When God Doesn't Answer Prayers (II Corinthians 12:1-10) - Rev. Terry K. Anderson

i want to talk to us this morning from this subject when god doesn't answer your prayers when god does not answer your prayers f b meyer said the greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer the greatest tragedy of life fb meyer says it's not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer god will not answer 100 of the prayers you don't pray but what happens when you sincerely from your heart pray and god does not answer the question of unanswered prayer is on the minds of most praying people though we rarely admit it because it seems so irreverent it seems so irreligious it seems almost blasphemous to say that we pray and god does not answer because jesus said ask and it shall be given seek and you will find knock and the door will be open you've asked but god did not give it to you you sought it out and you have not found it you have knocked on the door and god seems to be absent the heavens seem to be made of brass and god is not hearing you and and to raise that question in your mind it's always on the back burner it's always on the back of your minds i pray but there's no answer so why pray in the first place i asked god to deliver and he has not answered me i asked god to heal my mother and she died i asked god to get my child off drugs and he overdosed i asked god to rid me of this depression and there's still a dark cloud following me everywhere i go i ask god for strength and there are days when it's hard for me to put one foot in front of the other god where are you when i'm in pain why don't you answer me your word said you would there are others who've called on you and you've responded i called on you god in the night seasons and there seems to be no answer there are few experiences more painful than having desperate prayers go unanswered unanswered prayer has a way of breaking us it has a way of deepening us it has a way of exposing us and and making us in a way and in a word that i hate using the word vulnerable unanswered prayer makes us feel like we are by ourselves unanswered prayers for believers who are struggling and people who love god folk who go to church but they are scared almost to admit that i have prayed and god did not respond but if you stay with it if you let god he'll transform you if you allow god to do his perfect work in your life unanswered prayer and god not speaking does not mean that god is not talking because there are some unspoken things that god wants to happen in your life because there are some things brothers and sisters you will never see in the daylight god's got to show you in the dark there are some situations that will never work itself out while you are tossing and turning you've just got to lay it in god's hands because what prayer is is transferring your burden to his shoulder i don't understand it i don't know what you're up to i don't know what you're trying to do i don't know why anybody is not coming to help me i don't know why i'm struggling the way i am i've been praying i've been tithing i've been reading the scripture i've been trying to live right all that i do is what your word says and it seems like god you've forgotten me there's a prayer of dereliction on the cross where even jesus said why have you forsaken me in in this in this text this morning paul goes to the lord a sufficient number of times and he asks god to move the form god does not say yes or no god doesn't answer at all because paul is looking for god to answer in the affirmative because he's saying to himself as i would say i can't do what you need me to do with this crippling thorn move it so i can better serve you god does not say i'm a movie god does not say i'm not going to move it because when you look at paul's life if if anybody ought to be just just jumping and shouting because of who god made him is the apostle paul the apostle paul other than jesus is the greatest preacher who ever lived just just read the book of romans just just read paul's writings in ephesians just read what he writes in first and second corinthians just read the pastoral epistles other than jesus the greatest preacher alive at the time or in our time is the apostle paul a jew by birth a roman by citizenship a tent maker by trade a lawyer by profession a pharisee by religious upbringing and a christian because of what happened on the damascus road and when you read uh paul's catalog and paul's chronicle when you read paul's resume the church was afraid to take him in because paul saul at the time was holding the garments of stephen who was being stoned because of his faith but it is the same soul that was arrested on the damascus road and the lord jesus himself said saul saul why are you persecuting me he said to the lord what will you have me to do he says go on where you were going keep on going to straight street and there's a man there who will tell you what i want you to do paul is struck blind and in his blindness god deals with him and the scales fall from his eyes and he becomes the apostle to the gentiles and when paul get ready to join the church they're scared to take him in he is a notorious killer he is the worst criminal that the church could ever think of because he browned men and women for talking about jesus but thank god for barnabas who goes to sit with paul on the back road and barnabas comes back to tell the church we don't need to be scared to take him in he's no longer persecuting saul he's praying paul he's no longer a student of gamaliel he's a servant of the lord and every time paul got ready to preach he did not open his mouth unless he gave them his testimony i'm not meet to be called an apostle because i prosecuted the church of god but by the grace of god i am what i am and before you tell somebody about how they ought to live their life tell them what god did for you tell them when you were on the junk heap when your life was going down the drain don't act like you've been saved and in church all your life remind them and yourself [Applause] [Music] of what god did when he found you i have an affinity have an affinity for people who've had rough lives i i did not live a rough rough life and rough in terms of being on the streets i've been in church all my life all i know is the church i was raised born and raised in the church all i know is church but i've had some brothers i've had some friends there's some people i know at this church who came up on the streets and and street people are different from folk who were just raised in the church when you were raised in the church sometimes you get proud that you've never been to jail or you've never raped anybody or you've never stolen anything or you never smoke dope or you've never uh committed a crime and and that's that's wonderful praise god for that but the praise ought to really be god kept me from going to jail god kept me from committing a crime god kept me from smoking dope not because i was so holy or so righteous god just kept me from what some other people got involved in because salvation is not always what god delivers you from salvation is most times what god kept you from but i have an affinity [Applause] i have an affinity for for people who who made it on the streets because they don't mind telling you where they came from they don't mind testifying what god did for them uh i i like talking to people who who used to be drug addicts but now they're preachers and deacons people who used to be on the streets doing all kind of damnable things but god got him in a choir right now or god has them standing as an usher i love talking to those people because it reminds me of what i could have been doing that god kept me from and i'm not better because they were doing what they were doing i'm just here like them by the grace of god and everybody in here has a before and an after testimony i once was lost in sin i wish i had somebody to help me preach it but jesus took me in have i got a witness here paul says if you want to brag i mean if you really want to boast let me tell you about a man about 14 years ago who was taken up to the third heaven and saw some things that no mortal is committed to talk about he said i would brag i would boast but let me tell you about a man and paul is talking in the third person to tell them i know a man who has something to boast about and brag about and then before he boasts and brags when you read the 11th chapter of first corinthians he chronicles and catalogs what he went through as a servant of god let down the wall in a basket run out of town by his own kinfolk spent a day in the night in the bosom of the deep nakedness peril of the sword hungry paul was shipwrecked received 40 lashes minus one paul went through all kinds of things that he didn't have to go through because he was a roman citizen but here paul says i know a man about 14 years ago who was taken up to the third heaven and he saw some things that he's not committed to talk about but he said when i when i think about it what god did to keep my feet on the ground he gave me he gifted me with a thorn in the flesh an overwhelming pain paul who is god's preacher is given an overwhelming pain it's a thorn a thorn it's not it's not a sticker uh on a rose bush it's not a pin prick it's not a hangnail it's it's not snagging your finger uh on a thorn bush and getting a paper cut paul says i was given a wooden stake driven into my flesh i was impaled on a wooden stake and not only is he impaled on it paul says i'm buffeted by it that word buffett means to strike with the fist and and the word the verb is in the present tense active voice i'm continually bothered with this thorn the bible does not give us the nature of paul's thorn there is conjecture that paul had a debilitating eye disease because he was stricken with blindness on the damascus road and some of his letters were written by an emanuelensis and emmanuel windsor's is a 75 word for a secretary so if you're a secretary call yourself an emanuensis that just sounds better than secretary paul wrote some of his letters were written by others because of his eyesight and then some believe that paul had a malarial fever that he contracted while on one of his missionary journeys paul has been described as being bald-headed and hump-backed not not desirable to look upon he had crippling arthritis perhaps the bible does not tell us what his phone is and i'm glad the bible does not name the phone because the fun does not necessarily have to be something physical somebody may be afflicted with depression somebody may be afflicted with having to have the burden of taking care of an elderly family member with no help that's a thorn in the flesh you you have put your life on hold to take care of an aging family member and the rest of the family going out to dinner living their best life now having a ball while you are chained to a responsibility that's a thorn in the flesh or maybe there is some hurt there's some pain from yesterday's gone by that you have tried to outrun but when you get quiet and by yourself the pain comes rushing in and you have to smile to keep from crying you have to pretend like everything is going well and the mask on your face even this morning is masking your misery masking your heartbreak masking your pain masking your anger masking your frustration it's not a physical form but you may have a psychological thought you may have an emotional someone and you've gone to god and bad god to move it but brothers and sisters hear me paul says and and this is the the strange thing in the text it's the messenger of satan satan carried it but god conceived it satan brought it but god sent it so satan brought it and god sent it god must know i have it and god must know that it's debilitating god must know that it's weighing me down god must know that i want to get out from under it because nothing happens in my life without god's permission he permitted it and so since he permits my pain he must have a purpose it's an overwhelming pain with an overruling purpose paul said there's a thorn in my flesh it's not a pin prick it's not a thorn from a rose bush i am impaled on a wooden stake driven into my flesh buffeted into my flesh and it hurts in a way that i can't describe and listen as a christian you need to admit when you're in pain stop acting superhuman you need to admit i am in pain i am in trouble i am hurting i am masking it but when i get home and take off all this stuff there's an itch that i can't scratch there's a burden that i can't get out from under there's a situation i wish i had some help with but i look like i'm in this thing by myself god where are you in the midst of my pain well i think the purpose is to regulate your flesh paul says except i should be exalted above measure i i think the reason god sends blessed people burdens is to keep us from becoming top heavy [Applause] because when you're pretty you think you're gonna have no problem when you're smart you think you can think your way out of anything when you make a lot of money you think you can buy your way out of any problem so god's got to send some stuff in your life to make you understand i don't care how pretty you are i don't care how fine you are i don't care what college you went to i don't care what the bottom line is in your bank account i don't care how much you have in your 401k there's going to be some things that's going to come in your life that only prayer is going to be able to handle and sometimes when you pray god won't even answer [Applause] he keeps you from thinking more highly of yourself than you're hard of hearing the problem with preaching up here and singing up here is looking down there because us up here looking down there makes you think that us up here really got it going on but you'd be surprised to know that the person seated right next to you got so many things going on in their lives they are juggling so many balls in the air and they are just trying to put one foot in front of the other and if the lord don't hurry up and come to their rescue they are going to lose their mind because they've been praying and praying and struggling and working and stressing and striving and pushing and pulling and it doesn't seem to make any difference at all [Applause] ah but not only is the purpose to regulate your flesh is to rejuvenate your faith because trouble will send you to your knees [Applause] pain will teach you how to pray loss will help you find god when you're least expected misery will make you get down on your knees i need somebody here who's had a hard time and god showed up just when you needed him the most you can help me testify in the words of isaiah has thou not known i wish i had a bible reader has thou not heard that the everlasting god the father the creator of the ends of the earth there's no searching of his understanding he giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might he increases their strength even the youth shall faint and grow weary i wish i had two or three more bible readers and the young men shall utterly fall but they that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings like eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint you waited in that apartment you're in a house today you waited riding that old car with the hubcaps missing but look where the lord has brought you today you waited at the bottom of the ladder of success but god has elevated you to the top of success if you wait on the lord [Applause] he'll renew your strength the proverbs said if you faint in the day of adversity your strength is small jeremiah said if you run with the footmen and they wearied you how shall you contend with horses god sins thorns god sends problems to drive us to our knees brothers and sisters i've lived long enough and i've been sick enough to pray and god doesn't answer i could not turn myself over and the devil came in my room and said here you are preaching the gospel calling yourself leading god's people what kind of god would leave you in the condition that you're in if god is god why are you so sick and all i could do was cry but god has a way of sending the holy spirit to take your groanings i wish i had somebody who had to groan in the midnight hour god will send the holy ghost to take your groanings and the spirit will take what you're groaning and bring it up to god in heaven it says now if he could talk this is what he'd be saying [Applause] father [Applause] i stretch i wish i had a witness here anybody here been broke and the lord paid your bills anybody ever been sick and the lord healed your body anybody here been depressed and the lord lifted your bowel down head help me testify the holy ghost will take your groaning [Applause] to keep you from being top-heavy i've kept you here too long i'm through there's an overwhelming pain there's an overruling purpose but there's an over joyful promise paul said i went to the lord three times and asked him to move the thorn god didn't say yes or no god said my grace is sufficient i have divine sufficiency for whatever your situation is i have divine sovereignty i overrule i super rule all conditions in your life because hear me brothers and sisters god gets more glory from using us in our weakness i said god gets more glory from using us in our weakness if you could do it in your education god wouldn't get the glory if you could do it in your youth god wouldn't get the glory if you could do it by your street smarts god wouldn't get the glory but god wait god waits until you are out of gas god waits until all your energy is done god waits until you can't go another day god waits until you can't see how you're going to make it out and then god shows up like only god can show up not with an answer but with his grace and when god shows up with his grace you're able to stand up on your feet again when god shows up with his grace you just keep on doing what you're doing and don't even know where the strength is coming from when god shows up with his grace he just puts a smile on your face and you don't care who's doing what or who's not doing what you just keep on doing what you know is the right thing to do and god just shows up in your situation and turns your midnights in today turns your dark clouds into a sunshiny day i need one or two more witnesses here who's had to be under a heavy burden but god came to your rescue you had to be under a severe trial but god came to see about you the problem is still going on but you got strength to handle your situation the problem is still in your life but god has just given you joy for the journey the circumstance is still weighing on you but you're just still able to come to church anyway and tell god thank you for what you've already done i need a witness this morning who knows god's grace is sufficient won't he do it won't he show up won't it be god in the midst of your trials won't he be strength in the midst of your weakness won't he be joy in the midst of your sorrow won't he be a burden bearer in the midst of your situation is there anybody here no god's grace is sufficient is there anybody here no god can carry you through why don't you look at somebody tell them i don't know what you're going through but this too will pass this too will pass come on say it like you mean it i don't know what your problem is but god will turn it around won't he do it won't he turn around won't he turn it around if you don't believe god will turn it around come with me to a hill called calvary one friday on a skull-shaped hill and a blood-soaked cross jesus died didn't he die they thought it was all over they buried him in a borrowed grave he stayed there all night friday night stay there all day saturday stay there all night saturday night but bright early very early right here sunday morning he got up from the grave because god will turn it around is there anybody here had a friday in your life is there anybody here had a dark day in your life why don't you help me testify he will turn it around he will make it all right he will turn you midnight in the day he will be a mother for you he will be a doctor for you come on help me testify come on use your preaching voice god will make a way somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow i know he's all right [Applause] i wish i had a witness who could help me testify he will turn it around tell him thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for turning it around thank you for making it brand new thank you for drawing my tears thank you for answering my prayer thank you you may not [Applause] [Applause] always he's alright [Music] [Music] yes he will yes he will yes he will be not dismayed whatever be tied god will take care of you beneath his wings of love applies god will take care of you no matter what may be the test god will take care of you lean weary one upon his breast god will take care of you won't he do it say yeah yeah yes yeah yes yes i know he's alright [Music] if it looks like if it looks like you can't go another day [Applause] god's grace is sufficient don't give up don't stop praying don't stop believing god's grace is sufficient whatever you don't have is great so make it up whatever your supply is low his grace will make it up whenever it looks like you're not going to have enough his grace is sufficient so paul said most gladly therefore will i rather glory in my infirmity that the power of god may rest on me here is the paradox of power when i am weak [Music] then am i strong you got to admit that you don't have enough you've got to admit that life has fallen to the bottom you've got to admit that god i've done all i can do i need your help and god's grace will come in your situation because it's sufficient and that word sufficient means sufficient whatever you need god's got it our brothers are standing now and our evangelism people are in the aisle as the choir sings if you're here today and you want to join lily grove church by letter or christian experience or as a candidate for baptism or if you're watching us online and you don't have a christ in your life you don't have a savior you don't have a god on your side you ought to do it right now whoever you are in this sanctuary listening to my voice just come down the aisles right now and god will save you to the utmost i was i see you coming god bless you once was love [Music] but now i'm fine praise god for you it was blind [Music] but now come on that's right [Music] somebody else is here today was grace god bless you dear [Music] god bless you i see you coming away in the back relief high prayer precious [Music] that grace up here god bless you come on dear i see you via first be through many dangerous toys and snap [Laughter] [Music] [Music] i have [Music] [Music] one grace that brought [Music] and grace [Music] when we've been there [Music] hallelujah ten fouls and [Music] bright shiny the sun [Music] last day [Music] to sing [Music] that's right we've heard [Music] y'all don't know this verse [Music] the lord has promised [Music] his good to me his word my hope [Music] [Applause] [Music] my shield and for dress be [Music] as long as my life endures praise god praise god praise god praise god he's worthy [Music] praise god praise [Music] nobody but jesus it was nobody but jesus praise god hallelujah praise god from the rising of the sun to the going down of the savior he's worthy to be praying [Music] somebody might still be thinking about it i know we're running out of time we've been here long enough but we've always got time for somebody to make a decision because the bible says he that hath the son of god has life but he that hath not the son has not life and the wrath of god abideth upon him you can have gone to church your whole life and not be saved paul says i bear them record that they have a zeal of god but not according to knowledge [Music] for they being ignorant of god's righteousness have gone about to establish their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves under the righteousness which is of god you can really think you're doing right and you're on the wrong road the road to hell [Music] is paved with good intentions if that was such a thing as a bus picking up a load to go to hell it could make it fresh stop at the church because not everybody who says lord lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven i wouldn't go to sleep tonight if i did not know for sure if i don't wake up in the morning the next face i see [Music] will be jesus christ himself i know in whom i have believed and that he is able to keep that which i have committed unto him against that day i know that if this earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved i have another bill a house not made with hands but eternal in the heavens we used to sing it at my church at home there's a leak in this old building and my soul has got to move when i can read my title clear to mansions in the sky albeit farewell to every fear and dry my weeping eye for this time another year i may be dead and gone but i'll let you know before i go my soul has a brand new home don't leave this church today until you know for sure that if you don't see another day the next day you see will last forever [Music] but there's no night there there's no need for the sun for the light of his presence gives light to all that are in the city and there's a tree called life bearing 12 manner of fruit and the leaves on the tree are good for the healing of the nation if you don't get there till january there's another fruit in january if you don't get there till april there's another fruit in april and god himself shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death no crying nor pain neither sorrow for the former things are passed away paul says in first corinthians 13 we see through a glass darkly but then face to face i will know even as also i am known do it today before it's everlasting too late [Music] the divine invitation has been extended to you and as always it is yours either to receive or to reject our brothers will uh i mean uh brother scott will come now and let's welcome these persons who have joined our church this morning let's give god the praise for them and for their coming [Music] you

Channel: Lilly Grove Missionary Baptist Church

Views: 262,370

Keywords: Lilly Grove, Missionary Baptist, Rev. Terry K Anderson, Religion, Spiritual, Baptist, Bible Study, Christian, Salvation, Resurrection, Power of Prayer, Motivation, Spiritual Guidence, Sunday Teaching, Sermon, Bible, Jesus Christ, Jesus, Call To Joy, Prayer

Id: T6IdNnjBSNo

Length: 50min 28sec (3028 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 14 2022