what His will may be. We leave it wide open and we say, Lord, the only person that we ever want to limit what You do is You. We're not going to limit You deciding ahead of time what You will do, what You won't do, what You can do and what You can't do. We're just going to ask You, Lord, for the moon and You limit Yourself, but I'm not going to limit You.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Friends, don't run interference for God. He doesn't need you to. Don't make excuses for God. He doesn't need you to. Don't apologize ahead of time for God. He doesn't need you to do that. All He needs you to do is take your puny human logic and limitations off of Him and let Him be God.

That's all He needs. You know, you're sitting in an actual example of this kind of prayer in action. Back in 1997 when we entered this new campus project, everybody was telling us why it couldn't be done, why it was humanly impossible, why it could never happen. They said you'll never get the money.

They said even if you get the money, you'll never get through the Fairfax County zoning process. You know, you'll never be able to operate at one church in two locations for three and a half years. You know, it'll kill McLean Bible Church. If it doesn't kill McLean Bible Church, it'll kill God.

You can't do it. Well, we knew the obstacles were real. We knew they were big. But friends, when we prayed about this, we sensed the Lord telling us to step out and do it anyway. And so we did. And my prayer to God in those days was, Lord, you know what? I want you to show the world what can happen when a group of Christians get together and don't limit God. I want you to show the world what can happen when we turn you loose and just allow you to be God. Now, if you decide, Lord, that you don't want us to have this new campus, I'm okay with that. But I'm not deciding that for you. I'm not going to come to you and tell you what all the problems are and all the hindrances are and all the reasons why it can't work are and decide in my mind ahead of time why you're not going to do this.

I'm not doing that. I'm coming in saying, God, we want that campus. God, we can use that campus for the glory of Christ. God, we can use that place to make a difference in this city.

I want that campus. Now, if you don't want us to have it, fine, but that's the only reason we shouldn't get it. Not the county, not the money, you, Lord.

And if you think we ought to have it, I'm not going to put anything in the way that stops it. Well, the rest, like they say, is history, friends. Here you sit today in that campus that God gave us. And you know what?

And let me tell you something else. I also pray that as we were going through this, God would work all of this out, at least in part, to show every single one of you at McLean Bible Church what can happen in your life when you don't limit God. God just doesn't do great things like this for churches.

Friends, he does great things like this for people. People who are willing not to limit Him in their puny human unbelief and their puny human logic. Now, God will still answer according to His will.

He will still do what He knows is best, but you let Him decide that, not you. Let Him be God. Principle number four. If you want to see God answer your prayers with power, then you need to pray, and I do too, with the glory of God as our motive. You remember Isaiah 42.8, I am the Lord, that is my name. And my glory I will not give to another. Hey, listen, God is passionate about sharing His glory with no one. He is passionate about revealing His glory to mankind. That's why Jesus said, John 14, 13, And whatever you ask in my name, for the purpose of the Father receiving glory, that I will do. Friends, prayer that brings the power of God down to earth is prayer that has God's glory, not man's welfare, your welfare or my welfare, at its core, at its motive.

Because above everything in this world, God wants to reveal His glory to the human race. And when you pray a prayer that asks Him to do that in sincerity, He's going to take you up on that prayer. Remember what I prayed for this building. I prayed, Lord, I want you to show the world what can happen when a group of Christians don't limit you. I want you to bear your arm and show what you can do when everybody's saying you can't do it.

I want you to show you can do it. I wasn't asking for this property for the glory of Lon Solomon. I wasn't asking for this property for the glory of McLean Bible Church. I wanted Jesus Christ to get the glory from what happened in this project.

I believe that's in part why He did it. And you know, every great prayer in the Bible that has brought the power of God down and exploded it onto the human stage, you look carefully, has had this motive at its core. Remember Elijah up on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal, 1 Kings chapter 18? He's up there and he builds this altar and he douses it with water three times. And he says to the prophets of Baal, all right, fellas, if Baal is really God, call down fire from heaven and prove it.

They dance around all day, do all these nutty, stupid things, and nothing happens. Finally, at the end of the day, Elijah says, all right, all right, you guys, everybody come over here. And here's the prayer that he prays.

Verse 36, O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, let it be known today, Elijah says, that you are God in Israel. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that these people will know that you alone are God. Now that is a prayer prayed for the glory of God.

And you know what happened? Fire fell from heaven and not only consumed that entire altar, but it licked up all the water in the trench. I'd call that power in prayer, wouldn't you? Huh?

Yeah, I'd say so. And friends, how did he call down power from heaven like that? Did Elijah mention himself at all? Is he talking about himself? He's talking about God's glory being revealed.

And you know what, my friend? When you pray a prayer that has truly the revealing of God's glory as its motive, you better buckle your seatbelt, friend, because God's going to answer that prayer. Now, is there anything wrong with praying a prayer about our own issues? No. Is there anything wrong with praying for a new car, a new house, and physical healing, a new job, a child?

More income? No. But the problem is, look at your prayer life. How much of your prayer life is that and how much of your prayer life is focused on things that bring God glory? I'll bet you most of us will find our prayer life is almost 100% focused on me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

Not that that's wrong. But where do we ever break and go for a higher purpose of prayer, a higher motive in prayer and say, Lord, these are things I want you to do, not for my comfort, my welfare, my convenience, but I want people to see who you are. Boy, you pray a prayer like that and you mean it? I'm telling you, God's going to answer that prayer. And that's why you've got a building today that you're sitting in.

Well, let's summarize, shall we? How are you going to pray with power? Well, there are four principles. Number one, pray with clean hands and a pure heart. Roto-ruder before you pray. Number two, pray with a forgiving spirit towards other people. Get the salt off your prayers. Pray with a clean slate. Number three, pray in faith, believing. Don't limit God in your puny human logic, in your puny human unbelief. Don't do that. Just let God be God.

Ask for the moon and let him go. And finally, number four, pray with the glory of God and the honor of God as your motive. Friends, this is what the fishermen out there did.

They figured out how the fish were running and they adapted their fishing to the fish. What we've done today is figure out how God answers prayer with power, and now I challenge you, adapt your praying to God. And if you do, I'm telling you, you will see God move in your prayer life. I close with a quote from S.D.

Gordon, famous British preacher. Here's what he said, and I quote. He said, The great people of the earth are those who take time and pray.

They don't have the time. It must be taken from something else. This something else is important, very important and pressing, but still less important and less pressing than prayer. May God make you a prayer warrior and may he make you powerful in prayer. Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, thanks for teaching us today how to fish, so to speak, with power. Thanks for teaching us the how and the why, the way in which you answer prayers with power. And thank you that you are a God who delights in answering prayer, who delights in giving us, as your children, responses that go beyond anything we ask or even imagine. But, Lord, we have to pray in such a way that we qualify for that.

And so thanks for teaching us today how that is. I pray that you would challenge every one of us here, that there is power in prayer that we have not tapped, that this is an underutilized weapon in our arsenal, and that we need to become men and women of prayer, men and women who are powerful in prayer. To do that, we need to follow these principles. So use these principles to change our life, Lord, to change our prayer life and make us men and women like Elijah, who through our prayers can shape and shake and impact this world for Christ. Thanks for talking to us today. Change our life because we were here. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen. Thanks for being here today. Bless you guys. See you. Amen.