Why Your Prayers Go Unanswered | O.K. Arowolaju

Daily as I live and often as I breathe, let my whole life be expressions of your grace. Hey everybody, welcome to Reconciliation with Oluseun Arowolaju, where I'm going to be speaking about some truths, some objective truths about the Word of God in each of our lives. Today's topic is why your prayers go unanswered. One of the reasons why our prayers go unanswered is the way we approach God. We don't come to him as children. We don't come to him in our infancy, showing him that he has all that we need in his hands. We don't come to him in a humble fashion. We are entitled. A lot of us believers are entitled to the blessings of the Most High God. But as we can see with the tribe of Israel, the blessings of God are only ordained and distributed by him alone. We can see in Genesis 21:16-17, it says, and she went and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot. For she said, let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him and lifted up her voice and wept. And 17, and God heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said unto her, what aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not, for God have heard the voice of the lad where he is. So Hagar was praying, she was praying, she was praying, but yet only the voice of the boy, only the voice of her son was heard. Tell me why the prayer of her son was heard but not hers. It's the cries of a son, the cries of a daughter, the cry of a child of God is always going to be heard by the Most High God. One huge reason why our prayers go unanswered is that we don't enter into his presence as children. We want to be equal with God, and we know what happened when Lucifer wanted to be equal with God. He will always humble us and send us back down where we belong. We come with this expectation that God must do this, God must do that, when by only his grace we receive those very blessings. Another reason why our prayers go unanswered is we don't seem to pray for others. In 1 Timothy 2, it says I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. 1 Timothy 2:1-3. Just think about that real quick. It just told us that we had to pray for those in authority. It just said that we have to pray for our leaders. As we continue to realize when we pray for other people, it begins to show a humility in us. I want you to have this picture in your head. Imagine every time you come to your parents, it's to petition for someone else. Every time you ask your father something, it's to bless your brother. Every time you you ask your mother something, it's to bless your sister. You never ask anything for yourself because you always have others in mind. That very moment when you come with your own request, your parents will honor it because they know you spend so much time helping others. The moment that you have a need of yourself, they will rush to meet it. That's our Father. A lot of us struggle to pray for other people. A lot of us struggle to pray for our enemies. A lot of us struggle to pray for people we don't like. If that's true, you're gonna battle for a long time with unanswered prayers. Matthew 5:44, Jesus is speaking. Jesus says, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. Jesus wasn't just giving lip service. He did this by the actions of his life. While he was on the cross dying, being persecuted, in Luke 23:24 it reads, then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. In the middle of pain, death, and affliction, Jesus still prayed for his persecutors. Even on the cross, in his last moments, he prayed for those around him. Who has hurt you so much? Who has caused you more pain than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Have you been doing this so long that you just don't feel the need? We must pray for others. Another reason why our prayers go unanswered is that we want our will to be done, not God's will. Pay attention to this. When Jesus was in Gethsemane right before his arrest, he prayed a very powerful prayer that I keep with me every time I pray. In Matthew 26:39, it says that he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed, saying, 'O my Father, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. Jesus was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death as he knew what was to become of him, that he was to be persecuted and crucified. It would be easy for him to say, God, This is enough. Take me away. Take me back to you. It would be easy for him to say, take this cup. And the cup may be that suffering, but the cup was him coming into the flesh of life and realizing the afflictions of man on earth. And he said, take this cup, but not if it be my will, but thy will. It is not wrong to want things. It is not wrong to ask for pain issues and mountains to be moved. No, but we must merge our will with the will of God, and his will must take precedent. We must be able to forfeit our will for his will. And we're going to go into the instructions of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ about how to do this. And this how is repeated so many times. I hear it all the time as a football player before and after every game. We say this prayer, but I don't think people realize the context of it. And what I'm talking about is the Lord's Prayer. We all memorize it from infancy, from the infancy of our walk with Christ. We know this prayer. But do we really know this prayer? Let us shed some light on the details of this prayer. This prayer is found in Matthew 6:5-15. It starts off by telling us how we shouldn't pray. In Matthew 6:5 it says, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be a hypocrite, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. If you're praying to be seen by people, if you're praying to be seen by man, your prayers will be answered by man, and that will always come with disappointment. And then in 6 it says, but thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward you openly. When you're in business, it's not the work that you do in the public scene that creates your wealth. It's those long hours in the office by yourself. Whenever you're doing something great, it's going to start off by being in a practice facility where there's not crowds. Greatness doesn't come when LeBron is in an arena with hundreds of thousands of people. Greatness comes when he's in his own personal arena. Greatness does not come in church on Sundays, but on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, when we are by ourselves and nobody can see us praying, but we want to do it anyway. And then we're gonna jump to 8. Matthew 6:8. Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have a need for before you ask him. So he's already saying he knows what you want before you ask. That's our Father. So why should we pray if he knows what we already want? Because there's a strategy, there's a technique to manifesting the knowledge of the spirit. Because God knows in spirit, we know in spirit, but for it to be actualized in the realms of the humans, that which we live, we must have to exercise our spirituality so that we can see it manifest physically. God is a God of law and order, and his law states that for every action there must be an equal or opposite reaction. That's the law. So this is the action we should take. In verse 9, it says, after this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. The Aramaic word for Father is Abba. Abba. It means Daddy. It means Source. It means Father. Abba. So when you come to him, you must honor his office, honor and respect him as your Abba Father. Think back to the example of a child making a request. If her father's name is John and she wants something and say, John, give me this, what will her father do? Because she didn't honor the office of fatherhood. But when she comes saying, "Daddy, please. Daddy, I need this. Daddy," honoring the office and the superiority of the father, he is more likely to listen to that request. So we must come saying, "Abba, Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Hallowed, that means your name is holy. I exalt your name above any other name. I first honor that you are the only one that could grant me my heart's desire, which you already know. Hallowed be thy name. And then we go to verse 10: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Let's pay attention to this. Thy kingdom Not my kingdom. Thy will, not my will, on this earth. We are created from earth. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. But while we are in this dust, while we are in this earth, let thy will be done. Let thy will be done in us, in this earth. We are this earth that thy will should be done in. We want that will to be done in us, in us as earth, as it is in heaven. So that means within our bodies we can live as heavenly beings. Within our flesh we can have within us the Spirit of God that distinguish our actions from those that are of righteousness. Let thy will be done in this earth as it is in heaven. And then 11, to tell us, give us this day our daily bread. Our daily word from you. We must hear from God daily, not just on Sundays. Our daily bread. We want to be with communication of God on a daily basis. And the Bible says, men shall not live off of bread alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God. That is our daily bread. So every day we wake up, God, I want to hear from you. God, tell me what to do. God, instruct me. Daily bread. In 12, it says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Now this is very important. 'As we.' I want you to highlight that in your Bibles. 'As we.' Let us change this context for perspective. 'And don't forgive us our debts as we don't forgive our debtors.' So that means if you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. That's a profound statement because that's a law. There's no way around this. And we know we need forgiveness, but if you can't forgive others, how can you expect God to forgive you. We are not saints. I am not a saint. We are all sinners saved by grace. So with that self-awareness of ourselves, we must see when others make mistakes on behalf of our lives and show them the love of Jesus Christ and forgive them, for they know not what they do. Your unforgiveness is forcing his words to remain true. That the— when— that the moment that you still remain in that unforgiveness, God will put you in that same realm of unforgiveness. Verse 13: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Now remember, Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted, but he was not led into temptation. There's a difference. We may be instructed to be in a very tough situation, situations that could compromise our integrity, the same way that Joseph was in a position that could compromise his integrity so that we may remember that even if we find ourselves surrounded by temptation, he will deliver us from evil. We can't be delivered from sin if we've never struggled with it. We can't be delivered from our enemies if we have none. To be delivered from something, you must have it as an issue and make it known. That's why he asks us to confess our sins. Because thine is the kingdom, he is the power that helps us, he is the glory of his majesty yesterday, today, and forevermore. We must acknowledge his omnipresence. So let's summarize this Lord's Prayer. Let's summarize this prayer. This is how Jesus taught us to pray. So what is Jesus telling us? We must come into his presence as children and hallow his name. We must pray for his will to be done and not our own. We must ask to hear from him daily. We must ask for his forgiveness as we forgive others. We ask for deliverance from our evil nature, and we relay his supremeness. In closing, these are all spiritual request. And there are things that can't be done by prayer alone. In Matthew 17:16, it says, and I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil the devil, and he departed out of him. And that child was cured that very hour. That very hour. Why was the prayer of Jesus answered immediately? But we've been praying for decades, months, years. The church as a body has been praying for centuries, and we've yet to hear those very answers we seek. Why? The disciples were wondering the same thing. And in verse 19, then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, one, because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goes not but by prayer and fasting. We must combine our prayer with works, sacrifice, fasting, being in constant communication with God. When you're close to someone You're one phone call away. I know there's some people that I can call and they will always answer because I am close to them. But there are some people we barely communicate with, so when we call, we are sent to voicemail. There's no time for communication because we don't have that oneness. Our prayers should not be sent to voicemail. We must create this oneness with the Holy Spirit, this oneness with God, this oneness with the Christ in our atonement. The last thing I want to touch up today is what is prayer. I know it's defined in many ways, but how I define it personally is the divine language of spiritual communication to the heavenlies. It's how we build a relationship with the Most High God. When people talk all the time about wanting to grow their relationship or work on their relationship with God, I wonder how much are they praying. You want to grow your relationship with somebody you're not in constant communication with? That's like being in a marriage and never talking to your spouse and hoping that marriage grows. That's like having a friend you've never spoken with and saying we're growing in friendship. How? Prayer is how we relate, is how we communicate, is how we talk to and hear from our Father. Abba, Father. If you just met somebody for the first time You're not going to ask to borrow their car, and they will be right not to lend it to you because there's no trust. Prayer is how we build trust with God, that the moment we've reached a level of trust, God can trust within us his riches in Christ's glory. Above all, we must at least ask, and ask righteously. Let us go to scripture. James 4:2-3. You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. God, bless me with this new job so that people will like me. Give me this new car so I can drive down Michigan Avenue Bless me with this relationship so that I may not be lonely anymore. All of our petitions are always so selfish. We never ask for God to perform his miracles, his blessings, his will according to what's best for us, what he thinks is best for us, not what we think is best. And lastly, prayer is a form of warfare. This is one of my favorite parts of prayer. Being a prayer warrior is not just a title. It's not just attending prayer warrior sessions. It's not just coming to church on Wednesdays. What does it mean to be a prayer warrior? Let's go to the book of Daniel. Daniel 10:12-13. Then said he unto me— this is the angel Gabriel speaking— fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that thou set thine heart to understand and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. That means on the first day he prayed, he was heard. But why didn't he see any results? In 13 it says, but the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 120 days. But lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I remained there with the kings of Persia. 21 days he prayed for an answer and received none. 21 days he cried out in prayer and fasting, only to be told that on the first day his prayer was answered. But there was a resistance, a resistance. He couldn't receive an answer. Resistance is why we pray. One angel was sent to deliver a message but was resisted. But God favored Daniel so much that he sent another angel. When you pray, how is God looking at you? Is he ready to expend resources on your behalf? That's why the Archangel Michael came to his aid, because he was favored by God. If Daniel was to give up after just that one day of prayer, not only would God haven't sent the Archangel Michael, but he would have never gotten his results. He prayed, he fasted, he sacrificed. The Apostle Paul tells us to pray without ceasing. We pray so that any resistance against our prayers will be met by our constant opposition. I told you God is a God of law. Every action is met with an equal or opposite reaction. So whenever we pray, there's somebody standing against that prayer. But because of grace, because Jesus is at the hand of God interceding for us, He takes our prayers right to the throne. Why our prayers go unanswered? We don't come into the presence of God as children. We don't pray for others. We don't want His will to be done and not our own. We say the Lord's Prayer and don't really take it in all of His majesty. It's a template of how our prayer should be. As our prayer life increases, our prayer points should decrease. And I want each and every one of our prayers to be answered. But there are strategies. We must study, we must read this Bible, and we must communicate with God daily. May you be blessed, and may your prayers be acceptable unto God. We cry out, my Father, hallowed be your name. Hallowed be your name, hallowed be your name.