Sermon: When God Hears

2006

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Sermon: "When God Hears"

First in the "Prayer" series.
Delivered October 8, 2006 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
See also: Prayer Needs and Opportunities

Theme: Prayer is the essential instrument of our relationship with God.

The audio file of this sermon is available for download and listening in MP3 format.

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Sermon Text: 2 Chronicles 6:12-42

Let us pray: Gracious God we thank you for your word. We thank you for this time of worship where we can gather in your name, where we can celebrate the goodness of what you have done for us in Jesus Christ and so now as we spend a special time of focus upon the word which you have spoken through your prophets, open our eyes, open our hearts so that we might respond to you with the obedience that comes through faith. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

I am not going to read the scripture right now. I will read it in a few moments. I wanted to share first the good news that we are getting Debbie a cell phone next week. We bought it Friday and it will be delivered next week. Hers is nicer than mine because it's newer. She will have a camera in hers and I don't have a camera in mind, but I can't figure out a way of exchanging phones with her, so she will have the good phone. It's something that we didn't think we would ever do; get a cell phone for each member of the family. It just seems sort of excessive and yet as Debbie travels and I travel and I need the phone to be available to church and all, we just started to realize that we prefer to have it. They are awfully convenient. They are safe. They are convenient and it's become almost essential. I can remember a time when we didn't have cell phones. You know life was different.

In 1990, we came home from Japan on home assignment and we didn't have a phone number in the United States. In those days the only way you could make a long distance phone call from a public phone pretty much was two ways. One was that you had coins or the other that you had a local phone number to charge it to. Well, we didn't have a local phone number so that meant that as we went around the United States and were on the road and having to make phone calls, I would have to stop at restaurants and after the meal when they were giving me the change and they would have me a five dollar bill I would ask, "No, could you give me that in quarters please?" They were wondering just how cheap are you? I mean how small is this tip going to be? And so I was carrying this pocket full of change everywhere. I don't want to go back to that.

But cells phones as convenient as they are they have their faults. There are areas where there is no service. On my particular carrier we have one of those spots right on my ride home, right on Regester. I am driving along and I am always on the phone with my brother or something, because I usually think about calling my family on the way home and so I will be talking and then sure enough before I get to Sherwood on Regester it blacks out for a block or two. I have to remake the call and whenever that happens it's almost certainly the cell phone at fault. You know if you are calling a landline and it gets staticky and goes out on you, you don't think oh their landline went out. We know it's the cell phone.

Well prayer is like a cell phone. It's convenient. You've got "anytime minutes" in prayer. It's an instrument of communication and yet like a cell phone if there is any problem with the reception it's almost certainly on our side of the line and not on God's.

We are beginning a four-week series on prayer. Prayer is the essential instrument of our relationship with God. We cannot imagine a relationship with God that doesn't involve prayer. Communication is vital to all relationships. We've built relationships in our family by talking, by having the back and forth. Even with pets, we talk to our pets; I have seen people talk to goldfish. I mean this is part of who we are. Communication is part of building a relationship and the deepest and most real relationships are two-way communication. And so prayer then is that essential instrument of relationship building with God. And yet when I am honest about it, I have to admit that I am not very good at prayer. I struggle with it. I know it's important so I put effort in to it, but the fact is that it does not come easily and it does not come naturally. In fact, one of the reasons why I like to stir up having new prayer meetings in churches is to hold myself accountable, because I know if I am meeting with you at 6:30 in the morning to pray, or 7:00 o'clock in the evening to pray that I am going to be praying. If I make a relationship with Debbie that we are going to pray, at least I know that at that point I really will make good on my commitment to prayer. I pray other times for sure, but it's always a struggle. I want to pray and I want to pray more because prayer is an essential instrument in my relationship with God.

Now I know you well enough to know that you have the same struggle; most of us here. You wake up early in the morning and you are too blurry-eyed to spend time in Bible study and prayer so you kind of rush to get your shower, get your breakfast and the next thing you know you are on your way out of the house and then the day gets so busy that you don't think much about prayer then. Then you get home too late and you are too tired to do much then; then there is family responsibilities and the phone, TV, Internet and soon the evening is gone. We know that this isn't right, and yet this is probably the pattern that many of us are in. The fact is that we are prone to ignore this essential instrument of our relationship with God. Prayer has always been at the center of God's relationship with his people.

Today we are going to be looking at a prayer that was prayed 3,000 years ago when the temple was newly built and King Solomon was commissioning this temple and praying for God's blessing on it. Now it's a long passage and so I want you to think about two questions as I read this section of scripture. The first question is, as you hear this prayer, what do you come to understand about the purpose of the temple? And the second question I would like you to ask yourself is what kind of situations do people find themselves praying? What is the purpose of the temple and what kind of situations does Solomon mention? So we are in the Book of Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 6, the section begins at Verse 12, but I will actually start reading at Verse 14, because the first few verses talk about the situation where Solomon has set up a podium in front of the people so that he is high enough to look over the crowd and address God in front of the people. So he stands on the podium, then he kneels down and he begins to pray. And this is what he says:

"O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth-you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it-as it is today. Now Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, 'You shall never fail to have a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons are careful in all they do to walk before me according to my law, as you have done.' And now, O Lord, God of Israel, let your word that you promised your servant David come true. But will God really dwell on earth with men? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! Yet give attention to your servant's prayer and his plea for mercy, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence. May your eyes be open toward this temple day and night, this place of which you said you would put your name there. May you hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place. Hear the supplications of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive."

And now there is going to be seven situations of prayer. Each one is going to begin with the word when. So here is the first:

1. "When a man wrongs his neighbor and is required to take an oath and he comes and swears the oath before your altar in this temple, then hear from heaven and act. Judge between your servants, repaying the guilty by bringing down on his own head what he has done. Declare the innocent not guilty and so establish his innocence."

2. "When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you and when they turn back and confess your name, praying and making supplication before you in this temple, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land you gave to them and their fathers."

3. "When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain upon the land you gave your people for an inheritance".

4. "When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when enemies besiege them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people Israel-each one aware of his afflictions and pains, and spreading out his hands toward this temple- then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive, and deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of men), so that they will fear you and walk in your ways all the time they live in the land you gave our fathers."

5. "As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm-when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name."

6. "When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to you toward this city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name, then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause."

7. "When they sin against you-for there is no one who does not sin-and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to a land far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity and say, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly'; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen and toward the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their pleas, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you. "Now, my God, may your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place." I will stop there.

What is the purpose of the temple? Here is the beginning of the dedication of a temple that's filled with gold and silver implements; all of kinds of symbolic vessels, altars that are associated with the sacrificial ritual that will be part of the future of the temple. This temple is going to be filled with hundreds of priests for hundreds of years, daily doing a sacrificial ministry. And yet as Solomon prays about the future of the temple, he doesn't talk about the sacrifice. He doesn't talk about the priesthood. That is all-important, but as he prays, he talks about prayer. Jesus said that God's temple would be a house of prayer for all nations. That was also said by the prophets and here is Solomon reflecting that same mindset at the very start of the first temple; a house of prayer. He talks about prayer even when people aren't able to be physically present in the temple, even if they are in another country and they think about their relationship with God and they think about the commitments that God has made and they face the direction that they think the temple might be and their minds leap to what God has done to build this relationship with Israel in the temple, that even from there in another country God will hear. My house will be a house of prayer. The temple is a stone monument to all that God is willing to do to make a relationship possible with his people that overflows in this choice instrument of prayer.

The second thing is to notice the kinds of situations that Solomon's prayer assumes that we are in as we are praying. Now as you listen to those seven situations, where most of them are situations where everything is going great and where righteous people raise their righteous hands to God in prayer because everything is going just fine and they are seeking God's face? Is that the kind of prayer that Solomon prays? Is that the kind of future that he envisions? No. Most of those seven deal with situations where people are wronging each other. Verse 22 talks about a situation where one person has wronged another and God has to judge between them. Verse 24 talks about defeat in battle because of disobedience. Verse 26 talks about drought because of sin. Verse 28 famine and blight and a host of other things. Verse 34 talks about war. Verse 36 talks about exile. It's not a pretty picture, but it's a realistic picture. This is what real life is like, because life is not a matter of us always doing the right thing. Life is a lot messier than that. We get selfish. We disobey God. We hurt other people. That is what the Bible calls sin and prayer then is an essential instrument with dealing with this problem in our relationship with God.

So in Verse 24 we've got a pattern. It talks about people turning back and confessing God's name and praying and then from heaven God hearing and forgiving. Verse 26 talks about praying, confessing God's name, turning, God hearing, God then forgiving. Verse 28 people praying, God hearing and then God forgiving. This pattern is everywhere in Solomon's prayer and it's all over the Old Testament. Prayer is tailor-made for imperfect people. It's for broken people, selfish people, angry, lustful, doubting people. People like us. Because what Solomon's prayer points out is that in prayer God recognizes when we change our direction and come back to him, when life falls apart and God raises the stakes to make us aware of the distance between us and him. Prayer is an essential part of restoring that relationship. God has made a commitment to hear prayer. That is what we see in this passage. The temple is to be a place of prayer and God has committed himself to hear that prayer.

So if there are any problems in prayer they start on our side. We are the cell phone side of the communication. So what are the problems that interrupt? The most obvious one is that we don't pray. We get so busy and so caught up in other things, it's an obvious thing, but if we are not praying, we are not communicating with God. Well maybe we pray, but we pray without faith. Solomon is praying to kick off the entire ministry of this temple because he believes that God hears prayer, that God is interested and that God is involved in the lives of his people. And so everything he says in this prayer presumes that, that things will go bad, that God is involved in history, involved in their lives and then when people turn and pray then God hears and God responds to that. That is the bedrock assumption that's behind his prayer and behind all prayer, is that God is willing hear, God is ready to hear and God then acts.

In Verse 26 it talks about confessing your name. The reason why they are to look to the temple in prayer is to remind themselves that it's God, not one of these other gods, but God, their God, Yah Weh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who is the God who really exists and answers prayer.

The third reason that communication is interrupted is that we are willfully disobedient. Psalm 66:18 says this, "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened." God will not listen. He can hear, but he will not listen when we are still holding on to the things that we know clearly separate us from him.

So there are some things that we can obviously do to improve prayer. The first is to start praying if we are not praying now. The second is to keep short accounts with God. Solomon knew that if God's people prayed then God would deal with our sin. When we hold on to sin it's like hitting one of those dead zones with a cell phone. But in this case God can hear, but will not. And so we need to take advantage of the incredible liberty that we have in Jesus Christ that God forgives and forgives again and again and to come to God admitting our fault and reestablishing the depth of connection we can have with him.

The third thing we can do is to learn God's promises. Solomon's prayer is filled with God's words, spoken through his father David and through Moses. And so he begins his prayer by talking about the promises that were made to David, that he already saw being fulfilled and that he continued to expect those promises to be fulfilled. God promised it, so that settled it for Solomon and then he talks about the future of Israel using the very words that Moses told the people, both talking about the warnings, as well as the promise that God would hear and restore. All of this is based upon what God had revealed to Israel through Moses. And so Solomon knew that, Solomon read that and Solomon understood that and Solomon draws that in to his prayer.

Another thing we can do. We can take part in something that we are doing as a whole church right now called an "Adventure in Prayer." We've got hundreds of these booklets available and they are free. If you do want to pay for them, you can drop an offering in the offering plate some time after you get to use it. But these booklets talk about a 30-day process of deepening in prayer. For some of this if we use this it might be a start of our prayer life. For others it might be just a help to a prayer life that is already well established. But one of the things that it talks about is giving 15 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes at night, so another 20 minutes a day to prayer and it suggests how to use that; an Adventure in Prayer and it's out there in the concourse. 20 minutes a day to communicate to the most important person in life.

My house will be house of prayer for all nations. Knowing God, knowing forgiveness, serving God, all of these things have always been about prayer, because prayer is the essential instrument of our relationship with God. Personally, I want a life that matters. I want to have integrity. I want to be the same on the inside as I am on the outside, having nothing to hide. I want a life that is filled enough with the presence of God that it brings joy and peace and hope, not only to me, but to the people around me. I want to be a church that really matters. I have a vision of a church that not only loves and supports people as their marriages fail, but has the power to help those marriages heal and succeed, to be a church where addictions can be ended, to be a church where people are healed emotionally, to be a church where we see prayer become an essential part of all the many things that God does to bring physical healing as well, a church where adults and children are confronted with the love of Jesus with such power that they can't help but follow him, to be a church that brings a smile on the face of God. It's the kind of church I want us to be. It's the kind of church that I think Jesus wants us to be and it all begins with prayer. Each one of us praying just a little more, a little better, a little deeper. The good news here is that God hears prayer, our prayer, little prayers. That is great news.

Let's pray. Gracious God, you know our struggles and you know our struggles with prayer and so we bring to you the brokeness of who we are remembering that you are always ready to hear, are always ready to take these moments when we turn back to you and bless them with your presence and power and for that we give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.