Confident that God Answers

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

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Deliver Us from Evil

Deliver Us from Evil

What would a world without evil look like?

It would be a paradise, a utopia, a modern-day Garden of Eden. Last week we read a bit about the Garden of Eden – how the devil tempted Adam and Eve to sin, how Adam and Eve broke the only rule God gave them, how they gave into temptation and tasted the forbidden fruit. This week, I want to read a bit about the fallout from that fall in to sin.

This is where we left off last week. After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit:

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.[1]

As we read through this section of Scripture, I’d like us to keep a tally of the fallout from the fall in to sin. Do you see a consequence of their sin already here? Adam and Eve felt shame. They had never had low self-esteem or a negative body image before. They had never had selfish sexual thoughts about each other before. But now their eyes were literally opened to an entirely new spectrum of sin.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”[2]

What further fallout was there from Adam and Eve’s fall into sin? They were afraid of God. Their relationship with God had begun to fracture and it was entirely their fault. For the first time in their lives, they weren’t sure whether God would love them anymore. The rift between God and humans had begun.

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”[3]

What further fallout was there from Adam and Eve’s fall into sin? They began to blame each other. Their relationship as husband and wife – man and woman – began to fall apart and they started to see each other as the enemy, or at the very least a stumbling block.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”[4]

Any further fallout from Adam and Eve’s fall into sin? This is related to what we’ve seen already, but there’s a lack of accountability. Adam and Eve were not willing to own up to their sin. They were far more eager to throw someone else under the bus and pass the buck than to take responsibility and repent and ask God for forgiveness.

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”[5]

What further fallout was there from Adam and Eve’s fall into sin? Do you know what enmity is? It’s hatred, conflict, considering someone else your enemy. God was saying that for the rest of human history there would be severe spiritual warfare between the devil and humankind. They would never again enjoy the rest and peace they had known in the Garden.

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”[6]

What further fallout was there from Adam and Eve’s fall into sin? Pain in childbearing. Ladies – mothers – can you imagine the unqualified joy of bringing a child into this world without pain? How amazing would that be?

There’s more fallout here, though. God puts into words what Adam and Eve had already shown with their actions – tension, discord, disunity between men and women. We’re still fighting the “battle of the sexes” today and we still bandy about terms like “militant feminism” and “toxic masculinity.” There is still strife between man and woman, between husband and wife.

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are to dust you will return.”[7]

And finally, what further fallout was there from Adam and Eve’s fall into sin? The ground was cursed. Thorns and thistles. Problems with ecosystems and the climate. Natural disasters. Famines. Floods. Fires. Have you seen any of those in the news lately?

There’s more. What other fallout was there? Painful toil. Not work. Work is not a curse. Adam and Eve had jobs to do even in the perfection of the Garden of Eden. But now because of their sin, work would be a burden. Now work would be exponentially more challenging and emotionally draining.

All this and we haven’t even mentioned the worst of the fallout from the fall into sin. Death. “Dust you are to dust you will return.”[8] Adam and Eve had been immortal. Had they not sinned, they would have lived in perfection, in paradise forever. But now, specifically because of their sin, they – and every human who would follow them – would die.

So, let’s recap. What is the fallout from the fall into sin? My notes have shame and shamelessness; broken relationships between God and mankind and between men and women, not to mention spiritual warfare with the devil; pain in childbearing, painful toil; the ground itself was cursed and we are cursed to go to the ground in death. That’s a lot of evil that didn’t exist before Adam and Eve fell into sin. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Even if no one else in the world ever committed another sin in human history, we would all still have to live in this fallout from the fall into sin. But you know as well as I do that Adam and Eve were not the only weak ones. Adam and Eve are far from the only sinners. You and I continue to give in to the devil’s temptations. We continue to contribute to and compound the evil and the hurt in this world. We throw each other under the bus. We do not readily accept responsibility for our actions. We resent and hurt each other.

We hurt physically and emotionally and spiritually. We feel the curse of sin in our bodies and in this world and we see it play out in our lives every day. Evil is all around us. Ours is not a utopia; it is a dystopia. We do not live in the Garden of Eden. That’s why we pray, “Deliver us from evil.”

I don’t think it takes a whole lot to convince anyone that evil exists. The much more difficult task is to understand what God does about it. How does God answer our prayers when we ask him to deliver us?

There are a couple different Bible passages that give us some answers. Here’s one from Psalm 91 – it’s probably what most of us are thinking when we pray this petition:

If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.[9]

What is one way that God can and does deliver you from evil? He keeps it from happening. Have you ever been in one of those situations, e.g. if that car had entered the intersection a split second sooner, you would have been roadkill, but it didn’t, so you get to go on with the rest of your day with nothing but a bit of high blood pressure to show for it? That could have been one of those moments where God intervened in your life to deliver you from evil.

And that’s the stuff we might know about. How many bad things could have happened to you but didn’t because God was delivering you from them? It’s impossible to know, because they never happened! One way that God can and does deliver us from evil is by keeping it from happening altogether.

But sometimes bad things do happen. You get into an accident; you get the diagnosis you were dreading; you break up; you get divorced; you lose your job, your family, your friends. Sometimes bad things do happen. Did God fail to deliver us from those evils? No. Even when bad things happen, we have these promises from God:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.[10]

What does God promise to do for you even when evil things happen? He promises to use them for your good. That’s a really difficult thing for us to understand, and maybe even harder to accept. I mean, what good could possibly come from someone being near death in a hospital bed for 2 years? Lots of good, actually:

We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.[11]

When our strength fails, God strengthens our faith. Without challenges in our lives, our faith in God can grow weak. But as we face adversity, as we endure evil in our lives, our faith in God’s grace grows, until we have a perseverance that can only come through suffering.

Or you could think about what Paul says to the Corinthians:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.[12]

What other good could possibly come from being near death in a hospital bed for 2 years? You could have an opportunity to witness your faith… to the person in the bed next to you, to the nursing staff and doctors who take care of you, to the family and friends who visit you, to people who hear about you and all you went through. Your suffering could actually mean someone else’s salvation. I’d say that’s something good that God could work out of evil.

Sometimes God prevents evil from happening altogether. Sometimes God works even evil for our good. But ultimately, the final deliverance from evil is something we’ve already heard. It’s not just one of, it is the first fallout from the fall into sin that we heard explicitly from God in Genesis 3:

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”[13]

What did we identify earlier as the fallout from the fall into sin from this passage? Enmity, i.e. this ongoing, spiritual warfare with the devil. That’s true. But God does not merely predict spiritual conflict; he declares a victor: he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”[14]

Who is the “he” in this passage? That’s Jesus, i.e. the offspring of the woman sent to defeat the devil! That’s Jesus, i.e. the Son of God sent to earth to win our salvation. If evil is only present in this world because of sin, then Jesus came not to put an end to war and usher in world peace, not to solve the problem of hunger, social injustice or climate change, but to solve the problem of sin. And he did it, not by treating the symptoms, but by addressing the root cause.

When Jesus died on the cross, he defeated the devil. The devil wants nothing more than for you to die and spend an eternity with him in hell. But when Jesus died on the cross, he gave you eternal life with him in heaven. The devil wants to tempt you to sin and then heap endless accusations against you so that you fear God the way Adam and Eve did. When Jesus died on the cross, he forgave your sin and showed you how much God loves you despite your sin. All the evil that is present in this world exists because of sin. When Jesus died on the cross, he put sin in its place and gave us the hope of a future without sin or any of its fallout:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”[15]

Think about how many of the consequences of sin – think about how many of the evils that we tallied up earlier – find their resolution here.

Cursed is the ground because of you. – Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth.”

“I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” – God’s dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

Dust you are and to dust you will return. – There will be no more death.

With painful labor you will give birth to children. Through painful toil you will eat food from [the ground]. – There will be no more mourning or crying or pain.

For every problem that sin presents, there is an answer in Jesus. For every evil present in this world because of sin, there is perfection and peace in heaven. The ultimate way that God answer this petition – “Deliver us from evil” – is by securing a future for you in heaven by his death on the cross.

Of course, God willing, for many of us heaven is still many years away. But we don’t have to wait for God to answer this prayer. We know that God does intervene in our lives in the meantime. Some evils he keeps from happening altogether. The other evil things that do happen in life he works for our good. And because of those promises we can have two things, that both start with the letter “h,” that will enable us to endure any evil until he takes us home.

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.[16]

What two things has God given you that enable you to endure evil in your life? He has given you help and hope. He is your deliverer from many evils in your day to day life, but, above all, he is your Savior, who gives you the hope of heaven through his Son, who taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil.” Amen.

[1] Genesis 3:7

[2] Genesis 3:8-10

[3] Genesis 3:11,12

[4] Genesis 3:13

[5] Genesis 3:14,15

[6] Genesis 3:16

[7] Genesis 3:17-19

[8] Genesis 3:19

[9] Psalm 91:9,10

[10] Romans 8:28

[11] Romans 5:3-5

[12] 2 Corinthians 1:3,4

[13] Genesis 3:14,15

[14] Genesis 3:15

[15] Revelation 21:1-4

[16] Psalm 146:5

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