Essentials of Effective Prayer – Zac Poonen Sermon (Transcript)

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He wasn’t telling the Father so many things. What is it the Father didn’t know? Jesus said the Father knows everything before you even tell Him. So we can get bored trying to pray and pray and say so many things.

But I found if you develop the habit of listening—and listening is not something you can do only when you’re on your knees—you can be listening when you’re working. You can be listening when you’re doing something else, in the midst of other work, when you’re driving down the road, to have a heart attitude that says, “Lord, I’d like to hear You.” You know, like Samuel prayed as Eli told him, “Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.” I want to encourage you to develop that habit of prayer because it changed my prayer life, I’ll tell you.

Because I read a word like “pray without ceasing” in 1 Thessalonians 5. And Jesus said in Luke 18:1, we should pray always. There’s no verse in the Bible which says you must pray for ten minutes or one hour or two hours. It says pray always and pray without ceasing. And I can’t be talking to God and telling Him all types of things without ceasing, but I can be listening without ceasing.

And if you develop this habit of listening, listening, listening, listening, listening during the day, you’ll even find over a period of time that God speaks to you at night. You happen to wake up in the middle of the night sometime, say, “Lord, I’m listening. You’ve got something to say to me. Why did You wake me up at this time?” So it’s a very good habit to develop. I want to tell you, I’ve just enjoyed it. In fact, if you keep listening, God can give you words that you can bless other people with, words of encouragement.

It’s a wonderful thing when you can give to someone a word. I’m not talking about preaching. I’m just talking about sharing one word to encourage someone in a phone call or in an email or anything. It’s a wonderful thing to be always listening—just a little practical suggestion on prayer.

The New Covenant Emphasis

So we’ve spoken a lot in this church about the new covenant. And the reason we emphasize that so much is because hardly anybody emphasizes it. And when we see portions of scripture which are not being emphasized by others, I believe God needs to have some churches emphasizing those things that are left out.

I look at the whole Bible in picture language—I’d say it’s like a jigsaw puzzle of the face of Jesus. I mean, if you have the whole thing there, you see the face of Jesus Christ. I’m only using an illustration, the whole Bible. And what people have done is there are some people who got favorite subjects from the Bible and they always pick those favorite subjects. It’s just like concentrating on a few pieces of that jigsaw puzzle, and many pieces are missing. So you can’t see the face of Jesus clearly at all because there are some pieces of this jigsaw puzzle missing completely.

When you read the whole Bible, you say, “Hey, these are the pieces that are missing.” Then God raises up people to emphasize those truths which are not emphasized by others. That’s how God raised up Martin Luther five hundred years ago to preach that salvation is not by giving money in the Roman Catholic church, but by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

So I want to encourage all of you to read the New Testament. Get into the habit of reading a little bit of the New Testament every day and say, “Lord, I want to know You better. I want to learn to love You more,” and it can make a tremendous difference in your life.

How Not to Pray

So what I want to share with you today is the new covenant prayer which Jesus taught us in Matthew chapter 6. He was telling us how not to pray first of all, and then how to pray.

The first thing He said about how we are not to pray, Matthew 6 verse 5, He says, “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites.” And He’s talking particularly about—He said, “They love to stand and pray in the synagogues, the street corners to be seen by men or to be heard by men.” So the first thing the Lord tells us about prayer is don’t pray to people, to impress people.

Now it’s very easy to say that, but to actually come to the place where you pray in public anyway, to pray to God is quite difficult. At least I found it difficult. I remember the first time I prayed in public as a young man—I was more conscious of all the people listening to me. I wasn’t praying to Jesus at all. I mean, I knew the words to pray, but I was very conscious a lot of people are listening to me.

And I’d go home and I’d say, “I didn’t really pray that to You. I prayed it and made it impressive for people to listen. I don’t want to do it like that.” And the next time I’d pray in public, again it was there. Again, I’d say, “Lord,” and I’ll tell you it took me years, not days, but years to break free from that and say, “Lord Jesus, I’m going to pray to You in public as well. I want to be free from whether people think it’s a good prayer. I’m talking to You and I’m leading everybody in prayer to You.”

Becoming Conscious of God’s Presence

I want to encourage you—it will not come overnight. It may take you a few years, but you start today. “Lord Jesus, help me to be conscious of You when I pray.” And little by little, you know what will happen? You’ll become more and more conscious of the presence of the Lord all the time in your life, and that will make a tremendous difference in your life.

That you’re conscious of the Lord’s presence, and in His presence is fullness of joy. Your life will be so cheerful and joyful, and all that depression and heaviness that can come through circumstances will disappear, and your life will be like smooth sailing on a calm sea. So here’s something that we can train ourselves to develop.

So He said, don’t be a hypocrite—a hypocrite is one who’s trying to impress people. He said, don’t pray like that. People who do that, it says in verse 5, they got their reward. Their reward was they wanted to impress everybody with their prayer, and everybody was impressed. Sure. They got their reward. That’s not why we pray.

I’m not saying this to condemn anyone. We all are like that in the beginning. But if you battle it, dear brothers and sisters, you can come to a place, as I said, after a while, where you’re more conscious of Jesus than about people, and gradually, it moves on to our singing. So often when we sing, we are more conscious of the song and the tune and then everybody’s singing together. We’re not conscious that I’m praying to Jesus in that song as well. “Lord, I’m saying something to You.” It completely changes our life when we practice this more and more, that I’m praying to the Lord Jesus, and ask the Holy Spirit to help us.

Praying in Secret

So that’s a good lesson for all of us to learn in praying and singing—to develop the consciousness of Jesus being there and I’m talking to Him and praying to Him. And so in that connection He said, “Pray to your Father who’s in secret and your Father who sees in secret,” verse 6, “will reward you.”

Matthew 6:6, “When it says go to your inner room and close your door.” I look at it not just as a physical door—that’s also there—but in a room like this, when I shut my eyes, I’m closing the door. And then I’m praying to the Father in secret because I’ve shut the door. And I don’t want to be conscious of other people here with me in the room. Close the door, and I pray to the Father. And the wonderful thing, when I’m really praying to Him, it says, “Your Father will see in secret and He’ll reward you openly.”

I want to encourage you to take that little phrase: “Your Father will see in secret and reward you openly.”

Avoiding Meaningless Repetition

So the other thing He said about how not to pray—one was this, you know, praying in the presence of the Lord. Secondly, Matthew 6 verse 7, “When you’re praying, don’t use meaningless repetition.”

There are some churches where they say, “Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.” It’s like, to me, it’s a meaningless repetition. I believe in saying hallelujah, but if you read in Revelation in chapter 19, they always say hallelujah because—first time the word hallelujah comes in the New Testament, by the way, in case you didn’t know, is in Revelation 19. Turn there, turn with me for a moment there because hallelujah is a very common phrase used by Christians. And they’d be surprised to know that’s never used in the New Testament except in Revelation 19.

And I want to say hallelujah, but I want to say it the way it’s written in the Bible. You know, when we align our thinking not according to what is Christian tradition or a Pentecostal tradition but according to the Bible, then it’s good to say hallelujah the way the Bible says it.

The Biblical Use of “Hallelujah”

Turn with me to Revelation in chapter 19. So this is the first time, by the way, in the entire New Testament that the word Hallelujah comes. It doesn’t come at all before this.

And he says here in the very first verse, the last part, “Hallelujah.” Why? “Because salvation and glory and power belong to our God and because His judgments are true and righteous and He’s judged this Babylonian corrupt Christianity which he calls a harlot here and He’s avenged the blood of His servants.” And then a second time, “Hallelujah,” again a reason, “because the smoke of this corrupt Babylonian Christianity is judged as rising up forever.” And from the throne, the others also say, verse 4, “Amen, hallelujah.” And then again we find in verse 6, a great multitude towards the end saying, “Hallelujah, because the Lord our God the Almighty is reigning.”

So notice there that it’s not an empty hallelujah. Hallelujah means “Yah” is the short for Jehovah. “J-E-H” is short for “J-E-H-O-V-H,” Jehovah or Yahweh. So “hallel” is praise. Hallelujah is Hebrew for “praise the Lord.”

So you might, if you say “praise the Lord” in English, that’s the same as hallelujah. So why am I praising the Lord? Something wonderful has happened. God has sovereignly overruled some situation. There can be all types of things.

Prayer from the Heart

So what the Lord said in Matthew, turning back to Matthew 6 is, don’t say something meaningless in prayer. There are many Christians who develop a habit of saying something and they’re not thinking of what they’re saying. It’s just as a ritual. They say it. What we say must be from the heart.

I mean it. I mean, “Praise the Lord because He’s done something here. Praise the Lord because God is on the throne. Praise the Lord that He’s triumphed over the devil in this situation,” or something like that. It’s very good, and it’s not just in prayer time, you know. There are many times when I’m alone, I say, “Well, praise the Lord for what You did here, Lord. It’s wonderful to see,” or when He saves you from some accident. Spontaneous, “Lord, praise You. I praise the Lord for what You’ve done.”

So don’t use meaningless repetition. It’s not just in the word hallelujah. There are other things that we think that God will hear us if I say that 20 times. That’s what He says here in Matthew 6:7. The non-Christians, they think—the Gentiles, they think they’ll be heard for their many words. If they pray a long prayer, God will hear it. It’s a lot of rubbish.

I mean, God is a Father. He’s not waiting for a big lecture from you. Prayer is listening and then speaking to God. Now I’ll tell you, in my prayers, I listen a lot more than I speak. And I’ll tell you the reason. Supposing I’m sitting here talking to a man who is 10 times more godly than me. I won’t talk so much. I’ll tell you honestly. I’ll say, “Hey, I got a lot to listen from you, brother. I’d like to hear you.”

I’m going to say a few things and if I got one hour I may speak to him for five minutes and listen for fifty-five minutes. I mean if I’m speaking on a telephone for example and you see me speaking for fifty-five minutes and listening for five minutes you’ll be absolutely sure that the person at the other end of the phone is a young brother. On the other hand if you see me on a phone listening for fifty-five minutes and speaking for five minutes, you know that the person on the other end is a more godly man than me. So imagine if you’re speaking to God, should you be listening more or speaking more? You can answer that.

Definitely you should be listening much more. But so many people it’s sitting in the presence of the most godly person. Let’s say a human being first of all and you talk talk talk and you can say okay bye. You don’t even give a chance to talk. That’s how a lot of people pray to God.

They’ve given their big shopping list to God this is what I want. In Jesus name Amen. And that’s why our prayer life is so shallow. Our relationship with God is so shallow. It’s like a husband and wife who hardly ever talk to each other.

If a wife all she tells her husband is okay when you come back from work here’s a list of 25 things that you must buy for me when you come back. And that’s all there is every day. A lot of Christian people’s prayers are like that. There’s no expression of—don’t you think a wife should express her affection to her husband and say how much she loves him? That’s how I want to do that frequently to Jesus.

God already knows my shopping list. He doesn’t need me to make a list to Him on that. But what He wants to hear from me is that I really love Him. That He means more to me than everything else in the world.

The Importance of Gratitude in Prayer

I often think of that story where the 10 lepers were healed. You know that story. They cried with a loud voice, “Lord heal us.” And Jesus said go and show yourself to the priest. And on the way before they reached the priest, they were healed and one man—you know the story, it’s in Luke 17—one man came back and with a loud voice he fell at Jesus’ feet and said, “Thank you, Lord.”

Maybe I should show that to you because there’s something very interesting there that happens at that time, which you may not have noticed. Turn with me to Luke’s gospel in chapter 17 and verse 11. See, this is I’m talking about prayer. These lepers were praying. As He entered a village verse 12 Luke 17 verse 12, 10 lepers who stood at a distance met Him and they raised their voices. Notice the phrase, they raised their voices and said “Jesus master have mercy on us.” And when He saw them He said “Go show yourself to the priest.” As they were going they were cleansed and one of them when he saw that he had been healed he said “I have to go back and tell the Lord.”

Now let me assume that they had already walked about half a mile. Half a mile means what? Ten, fifteen minutes they had already been walking. Or let’s say one mile, had walked twenty minutes. They must have thought “Who’s going to go back and walk another mile back going thank Jesus? Forget it.” But one man said no, I’m going to walk that one mile back and thank the one who healed me. I’ve been a leper all my life. Here this person healed me. I won’t go and say thank you to Him?

He left the other nine and started walking back. It’s amazing how he went back and again he fell on his face with a loud voice. Again verse 15 he prayed with a loud voice and we read in verse 13 and he thanked God with a loud voice as we read in verse 15.

That’s wonderful when I can pray fervently and thank God fervently when the prayer is answered as well. Very often we forget it. And that man was a Samaritan. The nine were Jews and one was a Samaritan. Samaritan is like the low class people who are despised.

And that is the man who thought of thanking God. The point I wanted you to notice is this. When Jesus saw this He said in verse 17, “Weren’t there 10 people cleansed? Where are the nine?” My question is this, did Jesus expect the other nine also to come and say thank you?

I mean we teach our children to say thank you when they are three years old. It is the right thing to do when you get something and particularly if it’s something like cleansing from leprosy that’s not like a little gift. That changes your whole life. Jesus says “Where are the nine?” It’s not because Jesus is waiting there to get thanks.

He’s not a selfish person saying, “Hey I’m waiting for everybody to come and say thank you to me.” Rubbish. Jesus was the humblest man that walked on the earth and humble people don’t go around expecting thank you from others. Then I ask myself, for example, I do something for people. I’ve done lots of things for people, for Christians in the last fifty years of my life. And I can tell you most of them are not thankful.

In fact many of them bite the hand that has fed them for many years. I’ve had that experience numerous times, biting the hand that fed you. But I say that’s okay, I serve the Lord not people. But why did Jesus expect these nine lepers to come? Not for His sake, that’s the point I want you to see.

Thanksgiving Benefits Us

For their sake, when I am thankful it makes me a better person. It’s not that Jesus gets something when I say thank you to Him. So when the Lord tells us to be thankful it is for us. We go more outside ourselves. When we pray asking for something we’re centered in ourselves.

“I want something I want something I want something” but when we say thank you I’m not going to get any more by saying thank you. I’m thinking outside of myself. I need to give God glory. It’s a wonderful habit to develop to say thank you Lord for what you’ve done for me. In fact every day it says “in everything give thanks” just for the fact that we are alive in the morning when so many hundreds of thousands of people in the world have died. Thank you Lord for small mercies. Jesus wanted those nine people to be changed that’s why He wanted them to thank.

And now you see what happened. Read carefully. When we give thanks, it says in verse 18, we give glory. One way of giving glory to God is just by saying thank you. “Thank you Lord for what you did there. Thank you for this. Thank you.” We can keep on thanking Him for anything. Thank you for a safe journey or thank you for anything. That is one way to give glory to God.

The other thing I want you to see is Jesus said to this one Samaritan who came “stand up your faith”—margin of my Bible says “has saved you.” That’s the correct translation. Your faith has saved you. What did the other nine get? Healing.

What did this guy get? Healing plus salvation. “Your faith has saved you.” So he got something more than the other nine just because he came and said thank you. And I’ve learned that.

That people who learn to give thanks to God always end up getting something more than those who just pray. It’s really true. And very often, we miss the best part of our fellowship with God when we don’t thank Him for what He’s done. I really believe NASB says “your faith has made you well” but in the margin of my Bible says literally what Jesus said was “your faith has saved you.” I don’t know why they didn’t put it in the main text but “your faith has saved you.”

Salvation—you got salvation whereas the others only got healing. That’s a great example of what a warning of what we can miss when we don’t thank God and think of our past life and the numerous situations in our life where we got something and we didn’t thank Him, we missed something there. That’s another habit to change. Lord I want to develop the habit of thanking you for little things, big things. It’ll make a tremendous difference in our life.

It’ll make our life more cheerful, make us more cheerful in our relationships with other people.

Overcoming Anxiety Through Prayer

I want to show you one example of that in Philippians in chapter four. Philippians chapter four. Almost impossible commands. Philippians 4:6, “be anxious for nothing.”

That means have zero anxiety in your life. We should have a concern for things, but there’s a difference between having a concern and anxiety. For example, if your child did not come back from school at the proper time, they were supposed to come back. Here, most parents go and pick up their children. In India, children come back on their own.

They ride a bicycle or something like that. And if they’re supposed to come back at 3:30 and they don’t come back by 3:30 and they don’t come back by 4:30, should you be concerned? Of course. Should you be anxious? No.

Because the Bible says don’t be anxious. I mean if you’re not concerned you’re not a good father or mother. You should be concerned “Hey what happened?” But to be anxious, to be in a panic and to imagine that the worst possible things happen? No.

Now how to get rid of it? How to get rid of this anxiety which will naturally come into our hearts in some situation? Here’s the answer. Philippians 4:6 “be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer.” Supplication means specific request.

“With thanksgiving.” Notice that phrase. “With thanksgiving let your request be made known to God.” So even in a situation that can cause panic the Lord says no don’t get anxious now. Take that request to God.

Maybe you’re not facing it right now, maybe this is the word that will help you three months from now but keep it in mind. Make your requests known to God with specific requests. “This is Lord this is what I’m concerned about this is the thing that’s worrying me now. I want to make it known to you” and when I’m saying thank you I’m saying “Lord I believe my request has come to you. The file is on your table with my request written on it. I want you to answer me.” Thanksgiving is the thing by which I say I believe you’ve heard me.

It’s very important when I pray to God to add thank you and when you do that you made your request name to God it says “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding and comprehension will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.” I’m not saying that every single problem in our life will be solved. We live in a world which is under the curse and because this world is under the curse there are sicknesses, babies die, there are all types of problems on this earth, people go through losing a job, financial difficulties but in the midst of it all if I follow this principle our heavenly Father will do something for us which other people in the world cannot face.

See problems come to all of us because they’re all children of Adam. Are made of dust and the world is under a curse and as long as we live in this world we face a lot of these problems. I’m not saying that we won’t face them but it’s wonderful to have God as our Father that we can take these things to Him and say thank you Father that you heard me and my mind and my heart will be protected.

God Delivers the Righteous

The Psalms. I want to turn with you to Psalm 34. And Psalm 34 and verse 19. Psalm 34 and verse 19 says, “the afflictions of righteous people are many, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” in some way or the other. It’s a great verse for me. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of all of them” in some wonderful way.

And that’s what I see in all the miracles that Jesus’ servant is sick. Five miles away or 10 miles away. You know the centurion told the Lord that. Lord Lazarus is sick and he’s dead now, he’s dead for four days. Lord there are 5,000 men and 5,000 others men, women and children, 10,000 people there’s not enough food. Everything was a prayer, what should we do? Jesus solved the problem.

They cried out, they believed He’d do it, they did it. Now I’ll tell you the cases where there were a few cases where He didn’t do it. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 13, hometown. That is Nazareth. That’s where He grew up.

They knew. They had treated Him just like any other man for thirty years. He came to His hometown in Matthew 13:54. They’re wondering how did He get miraculous powers. All these miraculous—they are here, maybe His other children and His sisters.

I don’t know how many, but at least two. They are here with us. Where did this man get all this power? And they took offense at Him. They couldn’t respect Him because of their unbelief.

Is some of the saddest words in the Gospels. Question, did they need a miracle? Did many of them need miracles? Yes. Did Jesus have the power?

Second question, did Jesus have the power to do those miracles? Yes. Chapter six where it’s written like this verse five, Mark 6, verse 1 it says He came to His death. In Matthew 13 it says He did not do it. They got healed. But He couldn’t do many miracles for them and He wondered at their unbelief.

Essentials of Effective Prayer

It’s a very important thing in the New Testament that you can’t get something unless you have faith for it. Without faith it is impossible to please God. See that verse in Hebrews 11, don’t have faith, it’s not you can’t please God. You read the Bible every day, You can’t please God because you don’t have faith. It is impossible.

Whatever else you may do, you come to the meeting and you are regular at the church services, but you don’t have faith. It is impossible. Failure of faith. And the devil said no you won’t die. And they doubted God.

They didn’t believe. Very very important. Without faith it is impossible to please Him and further in that verse because when you come to God. So the first thing he says believe that there is a God up there in heaven. And secondly believe that He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

You must believe that if I seek Him with all my heart I will find Him. He will answer me. Very often we don’t get an answer because we don’t really seek Him wholeheartedly.

Seeking God Wholeheartedly

Turn with me to Jeremiah 29. This is one mark of faith.

One mark of faith is this. You know we read it in Hebrews 11. Jeremiah 29:13. The Lord says, verse 12 first, you will call upon me, you will pray to me and I will listen to you. You will call upon me, I will listen to you.

Jeremiah 29:12 And you will seek me, but you will find me only when you search for me with all your heart. Not otherwise. If you don’t search for me with all your heart you’re not going to find me. You know brothers and sisters how much we have missed by not seeking God with all our heart. I’ve used this illustration.

Supposing you’re walking in the dark on a grassy field and you drop a $0.10 coin. It’s all dark, how long will you be searching for it? I don’t think you’ll search for very long. I can’t imagine any of you wasting more than fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is a long time looking for a ten-cent coin in the grass, say forget it.

But if you had picked up $100,000 from somewhere in cash, maybe from the bank or something and you went to different places before you went back home. Doing different things and when you get back home you find hey that’s missing. You accidentally left it in one of these five or 10 places you visited between the bank and your home. How long will you search for that? Fifteen minutes?

You would search day and night for it. Make a phone call, go here, go there, go there, search every place where you went to. And I say many people treat God like a 10¢ coin. They seek for something, they didn’t get it, well I don’t have time to pursue that anymore, we’ll see tomorrow. You wouldn’t do that if it was $100,000 that you misplaced somewhere.

God says you’ll seek me and find me when I’m the most valuable thing in your life. You make God the most valuable person in your life. And He’ll turn up for you every time you need Him. That’s the secret. Make Him the most valuable person in your life.

Every time you need Him, He’ll turn up there. But you treat Him casually, oh, well, I couldn’t find Him, doesn’t matter. God says, okay. That is unbelief. So without faith, it is impossible to please Him.

The Importance of Forgiveness

So these are some things that we must bear in mind when we think of how not to pray. Don’t pray with unbelief. I want to say one more thing. Jesus said in Matthew 6 and verse 14, if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. And if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive you.

Very important. When I’m praying, I must make sure I’ve forgiven others. Jesus repeated that. Turn with me. It’s a little more clear in Mark chapter 11.

It’s amazing how Jesus taught His disciples some secrets of prayer. The reason why many people don’t get answers to their prayer. Mark in chapter 11 and verse 22. Have faith in God. There are people who ask this question a little earlier Mark 11:13, you know the story.

Jesus saw a fig tree and He went looking for fruit, it was not the season for fruit, and He cursed it. Verse 14, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And people ask me, did Jesus get upset because He didn’t find any fruit on the tree? Can you imagine, you and I wouldn’t get upset when you know it’s not the season for fruit. It says that it is not the season for figs.

So obviously there won’t be any figs there, there are only leaves. Why did He curse it? Jesus never got upset because He didn’t get food. He could fast for forty days. He’s not going to be bothered about a few figs.

You see the reason, next day it says that is one day. Later on in the evening it says when evening came, verse 19, they went to the city and as they were passing by in the morning the next day, they saw the fig tree which was cursed the previous day withered up from the roots. And Peter said, “Rabbi, the fig tree which you cursed yesterday has withered up.” And Jesus as it were to say, now I’ll tell you why I did it, to teach you to have faith. Have faith in God.

Faith That Moves Mountains

That’s why He cursed the fig tree, to teach them to have faith. That means He cursed the fig tree and they looked at it, nothing happened, still there. And the next day it had gone. Jesus was saying when you pray, don’t just get discouraged because you didn’t see the answer immediately. It’ll come.

Have faith in God. That’s what He wanted to teach them in that. When you stand against a situation, when you bind Satan’s activity in a particular situation and you don’t see anything happening immediately, have faith in God. You’ll see a few days later their problem is solved. That’s faith.

I’ve seen it happen so many times. But if you don’t have faith, nothing will happen. He could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. And He said even if it’s not just a fig tree, verse 23, if it’s this mountain, you can speak to this mountain that’s hindering me from moving on towards God in some way. I need to go there as a mountain in the way.

Then I say to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea. I don’t doubt in my heart. It’s not enough to say that. I don’t doubt in my heart it will happen. It’s a mountain.

You got to see what mountain it is. It is a mountain that’s hindering me from doing the will of God. A mountain that’s hindering me from going where God wants me to go, from doing what God wants me to do. I have to tell that mountain get out of my way in Jesus name. You know it’s not a physical mountain, some obstacle that’s preventing you from doing the will of God in your life.

Whatever it is, it will be granted. So I say to you verse 24 all things for which you pray and ask believe. You see the fig tree not withered up yet, don’t give up. You haven’t seen it withered up, wait. You come back another day you’ll see it’s withered up.

Believe that you receive them, it will be granted you. But I want to give you a warning the Lord says, here is what can hinder your faith. Forgive others verse 25. You see how the connection between forgiveness and faith. He’s telling them to have faith and then He says make sure that you’ve forgiven people otherwise you won’t have faith.

If you have anything against anyone so that your Father who’s in heaven will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive, your Father will not forgive your transgressions. It’s a very important thing when you pray to make sure you have no bitterness in your heart against a human being.

Forgiving From the Heart

It doesn’t come automatically. It says we must forgive from the heart and that’s not mentioned here but in another passage in Matthew chapter 18, He spoke about forgiving people from the heart.

Matthew 18 and verse 35, He speaks about a man who was forgiven $10,000,000 and he couldn’t forgive another fellow slave $10. He caught him by the throat and put him in jail. When the king heard it’s okay then I’m not going to forgive you your 10,000,000 pay up. Then Jesus said in Matthew 18:35 the last verse, “My heavenly Father will do the same to you if you don’t forgive your brother from your heart.” When we forgive, we can forgive with our lips. That’s good.

But we must forgive from the heart. I’m not saying you have to go up to that person and tell him you have forgiven him. No. If you have done harm to him, then you have to go and speak to him and say, please forgive me. But if he has done harm to you, you don’t have to tell him that you have forgiven him.

When Jesus was crucified, He only spoke to His Father. “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.” He didn’t go to those Pharisees and say, hey, fellows, I’ve forgiven you. No. But I have to forgive them from my heart sincerely.

The worst sin that anybody could do to another in this world is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And even for that He forgave them. So which sin is there in your life which you cannot forgive? The greatest sin ever committed was forgiven. Why can’t we forgive?

And I really believe that very often we can’t have faith because you haven’t forgiven somebody. You got a grudge against someone. You’re upset with someone because he didn’t do what you wanted him to do or he did something you didn’t expect him to do. And you keep that thing in your heart. It’s amazing how people can have things in their heart against their own parents for years even after the parents have died.

They treated me like this, my dad treated me like this, my mom treated me like this—agreed, agreed, agreed. But what are you going to get by keeping a bitterness in your heart? That harm they did to you is already done. Don’t do more harm to yourself by an unforgiving spirit. It’s pretty stupid.

The Power of Forgiveness

And that’s what happens to some people. Learn the power of forgiveness. Tremendous power. There’s no verse like this in the Old Testament which says, if you don’t forgive, God won’t forgive you. But there is in the New Testament and it’s linked with faith as we saw in Mark chapter 11.

You cannot have faith if you can’t forgive somebody and maybe that’s the reason why some of us have not got some things God wanted to give us. You remember what I told you in Nazareth, they needed a miracle number one, Jesus could do that miracle for them but He did not do it because of unbelief. If you go one step back, why did they have unbelief? Maybe they didn’t forgive somebody. So be very careful to always keep your heart completely clear having forgiven everybody.

You feel this guy let me down. Okay. Do you think that God can make something good out of that? We read that the 10 brothers of Joseph were so angry with him, they sold him as a slave. But then Joseph was taken as a slave to Egypt and God makes it all work out for good and he becomes a ruler in Egypt and when those brothers come to him, you know the story?

You know what Joseph says to them in Genesis 50 verse 20? That is the Romans 8:28 of the Old Testament, by the way. The Romans 8:28 of the Old Testament is Genesis 50:20. He tells his brother, “You wanted to do evil to me, but God turned it for good.” That’s a great verse.

You wanted to do evil to me, but God turned it for good. As long as you live in this world, you’re going to have people trying to do evil to you deliberately sometimes, accidentally sometimes. But it doesn’t matter whether they did it deliberately or accidentally. I can say like Joseph, you plan to do evil to me or you accidentally hurt me, God’s going to make it work for my good. Believe me, it’s true.

If you can forgive people, God can do miracles for you. I’ve experienced it number of times. I’ve told you, I mentioned it once before here how a doctor made a mistake and I had a severe nerve pain down my hand because of that. And I was very bitter against him. This is when I was just before my marriage, more than fifty years ago.

I didn’t have any victory over sin. I was born again, but I didn’t know anything more than that. And I was very angry with that doctor. The Lord said forgive him. And I forgave him, I got healed.

It’s a fact. I never had that problem afterwards. Whereas before that a neurosurgeon had said I would have to live with that for the rest of my life. There’s tremendous power in forgiveness. Forgive others.

And something you should do right now if you can think of someone right now you haven’t forgiven. Forgive from your heart. That’s another thing the Lord taught me. I remember when someone did something evil to me and I said, Lord, I forgive him. But then some time later, I heard something bad happened to him and I felt a little happy.

The Lord said, you haven’t forgiven him from your heart. If you had forgiven him from your heart, you would not be happy when something bad happened to him. Tell me, is God happy when something bad happens to someone? Who’s happy when something bad happens to them? The devil.

And at that moment, I was in fellowship with the devil without knowing it. Yes. Something bad happened to that person, and maybe the devil caused it, and I’m happy. I’m in fellowship with the devil. I say, no.

Forgiveness and Fellowship with God

I want to be in fellowship with God, and I never want to be happy when something evil happens to somebody else, and I don’t want to wish anything evil happening to others. If you wish evil for someone who hurt you or let you down, you’re not in fellowship with Christ at that moment. God will not hear your prayer. You haven’t forgiven. So be very, very careful in such situations.

And I believe that those of us sitting here in your present situation also, you need to be very, very careful that you have a spirit of forgiveness towards anybody you feel let you down. And never, never, never wish any evil for anyone. Wish the best.

So I have the habit now if somebody’s done some harm to me that I pray that God will bless him mightily and that he’ll prosper and all types of good things. Lord bless his family, bless his children.

Just to make sure and say it from my heart, just to make sure that I’ve forgiven him from my heart. I’ll tell you, it has made my life so peaceful and so full of joy. If you take heed to a few things that we heard today, your life will be different. Let’s bow before God. Just a few moments while our heads are bowed in prayer.

A Prayer of Forgiveness

Please think, is there anybody you have not forgiven? Is there anybody to whom you wish some judgment will come on them, some revenge, some calamity? Please, in your own interest, forgive that person. Say, “Lord, I release that person. I forgive him.”

I don’t want to think about it. I pray that You will bless that person who did some evil to me maybe twenty years ago or whenever. Lord Jesus, thank You for opening my eyes today to see this. Pray that prayer. Thank You for bringing me to a higher level of the Christian life today.

I want to walk here. I never want to sink again to that low level I was in. I want to walk with You, Lord. Help us, Lord, each one of us to glorify You in our lives by walking as You want us to walk. Trusting You, You can do miracles for us.

And even in our church here, Lord, I pray that You will do a miracle for us. That’s what we pray. We don’t have anything against any human being. We love You, and we want to reach out to this city to bring people who are needy in this city, who need salvation. We want them to hear the gospel and be converted and to become part of Your body.

Lord, make us Your witnesses in this city, we pray. Fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we can be witnesses in this city. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

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