God is Able and Willing 1975

Think of the body of Christ Church against which the gates of death shall not prevail. It's interesting and important I think to to notice that the hymn that we're just saying was written by a brother in the Lord who lived about 300 years ago and was translated by a sister in the Lord who lived about a hundred years ago and that somehow I believe it's pleasing to God that there should be a Fellowship of Saints that crosses death and crosses all the years and I thank God for the inspiration and the light and the truth That he's given to us through the writings the hymns the poems and other things that have come to us from brothers and sisters Who've lived generations and generations before our time? from Luke 18 verse 1 And he told him a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart and Yet how often it is that our prayers are undermined By the fact that we do lose heart We keep going through the motions Saying our prayers But there's no force There's no confidence We don't really expect that anything is ever going to change I'll keep saying my prayers, but I don't know why There's nothing ever changes And the reason nothing ever changes is because our prayers have really ceased to be prayers Because we've lost heart Now there are really only two things that can cause us to lose heart and thereby undermine our prayers One is the belief that God is not able He's too far away Or he's too busy with other things Or he can't be bothered and The other is the belief That God is not willing Now most of us don't have too much of a problem with God's ability we know that he's able We know that our God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all-pervading and there's no place we can escape from his presence Our problem comes from the fact that we doubt That God is willing oh, I know he can but will he Will he come down and touch with his finger this sickness in my body? Will he unlock this door that keeps me a prisoner will he cause his life to surround this child of mine? Will he raise up labors for this needy city? Will he give us power from on high? Isn't it strange that? Our prayers are being destroyed by our lack of belief that God is willing and yet prayer was first given to us That we might learn how willing God is Every time Jesus talks about prayer. He makes it a lesson in the father's willingness Asking you shall receive Seeking you shall find not that it should be open to you.

Everyone who asks receives If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children How much more will the heavenly father give the holy spirit to those who ask him? Of course, he's willing But the only way We ever find out how willing God is in our own experience Is when we really get down to business and pray The whole gospel of jesus is the message that God is willing He has come down among us. He's willing to listen to us and he will speak to us This is the meaning of our lord's death on the cross and his resurrection And the outpouring of his spirit But the only ones who ever experience in their lives the reality of that truth And know for sure in their own experience that the blood of jesus has indeed Removed a barrier of sin and brought us these things are those who take the trouble to communicate with god in prayer Ah, but I don't know how to pray we say But that's no excuse Nobody knows how to pray The spirit helps us in our weakness says paul for we do not know how to pray as we are But the only way the spirit can help us in our weakness and teach us how to pray Is if we will lay aside our doubts concerning god's willingness and begin to pray now the 18th chapter of luke I believe is aimed at people Like we are most of the time people who are so often defeated before they begin Because they will not believe that god is willing And in the the major portion of the 18th chapter of luke jesus is telling us that the reason for our Problems and getting answers to our prayers is not god's unwillingness But it stems rather from our own hearts And he told him a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart He said in a certain city. There was a judge who neither feared god nor regarded man And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying vindicate me against my adversary For a while he refused but afterward he said to himself though.

I neither fear god nor regard man Yet because this widow bothers me. I will vindicate her or she will wear me out by her continual coming And the lord said hear what the unrighteous judge says and will not god vindicate his elect who cried to him day and night Will he delay long over them I tell you he will vindicate them speedily nevertheless when the son of man comes will he find faith on earth The problem is not that god is unwilling But rather that we give up too soon God has very good reasons for not always answering our prayers the first time around If it happened mechanically like that as soon as you utter the word it is done every time We'd soon be thinking of our father as a giant coke machine And we'd be putting into quarters all the time in the 30 cents or whatever it is now And so there's a delay many many times and in that delay We prove to ourselves and to our god how serious we are about this thing. We're asking for And how earnest we are in approaching our father What if this woman had given up? before the unjust judge came through Or what if the man who pounded on his neighbor's door for bread at midnight had given up on the third knock Or what if jacob when he wrestled with the angel of the lord said, oh, it's two o'clock, you know I'm tired.

I'm going to go home and go to bed Or abraham had to wait years and years and years for this promised son What have you given up? And so there's a delay There's a lapse of time and in that delay our Genuine prayers are separated out from our birthday cake wishes and our spiritual daydreams and all these other things And so if you've been praying for that child of yours or that mother or that father or that brother or that cousin or whoever it Is for years and years and years and still have seen nothing happen. What do you do? Do you quit? No You pray harder Our god is not only able to cause that child or that mother or father or whoever it is to be surrounded with life He's willing It will be willing to take jesus at his word And keep right on going and not lose heart He also told them this parable To some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others Two men went up into the temple to pray one a pharisee the other a tax collector The pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself God, I thank thee that I am not like other men extortioners Unjust adulterers or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week I give tithes of all that I get But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven But beat his breast saying god be merciful to me a sinner I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled But he who humbles himself will be exalted It's not that god is unwilling It's rather that we Are much too smart And when you're smart Satisfied with yourself You can't pray Have you ever noticed how after you've been taken down about 20 pegs? Suddenly prayer becomes so much easier It's unpleasant to be humiliated Or to have our phony dreams shattered But to have to see the truth about ourselves and yet what a relief to be able to pray again And if that's what it takes may god do it to us The tax collector could pray because he saw the truth about himself The pharisee could not pray because he was too wrapped up in his smug situation Now, I don't believe it always takes some terrible humiliation or some awful tragedy Or some terrible disappointment To get rid of this smugness in us, although it seems that that's often the way it has to be But I do believe that the spirit of god can come right in there and blow all this smugness Out of our hearts like a mighty rushing wind provided.

We're willing to lift up the window But don't lift up the window of your heart and ask the spirit to come in and do that Unless you're prepared To have a real house cleaning going on in there For instance, I believe that if a pharisee had asked for some help to get over his smugness He would have got it And we will too if we just ask the lord Most of us are quite aware of the fact that we're much too satisfied with ourselves and yet we don't know what to do about this Search me and know my heart Try me and know my thoughts and see if there'll be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting If we pray that that will happen god will do it Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them When the disciples saw it they rebuked him But jesus called them to him and said let the children come to me and do not hinder them For to such belongs the kingdom of god truly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of god like a child shall not enter it Our problem is not that god is unwilling But that we are afraid to be children And we cannot pray Until we become children the adult is always skeptical The child trusts The adult has all the answers The child wants to learn The adult always wants to be the master of his faith and the captain of his soul And he wants to be independent whereas the child is quite satisfied To be dependent upon his father Now Now here's our lord never was there ever in a human being Such maturity and such strength And yet Our lord never took a loaf of bread in his hands and broke it without first thanking his father And whenever something good happened he shared it with his father I thank thee father lord of heaven and earth that thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto vapors And when he faced danger, he cried out to his father without shame He didn't wear some kind of phony front But he was indeed a child under his father whom he called his god And what a difference it makes in our prayers When we are willing to be as children really to be children so that we Share with our father every thought and every good thing and every anxiety and we thank him For every crust of bread and every breath of air And we talk to him about that difficult day we face or that problem That's pressing in on us or that good thing that happened and we're childlike enough to imitate our older brother jesus As we learn from him how to walk with god And the ruler asked him good teacher What shall I do to inherit eternal life and jesus said to him why do you call me good no one is good but god alone You know the commandments do not commit adultery do not kill do not steal do not bear false witness honor your father and mother And he said all these I have observed from my youth But when jesus heard it he said to him one thing you still lack Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me But when he heard this he became sad for he was very rich Jesus looking at him said how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of god For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god Those who heard it said then who can be saved? But he said What is impossible with men is possible with god? Peter said lo we have left our homes and followed you and he said to them Truly I say to you There is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of god Who will not receive manifold more in this time and in the age to come eternal life? It's not that god is unwilling But it's rather that we are afraid to leave everything and follow jesus Now there's not some formula that's going to show us how to leave everything and follow jesus The spirit has to show us this Because each of us comes from a different place And in each of our lives the spirit of god is putting his finger on specific things It's not a matter of asking whether or not you are doing what c.t. stud did or what hudson taylor did The question is are we doing what the spirit is telling us to do now I know a man of god who a few years ago drove a lincoln and lived in luxury. It would seem And Many saints who were quite critical had lots of things to say About this man's style of living But Now this man no longer drives a lincoln and he no longer lives in luxury And he probably works 10 times harder and perhaps praised 10 times harder than his critics Now he was a man of god when he drove the lincoln And he's still a man of god And the significant thing is that he had even when he was still driving the lincoln already forsaken all And this man step by step as the spirit has been showing him Has let go turned away kept changing so he's moved miles ahead of the people who were glorying in their apparent poverty When this guy was driving his lincoln Because step by step he's doing what god is showing him to do Now my vision of the living god and the prayers which flow from that vision Is in proportion to my actual abandonment of myself to jesus Not my pretended abandonment, but my real before god abandonment to jesus You can live in a hair shirt And you can eat nails for breakfast And still have your kingdom of self in perfect order May god show us each of us specifically those things that he now wants us to turn from May he help us in a true obedient Divesting of whatever it is. He calls us to give up Step by step that we having left off to follow jesus may learn How willing our father is? To hear us and to answer us And to guide us And to provide for us There's a tremendous amount of work that remains to be done in the short time that's left And the doing of this work hinges on whether or not our relationship with god is real And this in turn hinges on whether our prayers Are real We don't know how to pray as we are This is why the spirit helps us in our weakness And he will help us in our weakness If we will only keep at it And if we will only give up our smugness And if only we will become truly children and if we will turn away from those things Which we've always thought of as our own And let our lives become truly Let's wait upon another prayer Heavenly father, you know so much better than we do how How shallow Our prayers have been so much of the time And how it seems that we have to be brought into crisis after crisis In order to really get down to business in our prayers We're asking lord god that among us and among our brothers and sisters in the body everywhere You'll teach us the things we need to know And bring us to the place where we need to be That our prayers may be real Day after day Month in and month out year after year in spite of whatever may be happening around us That that our prayers may be indeed The central thing in our lives bringing us to the cross and holding us near to you lord jesus And to your throne oh father We ask it in jesus name Amen