Ever feel like your prayers are hitting a wall or like they go unanswered? What’s really going on? Let’s dive into why some prayers seem unanswered. How can we tune into God’s will?

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OPENING ILLUSTRATION:

I was telling my son the other day that when I was in high school I had gone on this trip and was staying in a hotel room with one of my best friends – we were seniors, and this freshman kid we didn’t know very well.  I came back from breakfast and went into the bathroom to use the bathroom and saw that the toilet was really clogged.  I asked the two guys who did it and both of them denied it.  My friend, who I trusted was like, “There was no way I did that… it’s disgusting”  The freshman was like, “Well, it wasn’t me…” so, I did what any senior in a position like that would do, I believed my buddy and told the freshman he had to go down to the front desk and tell them what he’d done and get someone to come un clog the toilet…  this poor kid was like, “really,” I was like, “if you do the crime, you have to do the time!”  lol.  He left and went downstairs.  I turned to my buddy and I was like, “Man, I can’t believe that kid wouldn’t just admit he did it…”  That’s when I realized I’d made a critical error, my buddy with an evil grin looked at me and said, “That’s because he didn’t!”  

I was so mad at him, he had totally let me blame this kid – and shame this kid for something he didn’t do…

You ever experienced that – taken the fall for something you didn’t do?

WE:

Maybe at work, your boss made it out like her idea that failed was actually your idea and you just had to go along with it?

Anyone who has an older sibling has been blamed for something that kid did

-when I was like 8 I scratched a big “K” into the inside of my closet door – my younger sister later moved into that room – Katie, and guess who got blamed for it… lol

-Or maybe your kids blame you for everything that went wrong in their life as though they had no part in the direction their life took

We all know what it’s like to be blamed for something we didn’t do… but get this, so does God…

See, one of the most common reasons I hear for people walking away from God has to do with them believing God did something He didn’t do…

I don’t know how many people I’ve met who walked away from God because of unanswered prayers…

b

Sickness that wasn’t healed, loss that wasn’t avoided, pain & suffering that was not removed…

b

The underlying theology is: “A Good God would have done something about __________ for me…  He’d have answered my prayers”

I know that’s not the only reason, but let’s assume it’s a major one

Why is it that some prayers seem to go unanswered?

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Is it that just God isn’t good? or is something else going on?

3 of the top reasons prayers go unanswered

The reasons I’m about to share with you are not mutually exclusive

The first reason prayers go unanswered: You’re experiencing spiritual warfare and you don’t know it…

My experience is the average person has not spent a lot of time thinking about how the spiritual realm works in Modern America…  

ILLUSTRATION:

It’s kind of like when you were a kid and your parents would say “Just wait till your an adult, it’s so much harder than you know – you have it easy right now.”  That kid can’t understand because they’ve never lived in the adult world.  

Most Christians don’t take much time to live in the spiritual and think about it….  Let me show you something that took place in the book of Daniel, it gives us a sneak peak behind the curtain of the spiritual…  Daniel was in a rough spot and had been praying to God and gotten no response…  Listen to the response he ends up getting – this is an angel speaking to Daniel:

Dan 10:12-14

¹² Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. ¹³ But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. ¹⁴ Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”

The answer to Daniel’s prayer was delayed 21 Days because the Angel in charge of delivering the message was in a battle with an evil spirit.  

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Sometimes what you are experiencing as God being silent or not answering is a direct result of God letting the battle for good and evil play out in the spiritual realm…

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Sometimes the answer might be to pray for God to send more angelic forces to war for you.

-Jesus says the angels of children see the face of God – we used to pray for God to send his biggest baddest angels to protect our children…

Look, I know this is a more robust picture of the spiritual realm than most of you have probably been willing to step into, but it is very clearly what Paul is asking people to step into when he says:

Ephesians 6:11-13a

11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God

Not every unanswered prayer, or silent period you experience is because God isn’t working, rather it’s because you are in a war with a desperate foe…

The second reason prayers go unanswered: Your request isn’t in the will of God

James 4:2-4

² You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. ⁴ You adulterous people,^[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Sometimes you don’t have to because you’re more worried about yourself than the Kingdom of God (you say to God “my will be done”)…

John actually says when we ask according to God’s will, your prayers are a “yes” or at least they are heard…

1 John 5:14-15

14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

This means you have to know and understand the will of God… “Well, how do I do that Kent?”

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

ILLUSTRATION:

The most powerful example of this is when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane – He is about to be arrested and go to the cross to be crucified – do you know what he prays?  “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will be done, but yours”…  Can I tell you a secret – the cup is not taken from Jesus – that blows me away that Jesus’ prayer is technically answered – but it’s answered with a “I’m sorry son…” as a matter of fact on the cross Jesus will quote psalm 22, “my God my God, why have you forsaken me…”  

The third reason prayers go unanswered: You’re not in the will of God

Oof, that’s a tough one…

Some of you have treated God as though He is your magic spell book, there to use when you need Him and then put Him away on a shelf until you need Him again…

I’m just here to tell you, that’s not who God is…

He is the one who speaks things into being that did not exist, he’s the one who calls things that are not as though they are.  

Jesus is not your get-out-of-jail-free card to be played whenever you desire…

He is fierce and a warrior, He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and He has already done the only one thing that can truly restore mankind – he died to rescue you and me from death, from hell, from sin, and to give us new life – to walk with Him.  He did all this to restore the broken relationship between God and man.

Jesus didn’t come to heal every sickness, or prevent every loss – He knew if He did that He’d have to end it all…  If He’s going to stop wickedness, He needs to get rid of those who do wickedness – or He needs to infect them with a virus that will sweep through the system and write a whole new operating system into their hard drives…  And that’s why He does – He comes to give new life – that’s His will – not to destroy but to restore.  

And so some of you are outside God’s will and you’re prayers are going unanswered because what He is really wanting to do is to restore you…  He wants you – died for you…

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