Prayers That do NOT get Answered - Sermon Outline - Prayer Breakfast Message May 1, 2010

Prayer Breakfast May 1, 2010 7:30

Prayers that do not get answered.

1 Chron 29:19
God does not and will not manipulate UNsubmitted hearts even from his own people. God's transforming power works ONLY on SUBMITTED hearts. Otherwise, it violates God's preordained creation of man "in the image of God" which makes man autonomous, independent with unrestricted free will. So he answered David's prayer that Solomon would complete the temple but God did NOT answer the part where Solomon would be faithful to God with a whole heart. History is the evidence of this. Read: Prayer that God does not Answer

We don’t experience answered prayers because:

• We don’t know what to believe

1. Personal Theology is what you REALLY believe about God and how He deals with the world and how he deals personally with you.
2. The chief end of man? According to Jesus Christ is to LOVE GOD with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.
3. Bible is NOT a book about salvation or even giving God glory, but about God’s design for relationship with Him.
4. God changes His mind. Hezekiah in Isaiah 38
5. Most people, even renown pastors misinterpret the meaning of “according to His will” 1 John 5:14 vs 1 John 3:21, 22
6. "Be it done to you according to your faith." Matt 9:29. Jesus Christ Himself declared this RULE.

• Relate how our prayer delivered my father from death at the operating table during open heart surgery when the doctors already declared him dead or bleeding to death.

• Relate how prayer for a Christian couple who could not bear children after months of their own church praying for them failed but bore fruit after exactly 9 months after our prayer

• Relate how our missionary’s wife came to us for prayer after she was diagnosed with an artery blockage and confirmed by second opinion. The final exam just before the operation could not find the blockage and the stent operation was cancelled.

• Relate how a friend with a brain tumor at a hospital in the Philippines thousands of miles away was miraculously healed after prayer and declared cancer free.

• We are not in right covenant-relationship with God

1. Covenant-relationship with God is the key to answered prayer. John 15; Psalm 37
2. Sermon on the Mount is about the kingdom here and now. All prayers are answered and all of God's promises are fulfilled ONLY WITHIN the context of the Kingdom of God. The more we live in that context, the more we see fulfillment. The less we live in that context the more we see frustration and disappointment. That is God's plan and promise

 Win the world to Christ by Who we are, not what we do

 Being Christ to others

Other related topics:

• God's "Trial-and-Error" Attempts to Create a People of Faith for His Kingdom
• Covenant-Relationship Theology in a Nutshell
• Relational Theology Makes Prayer Meaningful
• Relational Prayer that gets Answers vs. the Vending Machine God
• Prayer that God does NOT answer, NORMALLY
• The concept of Faith from a Relational/Biblical Perspective
• Relational Theology Makes Evangelism Meaningful and Critical
• Relational Theology Makes Finding God's Will a Meaningful and Useful Experience