Confident that God Answers
Do you know what’s crazy? We began this series on the Lord’s Prayer two entire months ago. It was July 3 – Canada Day weekend – when we started. And now that it’s Labour Day weekend, it’s finally time to put a pin in it, to put a period on it, to say “Amen” to our study of the Lord’s Prayer.
You know, we say that word – “Amen” – at the end of every prayer that we pray in church. Have you ever tried to pray a prayer at home without saying “Amen” at the end? It’s weird! It makes your prayer feel incomplete, as if there’s more coming. But when we say “Amen,” that’s a crystal clear way to communicate that we’re done with our prayer.
Dear God,
Thank you for this. Help me with that.
Amen, i.e. “The End.”
In truth, the word “Amen,” means a whole lot more than that. Amen comes from the Hebrew word אָמֵֽן, which means a) stand firm, or – and this is the most common usage in the Bible – b) trust, believe.
You didn’t think you’d get an English, let alone a Hebrew, lesson today, did you? But I think that this is important because when we say “Amen” at the end of our prayers, we are not saying, “The end.” We are saying, “Amen,” like they do in the “Bible Belt,” i.e. in the American South, where when you hear something you agree with you punctuate someone else’s sentences with your own “Amen!” – “Hear, hear!” “Yes!” “That’s what I believe in too!” “Amen!”
That’s what “Amen” means, i.e. “Yes, I believe.” “God, I believe that everything I just prayed for, you can handle.” “God, I believe in the promises that you’ve given me. I believe you when you say you listen to and answer prayer. I believe you when you say that you are the giver of all good things. I believe you when you say that you are eager to do what is best for me, even if I don’t always know what’s best for me.”
Dear God,
Thank you for this. Help me with that.
Amen, i.e. “Yes, I believe.”
That’s what James means when he says:
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.[1]
Have you ever seen movies or read a book in which one of the characters is in such a desperate situation that they finally break down and hit their knees and lob up a flailing prayer, “God, I don’t if you’re listening, but if you’re up there I could really use some help.” That’s not exactly a resounding endorsement in God, is it? That’s not exactly an “Amen, yes, I believe!” kind of prayer.
Imagine if we did that to each other: “Don, I don’t know if you’re really my friend, but if you are, I could really use your help right about now.” If someone approached you like that, how inclined would you be to help? Compare that to a real “Amen” kind of request: “Don, you have always been such a good friend. I know I can count on you. I could really use your help right about now.” Those are two completely different requests. I might get Don to help me by questioning or doubting his friendship. What’s more likely is that I will disappoint him with my doubts and discourage him with my request. I am much more likely to get Don’s help by counting on his friendship.
God wants you to know that you can always count on him. Shortly after teaching his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, this is what Jesus himself said:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”[2]
What promise does Jesus make here about prayer? He promises to answer it.
I have to confess something. When I was a kid, I heard passages like this one – and the one from James that we read earlier, “when you ask, you must believe and not doubt” otherwise you should expect to receive nothing from the Lord – and I thought that what God was saying is that when I do not get what I pray for it’s because I don’t believe enough, i.e. because my faith in God isn’t strong enough. There must be some hesitation in my heart, some lingering doubt. I even had a Sunday School teacher tell me once that I could pray to God to enable me to flap my arms and fly like a bird, and if my faith was strong enough God would make it happen. The only reason none of us are flying, my Sunday School teacher would say, is because none of us truly believe that God could do it.
I want to be clear about this, because it dogged my conscience for decades, that is NOT – I repeat, that is NOT – what God is saying here. Look at Jesus’ words again. What is Jesus promising will happen when we ask, seek or knock? He will respond. It may not always be what we ask for. I am still waiting on that bicycle that I prayed for on my 13th birthday. But God will answer. We talked about this back in July, so I don’t want to go back into it in detail now, but sometimes God says no to our prayers. Sometimes God says not now, not yet, not in the way that you have in mind, because what we pray for isn’t always what’s best for us.
Jesus’ point in Matthew 7 is not that God is a genie in a bottle who must grant our every wish if our faith is strong enough. Jesus’ point is that, if we want to get a response from God, we need to ask; if we want God to help us, we should pray for help. So, Jesus is encouraging you to ask and seek and knock. Go to God in prayer for anything and everything, whether big or small, necessary or luxury, and let him decide how he will respond. Just know that he will respond.
Similarly, if we go back to that James passage:
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.[3]
What does James say we must do if we expect to receive anything from the Lord? You must believe and not doubt. But this is the key – what must you believe? Let’s let Jesus answer that question:
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”[4]
If you want to expect to receive anything from the Lord when you pray to him, what must you believe about him? That God is capable of answering your prayers. That nothing is beyond his grasp. Could God enable you flap your wings and fly like a bird? Yes, he could. That’s not to say that he will, but he could. He possesses the power. With God all things are possible.
But it’s not just power God possesses. He has something else in his prayer-answering arsenal too:
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, 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 those who ask him!”[5]
God doesn’t just possess the power to answer prayer. What else gives us confidence to pray to God without doubt? Knowing that God knows what is best for you.
I never got a bike for my 13th birthday (or any birthday after that, for that matter), but did I remain bike-less into my 20s because I didn’t believe that God could give it to me? Or did God just know how clutsy I would be, or how many broken bones he was sparing me from, or that the friends I would bike with would get me into trouble?
I don’t know what God knows. But I do trust that he knows what’s best. If God said no to my prayer, then he had a good reason for it. And that applies for things much bigger than bicycles. It applies to the health and life of loved ones. It applies to livelihoods and neighbourhoods. It applies to the economy and to the End Times.
I don’t always get what I pray for. But my Father in heaven always gives good gifts to those who ask him, in part because he possesses the power to be able to give it, in part because he possesses the wisdom to know what’s best for us, but above all it’s because of what Paul writes to the Romans:
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?[6]
What is the very best reason we have for being confident that God will answer our prayers? Why can we end all our prayers with a hearty “Amen, yes, I believe”? Because God loves us, and his love motivates him to use his considerable power and infinite wisdom for our benefit.
I used the example of Don before: “Don, I don’t know if you’re really my friend, but if you are, I could really use your help right about now.” We don’t have to wonder whether God is really our friend. We don’t have to worry that God might hold out on us. We already have the proof that God does love us and that, in his love, he is willing to do some much more than whatever measly little requests we make of him – even if we ask for world peace or to spare the life of someone we love. Those are nothing compared to what God has already done for you in Jesus.
There are times when we are wayward like a wave of the sea. There are times when our faith is smaller than a mustard seed. There are times when we pray for the snake instead of the fish and would prefer evil to good in our lives. There are even times when we forget to pray entirely, or when we doubt completely God’s ability or desire to help us.
But the amazing thing about our God is that he did not wait for our prayers to be proper before he poured out his love for us. Even while we were still sinfully selfish and feeble in our faith in him, he was powerful in his love for us and selfless in the sacrifice he made for us.
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.[7]
If he was willing to let Jesus die, so that we could live – if he was willing to sacrifice his Son for your salvation, if he was willing to give all that to secure a future for you with him forever in heaven – you have to believe that he cares about what is going on in your life right now. And not only that, but that he is willing and able to do something about it.
That’s why we say “Amen” at the end of our prayers. We are not some Grade 3 boy scout saying “over and out” to a buddy on our walkie talkies. We are saying, “Yes, I believe.” I believe that God hears and answers my prayers. I believe that he possesses the power to give me what I ask for. I believe that he possesses the wisdom to give me what is best for me. But above all, I believe that he loves me, and it is precisely his love that motivates him to use his considerable power and infinite wisdom for my eternal good.
That’s why we say “Amen.” And that’s why we can join the Apostle Paul and the Christians in Ephesus – that’s why we can join Christians of every generation – in praising the name of our wise and powerful, our good and gracious God:
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.[8]
Yes! I believe! Amen.
[1] James 1:6,7
[2] Matthew 7:7,8
[3] James 1:6,7
[4] Matthew 19:26
[5] Luke 11:11-13
[6] Romans 8:32
[7] Ibid
[8] Ephesians 3:20,21