Again, open your Bible to Mark’s gospel and we’re going to be looking at chapter 11, verses 22 to 25.

Fourthly, a practical component...practical. Historical, remember...theological, trust...spiritual believe...practical...verse 24, this should be obvious. “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask...” There’s the word, the practical component of effectual, practical prayer is ask...ask. James says, “You have not because you ask not.” Ask. “Believe that you have received,” That speaks of something in the future as if it’s already happened. “Believe that you have received them, these all things for which you ask, and they will be granted you.”

Wait a minute. That is shockingly magnanimous (generous or forgiving). That’s why He says, “I say to you,” this is personal from Me, all things. All things? “All things for which you pray and ask? All things?” That’s what He says.

You know, this must have reminded them of the Sermon on the Mount, the truths of which He repeated often, ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened to you, for everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks it will be opened. For what man is there among you who when his son asks for a loaf gives him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, he’ll not give him a snake, will he? If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him? Ask and believe that you have already received and it will be granted.

Wait a minute...wait a minute. This is just too unqualified here. This is way too unqualified. And that’s why we bring in James 4:3, “You ask and you don’t receive because you ask to consume it on your own desires.”

The Bible is clear on the qualifications, whatever is according to His will, whatever is according to His will. The beautiful model for that, Mark 14:36, our Lord in the garden, sweating, as it were, great drops of blood in anticipation of His own crucifixion, cries out, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Remove this cup from Me, this cup of coming suffering, sin bearing. Yet not what I will, but what You will.”

The Lord understands our cries. He understands the cry for healing. He understands the cry for a better marriage. He understands the cry of the heart over the children that grieve You and just torture You with their disaffection and their rebellion. He understands that. He understands the struggles with money and finances and He understands all that. He understands all that and He holds you in His heart and He will never forsake You and He will never withhold any good thing from you and all things will work together for your good if you faithfully ask.

But at the end, you can pour out your heart to Him, you can storm heaven but always with this qualifying statement, “Nevertheless, not my will, but Your be done.” Why? His is greater, purer, wiser, more generous, more gracious (forgiving, compassionate and kind), more merciful than anything you can ever, ever imagine.

The Lord makes all of this even more clear in the Upper Room the next night. Again John 14:12, “Truly, truly I say to you, he that believes in Me, the works that I do, He will do also in greater works, greater in extent not kind, than these He will do because I go to My Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” That doesn’t mean you can ask anything and then say “In Jesus name” at the end. That’s not the point. It’s not words, it’s consistent with who He is, His name is who He is, consistent with His person and His purpose.

In that Upper Room, there was so much instruction, John 13 all the way through John 16. In chapter 15 verse 6, “If anyone doesn’t abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, dries up, and so forth.” But verse 7, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” Ask whatever you wish. If My words abide in you and if you abide in Me, who’s controlling your wish list? He is...He is.

Verse 16 of John 15, “You didn’t choose Me but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit. Your fruit would remain so that whatever you ask of My Father in My name, He may give it to you.” And then in the sixteenth chapter, that same Upper Room on Thursday night, “In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be made full.”

You ask, but you ask consistent with Me, who I am, why I came, My purpose. It’s always the qualifier...always.

There’s one final necessity in effective, powerful prayer. There’s a historical component to remember, a theological component to trust, spiritual component to believe, a practical component to ask and, by the way, we aren’t close to exhausting these things, they’re all through Scripture. Then there’s a moral component, number five, there’s a moral component here that must be stated and it is in verse 25. And by the way, verse 25 is drawn out of Matthew 6:14, the words of Jesus in the Disciples’ prayer, the Our Father. It is drawn out of Matthew 6, it is actually a parallel to verse 14. Verse 15 says what verse 26 says, but in your Bible you notice some brackets normally around 26. It doesn’t appear in the earlier manuscripts. The scribe put it in, maybe he put it in accidentally cause he was referring to Matthew 6 and just kind of copied the whole thing down since in the early manuscripts didn’t have verse markings. Verse 26 is a true statement that doesn’t appear in the early manuscripts of this passage, so we assume Mark didn’t include it. It did include verse 25, “Whenever stand praying,” and by the way, standing was the most common posture for prayer, standing...that’s right. Lying down was another posture for prayer, as kneeling was another posture. You see that all throughout Scripture. But the most common was standing, such as in Matthew 6:5, Luke 18:9 through 14 gives is an illustration of that.

“But when you stand praying, here comes the moral requirement...forgive...forgive. If you have anything against anyone so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions (sins that are prohibited).”

Wow! If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Old Testament says, the Lord will not hear me. So I’ve got to deal with the sin in my heart. That could be a long process. If when I want to pray to the Lord, I’ve got to get rid of all the sin in my life, that could be a long, drawn-out process because I’m never going to be what I ought to be and there’s always going to be sin lurking somewhere there. So the Lord just says, “Let me make it simple for you. Forgive...forgive. If you have anything against anyone, hurl it away.” That’s what the word “forgive,” means, hurl it away, get rid of it. “So that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions (sins that are prohibited).”

This isn’t talking about salvation (the saving of a sinner from the righteous judgment of God). We’ve already had the judicial forgiveness of salvation. This is talking about the sins that are part of your life as a believer that stand between you and the Lord. The difference is in John 13, you remember, where Jesus said to Peter, “You have been bathed, you have been washed, you just need your feet cleaned.” We’ve had the big bath. We’ve been cleansed through faith, as we read in Acts 15, but we collect the dirt of the world, sin, as we live day by day. And if we want those to be forgiven, which opens the way to pray because if those aren’t forgiven, we don’t have access to pray, if we want those to be forgiven us, then we have to forgive others. That’s exactly what Jesus said in the Disciples’ prayer, that’s Matthew 6:14 and 15. And maybe I ought to make sure that you look at it in that context, “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors, but if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. If you don’t forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions (sins that are prohibited).”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have unforgiven sin in my life, not in the eternal sense, not in the judicial sense, not the salvation sense, but in the sense of interrupting my fellowship and my usefulness in my prayer life.

Jesus gave an illustration of this when in Matthew 18 He told the story about the man who owed the king an unpayable debt and the king forgave him the debt. And then the man who had been forgiven an unpayable debt went out and found a guy who owed him a small amount and strangled him and threw him in debtors prison and he was disciplined by the king for receiving a massive level of forgiveness and being unwilling to give a small amount to somebody else. You can’t accept the full forgiveness of God and then be unforgiving towards somebody else. So here’s the moral component in effective prayer...forgive if you have anything against anyone.

Here’s your choice. Hold a grudge or have your prayers answered. Take your pick. Hold a grudge, feel vengeance (desire for revenge against someone that has harmed you) or have your prayers answered. Ephesians 4:32, “Forgiving one another even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us.” We need the attitude of Stephen, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”

This is a massive promise, life-changing promise, isn’t it? Whatever we ask in His will, in His purpose, in His plan, that’s not...that shouldn’t be foreign to us. Look, salvation (the saving of a sinner from the righteous judgment of God) is a sovereign (supreme and powerful) work of God but not apart from our faith. Sanctification (to set apart for holy use) is a sovereign work of the Spirit of God in us but not apart from our faith. And praying, and pulling down the power of heaven is bringing to earth the sovereign purpose and will of God but it’s activated in the same way those other things are activated by, our faith. I think they got the message.

Turn to the book of Acts, chapter 1. A few weeks later, Jesus is back in heaven. He’s gone. He leaves in verse 9, Acts 1. Verse 12, “They were out on the Mount of Olives when He left. They went right back into Jerusalem from the Mount, same day, same hour. They entered the city and they went to the Upper Room. Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas, the son of James, these all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to...guess what?...prayer. He was gone and within hours of His leaving, they began to tap divine resources. With them were the women, Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers who had come to faith.” There were 120 of them there praying.

And guess what? The power came down. On the Day of Pentecost, chapter 2, the place was suddenly hit by heaven, suddenly there came from heaven a noise, verse 2, like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting and there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributing themselves and they rested on each one of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other languages as the Spirit was giving them utterance and they went from there to the great moment on the Day of Pentecost and three thousand were saved and then another time five thousand were saved, and there were twenty-thousand plus soon that believed the gospel and the gospel literally went out so powerfully that the people said they turned the world upside down that fast. And the Lord was saying to them by that answered prayer, “I told you that the power for the purposes of God would be available if you sought Me by prayer.” And if you go through the book of Acts, it is prayer and power, prayer and power, prayer and power, prayer and power, and that’s how it’s gone through the history of the church and it’s still that way. So make a choice. Hold a grudge or bring down heaven’s power. It’s your choice.

What a promise. Still our privilege to call on the Lord in believing prayer, consistent with His will and purpose, and that’s all we would want anyway. And He does it. So, my beloved, I give you the words of the Apostle Paul, this is such good news, I suggest that you pray without ceasing.

Father, thank You for our time this morning. How wonderfully rich and blessed we have been. Thank You for these precious people, what a blessed congregation, what a joy and privilege to minister to them. What receptive hearts, open minds, loving attitudes toward You and toward Your Word and even toward Me and those who serve them, teach them. Thank You that the work that Your Holy Spirit has done here by faith. Lord, I pray that You’ll increase our faith, that our faith will grow and increase and grow stronger and that the result of that faith will be believing prayer. And, Lord, we would never want to short-circuit that, never want to short-circuit that by holding a grudge. Fill our hearts with forgiveness no matter what others have done for us. Forgiveness is free to give, free to offer, instant and immediate and it opens up the power of heaven. Whether or not there’s reconciliation down the road, that’s another issue, but forgiveness, may we give that instantaneously and always so that our prayers are not hindered. Hear our prayer, Lord, and hear the prayer that we cry to You, first of all, forgive our transgressions (an act of sin that is prohibited) and then grant us the faith to activate heaven’s power on behalf of the advance of Your name and Your Kingdom, and Your will on earth as it is in heaven. Thank You for that privilege. In the name of Christ, we pray, Amen.

 

John MacArthur