God is – Always Hearing

Joke:  A monastery in the English countryside had fallen on hard times, and decided to establish a business to defray their expenses. Other monasteries, they knew, had opened bakeries or wineries. Being English, however, they decided to open a fish-and-chips restaurant. The establishment soon became very popular, attracting people from all over.

One city fellow, thinking himself clever, asked one of the brothers standing nearby, “I suppose you’re the ‘fish friar’?”

“No,” answered the brother levelly, “I’m the ‘chip monk’.”

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God is  Week 2 – Always Hearing

Prayer matters. Prayer changes things. And God is always listening – hearing every prayer his kids are offering.

Last week, we started a new series God is and I stated that just as God moved in the past, he is still moving today. He is the eternal, self-existent, all-powerful, all-knowing God and refers to himself as “I AM.”

And we are discovering in this series God has not changed over time. He spoke in the past and he still speaks today. That was what we covered in last week’s message.

And today, we are looking at the fact that just as God called upon people to pray in the past and promised to hear their prayers God is continuing to call us to pray because he is still hearing prayers today.

And that’s the subject of the message today, God is Always Hearing

I’m sure do you as well, but I sometimes get invitations in the mail.

• An invitation to a birthday party perhaps. . .
• Or maybe it’s an invitation to a wedding of a couple we know that has chosen to tie the knot. . .

I must admit we used to get a lot more invites in the mail before Facebook.  It seems like more and more are using that as the method of choice for invites.

Now the snail mail invitations I receive are the ones that allow me  to increase my debt by applying for a new credit card.

Receiving an invitation means you’ve been thought of. . .you’ve been included. . .and in Scripture we have received an invitation.  An invitation to pray and it is one of the greatest invitations in all of scripture that God has given to his children.

It really is amazing to think that the God of the universe invites us:

• To know Him.
• To talk with Him.
• To grow in our relationship with Him.

And He does this by calling us to pray.

Hebrews 4:16 (NIV): Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

He’s inviting us to call upon his name.   Listen to some of these verses:

1 Chronicles 16:8 (NIV): Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.

Other translations say call upon His name.

Are you aware that as 1 Chronicles just mentioned that praise and worship is powerful in prayer?

Psalm 18:6 (NIV): In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.

 Jeremiah 33:3 (NIV): Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

He wants to reveal things to us and it does that through prayer.

 Acts 2:21 (NIV): And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

What an invitation given to us by God. . .an invitation to pray. . .to call upon His name. And He promises if we call upon him, He will hear our prayer. ..and He is still hearing.

Now, sadly for many, prayer seems to one of the most difficult things to do on a regular basis.  I have met with so many people, encouraged them, I have even tried to encourage this church, do you realize I’m still here every week at ten to pray and invite Holy Spirit to join us for service.  But this prayer thing seems to be one of the areas of life we seem to struggle with most.   Oh, sure:

• We pray over our meals.
• We throw up a prayer for our children and their safety every now and then.
• We ask the Lord to change our spouse and make them see things the way we see them when needed.
• We pray when confronted with an emergency or health crisis.

But, the regular practice of prayer, if we are honest, it’s hard. We ask questions like:

• What should I pray for?
• How long should I pray?
• What do I need to be praying for?
• If God already knows what’s going to happen, do my prayers even matter?

And then you have the fact that our mind wanders in prayer. We get bored easily with prayer. It just seems like it would be so much easier to get up and do something about what we are praying for instead of actually praying. . .how many know what I’m talking about?

When you make that decision to pray every distraction known to man seems to find its way into your prayer closet.  The kids lay out that blood curdling scream.

And so, you combine the natural difficulty it is to pray, with the fact that our enemy, Satan will do anything in his power to keep us from praying and as wonderful as the invitation is to “call upon the name of the Lord,” sometimes because of all the things I just mentioned that invitation to pray is like the invitation I receive to apply for a new credit card. . .it ends up in the trash.

We don’t do anything with it!

And what I hope to show today is the beauty of serving a God who still hears and the tragedy of Christians not taking God up on His offer to pray.

2 Kings 19 and 20 is our text and in this text we are going to find two prayers a man named Hezekiah prayed. Hezekiah was the King of Judah at the time. And he was one of the few kings that had a heart bent toward the Lord. Most kings in that day were evil and outdoing one another in their sin against God, but Hezekiah was different.

In fact, listen to how he is described in 2 Kings 18:5-6 before I read this there’s something I would like to point out Hezekiah was only 25 years old when he became King:

Now listen to how Scripture describes him. . .

2 Kings 18:5–6 (NIV): Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses.

You’ll see why this is so important here in a few moments, but I do want you to mark the character of Hezekiah.  He had integrity. He had faith.  He trusted in the Lord. . .followed him wholeheartedly. This doesn’t mean he was perfect, but his heart was inclined to the Lord.

King David wasn’t perfect either, but he was still called a man after God’s own heart.

The first prayer we’ll read in chapter 19 has to do with a national crisis. The King of Assyria decides to come against Jerusalem.

The second prayer in chapter 20 is in regards to a personal health crisis that Hezekiah faces.  And I believe we can learn some things from both of these prayers.

2 Kings 19:14–20 (NIV): Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. 15 And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16 Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God. 17 “It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. 18 They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. 19 Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God.”20 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria.

That was prayer number one. . .

Here’s the second. . .

2 Kings 20:1–5 (NIV): In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.” 2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 3 “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: 5 “Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord.

In both texts, Hezekiah prayed. And in both cases, God responded to his prayer. Let’s talk first about what I’ll call healthy prayer.

What does healthy prayer consist of? What does it look like? We’ll get into the specific ingredients of healthy prayer at the end of our time together.

And I am purposefully saving the specifics for the end.  Because I don’t want you think if we pray a certain way or follow this particular order of prayer, then and only then God is going to hear my prayer and is obligated to respond in just the way I want Him to.

Prayer is not some magical chant we do to get God’s attention and ear.

God is not like a Genie.  And prayer is not like rubbing the side of a lamp.

So, before we get into certain aspects of prayer or the ingredients of healthy prayer, we need to understand and realize prayer in its most basic form is about our relationship with God. And what we learn from Hezekiah is that:

Healthy prayer includes a healthy posture.

Now, I’m not talking as much about his physical posture although that’s important.  The Bible actually lays out five ways we can posture ourselves physically when we pray: sitting, kneeling, standing, lying prostrate with our face toward the ground, and praying with hands lifted up.

Mark Batterson says – “Physical posture is an important part of prayer. It’s like a prayer within a prayer. Posture is to prayer as tone is to communication. If words are what you say, then posture is how you say it. . .physical postures help posture our hearts and minds.”

And that last part is the kind of posture I’m talking about. . .it’s the posture of our heart. And if a physical posture helps posture your heart toward humility, then take that posture.

So, when confronted with being assaulted and overthrown by an enemy and then when confronted with his own mortality, did you notice the response of Hezekiah in both of these situations?

Chances are you missed it so let me go back and show it to you once more. . .

2 Kings 19:14 (NIV): Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.

And in the second situation. . .

2 Kings 20:2–3 (NIV): Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 3 “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Both times, Hezekiah’s posture was one of humility and brokenness. And God is attracted like a magnet to those who are humble and broken.

Psalm 34:17–18 (NIV): The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. 18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

It is a spiritual law. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

And in both of these passages, Hezekiah knew his place well. He was the king, but fully realized there was someone greater than him.

2 Kings 19:15 (NIV): And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

In this prayer, he is acknowledges the sovereign rule and reign of God. He knows the world does not revolve around him, he understands there is someone greater. . .the God who knit him together in his mothers womb.

Hezekiah understands his place and this is where all healthy prayer begins. It starts by understanding this simple fact: we are not God.

And this takes humility. It takes an element of brokenness to understand and embrace that.

If you want to know some of the key reasons God is perhaps not responding to our prayers, let’s pause and list out a few right now.

I think one of the biggest reasons prayer is hindered is because of pride. Pride will lead to a dropped call every single time.

Is anything more frustrating than a dropped call or going through a dead spot?   At the cottage we have no cell service with our carrier.   And if we drive a bit we might get a bar or two and make that call, but you better park and make your call or it just might be dropped.   That is what pride does to our prayers. . .it causes a dropped call. . .it’s a dead spot in the road between us and God!

Let’s look at a few more. . .

1. Unbelief –

And this could be in a few different areas.   Not believing that God is even real.

Psalm 10:4 (NIV): In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.

Why pray when there is no God?

Another area is not believing God, can, will, or desires to answer your prayer.

But James 1:6 – 8 tells us,

James 1:6–8 (NIV): 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. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

When we pray, we must pray in belief. . .KNOWING God hears our prayers.  And desires to respond to them.

Mark 11:24 (NIV): Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Another reason God may not respond to our prayer is because of:

2. Selfishness

What we are asking for is not for God’s glory or His will to be done, but instead we’re asking the Lord for something for the wrong reasons, with the wrong motives.

James 4:3 (NIV): 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

We’re not praying as Jesus did, “Your will be done on earth as it is heaven. . .not my will, but yours be done.”

Sometimes our prayers are not responded to because self is at the core of the prayer.

I want to impress my family, friends, with all you give me.  I want to use it for my pleasure not to advance your Kingdom.

Yet another reason why some of our prayers are hindered is because we are living in. . .

3. Disobedience

I’m not talking about not issuing it a few times when He asks us to do something.   We all have missed that tug from time to time.

But I’m talking about not acknowledging at all how God has called us to live.

Micah 6:8 (NIV): He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly  with your God.

Matthew 6:33 (NIV): But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

But what does the Bible say about this as it relates to prayer?

Isaiah 59:1–2 (NIV): Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

Choosing to live in willful, habitual, sin will cause a dropped call a no service most every time.

Just because there is an invitation to call upon the Lord doesn’t mean you can do what you want, when you want and then just  rub the side of the lamp like a “Genie” when needed.

To think this way is to have a very obscure view of God.

One more reason God may not respond to our prayer is because we have:

4. Fractured relationships

Matthew 5:23–24 (NIV): 23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

Mark 11:25 (NIV): And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

 1 Peter 3:7 (NIV): Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

Is that an “Amen” or “Oh, me!

Did he really have to include this verse!”

And every one of these: Unbelief, selfishness, disobedience and fractured relationships are all a form of pride.

Would you do an honest assessment today? The “I AM” is still the “I AM” and He is still hearing prayers. . .if you sense God is distant, is one of these the reasons?

I’m by no means saying there are it could be the enemy trying to stop the answer.

Daniel 10:12–13 (NIV): 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.

But we do need to let the Holy Spirit search your heart.

• Is there something you are asking God to do, but deep on the inside doubt whether or not He can do it?

Maybe just breathe a prayer right now like the father of the boy who had an unclean spirit in him in Mark 9. He approaches Jesus and asks him to heal his son and Jesus said, “All things are possible for him who believes.” And the father says, “I believe, help my unbelief.”

Or maybe you need to pray and ask God to give you a desire for His will over your will. Ask him to search your motives and see if it’s the glory of God you are after or the glory of self?

Or maybe it’s just confession of sin, you need to deal with. . .God’s not responding and you know it’s because there is some sin in your life you are cherishing. . .holding onto. . .clinging to. . .loving more than God’s desire for your life and you need God’s power to let go of that today.

Or maybe it’s a fractured relationship? There is distance between you and your parents or you and a child. . .or you and your spouse.

Listen: God is still in the business of hearing prayers, but we have to come before Him with a healthy posture and that is a humble heart toward him.

God is NOT looking for perfection, he’s simply looking for one who displays a continual posture of humility and brokenness.

Hezekiah was by no means perfect – just keep reading 2 Kings 20 and you’ll see that! He makes a HUGE mistake! But recall what was said about his character…this is who he was on the inside!

2 Kings 18:5–7 (NIV): Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. 7 And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

Because of how he lived. . .humble before God, God was with him. And because he knew God was with him, he trusted in him. And this leads to the second lesson we can learn from Hezekiah’s prayer and that is:

He had the correct perspective.

In his prayer, he acknowledged the sovereign rule and reign of God and he trusted the Lord to answer his prayer. . .and this is key – HOWEVER the Lord saw fit.

Go back to the situations Hezekiah faced. The nation of Assyria was coming against him and the city of Jerusalem. Hezekiah prays and asks God to intervene. . .and we’ll see here in just a moment that this is a key ingredient to prayer – we ASK of God.

Then when Hezekiah at 39 years of age, hears that he is going to die. . .he ASKS the Lord to intervene. And in both cases he demonstrates a trust in God.

He had no idea how God would move on the nation’s behalf! An angel going through the enemy’s camp and killing 185,000 people? I doubt Hezekiah had God answering that prayer in that way in his mind.

What about when God answers Hezekiah’s prayers regarding his death sentence? God gives him 15 more years.

That’s great, but if I’m Hezekiah, I’m thinking, “That’s just 54-55 years of age. . .can’t you do more God?!”

With Hezekiah, we don’t get any inclination of him doubting, debating or being discouraged by the answer God gives.

Because of a deep-seated trust in God the Father, he could pray with an honest heart, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Do you have this deep-seated trust in God? What if His response is “No?” Do you have a perspective that God is sovereign, in control and knows better?

God operates on a different level than we do. His ways are not our ways. His timing is not our timing:

Isaiah 55:8–9 (NIV): For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

He’s all-together different from us. . .working his plan in and through us.   And Healthy prayer includes a correct posture and a right perspective.

This is confession time. This is where we search our hearts

And I love what John tells us,

1 John 1:9 (NIV): If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Again, this is so good for us to go through because when we reflect on our life, decisions we have made, the motives in our heart, the not so fruitful paths we have taken, we see we have not arrived and at the same time meet the incredible grace, love and mercy of God.

In Hezekiah’s prayer for his health, if you noticed, we don’t have the specifics behind what he prayed for.  I believe he was so broken. . .he didn’t even know what to pray for.

The Bible says he turned and wept bitterly – and I believe because God knew what was in his heart, he answered the prayer of his heart. That’s how good our God is.

Sometimes, we are so broken by our circumstances, we don’t even know what to pray. . .and do you know what the Bible says?

Romans 8:26–27 (NIV): In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Ask God. . .ask God for what’s on your heart. Ask him to move in whatever situation you are facing. Ask him to meet the needs of your loved ones. ASK!

1 John 5:14–15 (NIV): 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.

Let’s pray together.

Join us next week to look at God is seeing.