How many of you have a best friend that you feel like you can talk to about anything? That’s the best kind of friend because it doesn’t matter what is going on you have someone to talk to. You can talk about school, your grades and how your classes are going. You have someone to rant to when you’re dealing with family drama. Somewhere to turn when you make a really big mistake.They are the friend who knows every crush you ever had and has never told a soul. That’s a really good friend.
You know they have your back no matter what and they will listen to anything you need to say and be with you through it. I really hope you all find a friend like that. But the reality is some of us in the room didn’t raise our hands, because you don’t have that kind of friendship. And some of you have that friendship now, but can I ask you. Have you ever gone through a time where you didn’t have that friend you could always talk to and count on?
How did that feel? It was pretty lonely right? It’s not a good feeling when we don’t always know who we are going to turn to. Have you ever experienced that?
Well what if I told you that you don’t ever have to feel that way? What if there is someone who always wants to hear from you and is always available. Someone who wants to know the good, the bad and the ugly about your life. What if there was someone who would never leave you or turn their back on you but instead stuck closer to you than a brother. Always ready to listen, walks with you through everything you experience? And what if I told you everyone on earth has access to Him?
I bet you can get where I am going. That friend. That friend who wants to hear everything about you and spend everyday with you. Who would sacrifice everything for you and will always listen when you need to talk. That friend is the God of the Universe.
God is the friend who is always listening.
Look at James 5:13-15,
“Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.”
James just said if you’re going through hard times, pray. Good times? Pray. You’re sick? Pray and get other people praying too! Let me sum it up for you. Whatever you are going through good or bad - pray and God will hear you! He will listen.
And He will hear every single one of those prayers. And He will answer them! That doesn’t mean he will always say yes. But He will always answer one of three ways: yes, no, or not yet.
You see, praying in faith isn’t even about getting what you want. Praying in faith is believing God can answer your prayers and trusting that He will answer them His way.
Praying in faith is not saying “Dear God, please get my crush to like me and make a PS5 appear in my locker and help me pass the test I didn’t study for, God I really believe you can do it.” Even if you really believe God can do those things I don’t think that’s what James is talking about here. I think a prayer of faith looks more like this. “God I really want these things to happen, but I trust you and I believe you will give me everything I need and guide me where you need me to go.” I think praying in faith looks like “God I am heartbroken that my girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with please help me and give me peace.” Or “God some of the people at my school are bullies and I am so angry at them. Please help me not to act on my anger.”
We also have to understand that: Faith is trusting God no matter what
That’s faith. It’s saying to God “not my will but yours be done” “I trust your plan, God. I trust whatever your plan is even if I don’t like it.”
That’s the kind of prayer we need to be praying. And again God will always answer one of three ways.
1. He will say yes. He will look at you and the faith you have and He will give you what you are asking for. He will give you that miracle or heal that friendship or show up for you and say yes in ways you could never imagine. I believe God likes to say yes to our prayers because He wants to show us that He is a good Father. He wants to give us good things. But because God is a good Father that means sometimes
2. He will say not yet. He knows when we aren’t ready for something. You may be praying for something that God wants to give you. But He knows you need time to get ready for it. He knows how long you need to wait so that you can grow and be as ready as possible. I believe He says “not yet” and allows us to wait so that we keep praying and we build our relationship with Him through that prayer. Whatever reasons God has sometimes his answer to our prayers is simply not yet. And sometimes
3. He will say no. It is important that we understand that we are not always going to get the answer we want. Sometimes we get down on our knees every day desperate for God to say yes. We pray big desperate prayers with our whole heart and sometimes he still says no. . We are going to put all of our faith and hope in a prayer and we are going to feel like God isn’t listening because He isn’t giving us what we want. But has it ever occurred to you that that might just be better? Have you ever thought maybe God’s no is a good thing.
Sometimes God says no. But if we can trust Him when we don’t get what we want. That is real faith. That is the kind of faith that lets us see God do amazing things in our lives and the lives of the people around us. If we trust God when He says no we will see how much better His plans are than ours.
I have another example of a time God didn’t answer a prayer the way the person praying wanted. That story is found in Mark chapter 14. In Mark chapter 14 Jesus goes to a garden to pray. And in this garden Jesus is praying one of those desperate prayers we talked about. In fact he was so desperate the Bible says he was crying and sweating drops of blood.
The reason Jesus was praying such a desperate prayer was because Jesus knew that He was about to be arrested, put on trial and hung on a cross. One of the most brutal deaths a person could experience. Look at what he prays Mark 14:36,
“Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Jesus knew the suffering he was about to go through and he basically prayed, “God if there is any other way, let it be that way.” But if you know the story you know that God didn’t answer that prayer with a yes. Shortly after this prayer Jesus was arrested and put on trial. Where he was sentenced to death on a cross. All of that not because He was guilty of a crime but because the only way we were ever going to get to God was if someone died to pay for our sins. And that was Jesus. Imagine if God had changed his mind that day. If God said yes to that prayer. God had every right to say good riddance, bring Jesus back to Heaven and leave us on Earth to fend for ourselves. But He didn’t do that. And Jesus died and rose again three days later paying the cost of your sins and my sins and defeating death once and for all. Because God said no we don’t have to spend eternity in Hell but we can spend forever in Heaven with God our Heavenly Father. When God says no it is always because He has a better plan. We have to learn to believe that.
Now some of you tuned out as soon as I started talking about praying because you think it’s a waste of time. You are thinking “Yeah I have tried praying and all I felt was weird.” Can I ask you a question. How much did you try? I ask because for a long time, I felt the same way. I felt like I had tried praying and it just wasn’t working. But the truth is I wasn’t trying that hard. I would go back and forth between not praying at all, praying the same thing every day, or praying half hearted prayers cause I expected God to ignore them anyway.
If you are like I was and you haven’t actually given prayer a good try because you don’t think it’s worth it. I want to challenge you. I want you to just give prayer a chance. For the next month I want you to try praying consistently. Give it a real effort and see what happens. I really believe God does a lot with our prayers and it is always worth trying. I believe in it so much that I want to help you do that.
If you text CHALLENGE to 41437 we will text you every week to remind you to pray. So if you want to take this seriously and start your prayer life pull out your phone and text this number now so we can help you.
©2024 Sagebrush Church
