The Most Overlooked Promise in the Bible — Jim Cymbala

The Most Overlooked Promise and Confidence Before God

Well we're going to read in two places. The name of this message is the most overlooked promise in the Bible. From my experience reading traveling this is the most overlooked promise in the Bible. There's a couple reasons for it.

I'd like you to turn to 1st John. Then we're going to read also in the Old Testament but I want to start with 1st John and have you focus with me. Have you focus with me on 1st John the fifth chapter.

1st John 5 verse 13. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. Look up here for a second. He begins by talking about John in this portion that the confidence we have that we know we have eternal life.

Now we're coming up by the way you get this tape at the end of the service up in the mezzanine lobby should you want to listen again and share it with someone else. Here comes the promise first fourteen.

This is the confidence that we have an approach in God that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us whatever we ask we know that we have what we asked of him.

Let's read that again. This is the confidence or the boldness that we have an approach in God that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and if we know that he hears us. If we know that whatever we ask we not we know that we have not will have but we have as present possession what we ask of him.

How many say amen to that promise. Now I want you to go backwards in the Bible to the book of Jeremiah find Isaiah and then it's the next book Jeremiah. But those are two long portions of Scripture which are called the major prophets and go to Jeremiah twenty nine.

Jeremiah's Promise After Seventy Years

And this is a very popular part of Scripture. By the way what I'm about to talk about now Pastor Boakstaff just did. I was listening as he was leading us in prayer and he did this very thing. So now let's look at in Scripture first.

I'm sorry Jeremiah twenty nine. Verse ten. Now these verses are very familiar as we read just for a couple of them for them. Verse ten. This is what the Lord says when seventy years are completed for Babylon that means the captivity that God was going to send his people into.

I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord plans to what prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you a hope and a future.

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with what all your heart I will be found by you declares the Lord and will bring you back from captivity.

I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you declares the Lord and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exit. I want to talk about prayer and the most overlooked promise in the Bible wherever there's life and God is doing something in a church or in an individual life there's prayer.

Prayer as the Barometer of Faith

Prayer is the barometer of where we are with the Lord. When someone is close to the Lord has a deep dependence on the Lord. When faith is operating in their life they will pray. The Bible says faith without works is dead.

Faith without prayer is not real faith. Faith in God always inspires you and moves you to the throne of grace so that you can receive what God has promised. The fact that God is an answering prayer God.

The fact that when we offer petitions to God that God responds to us separates God from all the dumb idols and false gods of this world. That's why in Psalm 65 to David says oh you who hear prayer to you all men will come.

Oh you God who hear prayer to you all men will come. Why. Because God is the only one who can answer prayer. You can pray to Allah morning noon and night in the name of Muhammad or any other name. You're not going to get any answers.

You can pray to the God of Hare Krishna. You can pray to all the gods of Baal. This was what separated the true God from all the gods other gods in the Bible. The prophets used to say go ahead call on your God and see what he'll do.

But when we call on our God he is near to those who call upon him. How many are happy. We have a God who answers prayer a living God a God who responds to us. That's how religion as you know began in Genesis 4.

Men began to call on the name of the Lord and God began to respond. And that activity between heaven and earth sparked those early believers to follow on to know the Lord in a greater way. Now I want you to understand God's law of praying and receiving.

I can't obviously in one message talk about all the facets of prayer. But there are laws of prayer just like there are laws of gravity that operate in this universe. There's laws that if you boil water to a certain temperature it turns into a vapor.

There are laws of prayer and no one place in the Bible are all the laws put in just one place. But there are different places in the Bible where this subject of prayer and the kind of prayer that gets dynamic answers from God.

You find that interspersed throughout Scripture. But I want you to notice as we move toward the most overlooked promise in the Bible. I want you to notice God's strange way of doing things strange to us and strange unfortunately to too many Christians.

God's Promise Requires Prayerful Cooperation

In Jeremiah we read this these four verses and look up here at me. I want you to notice what God does. Let's summarize. The first thing God says is he foretells into the future. And he says after 70 years I will fulfill my promise to you and bring you back to the land.

So God begins in this portion. This is you can see repeated in the Bible God says this is a promise from me after 70 years since I'm the one who ordered you into captivity. I'm the one behind the Assyrian captivity and now the Babylonian captivity.

I at the end of 70 years I God I'm going to bring you back to the land. That's a promise. Let me say amen. Then God goes further and he explains what the promise is part of for I have plans for you and I have purposes for you.

Not to harm you not to put you down not to rain on your parade but to bless you and to make you a blessing. I'm summarizing now. So God makes a promise and then says that promise comes out of my plans and my purpose for your life.

Israel. I have plans and purposes for you now because I have that I give you this promise. You're not going to die in Babylon. You're going to come back then. The third thing God says is then when he doesn't say but we're going to surmise.

Then you will call upon me and seek me and find me as you seek me wholeheartedly. So God says I make this promise. This promise is part of my purpose and my plan for your life. Then automatically the element of prayer is brought in.

Then you will seek me and you're not going to just pray from your head. And you're not just going to pray shallow in a shallow sense. Then you will call upon me and you will seek me with all of your heart.

And you will find me when you seek for me with all of your heart. Then you will do that. But what's that that got to do with the promise and the purpose. Why throw in something about prayer. God already said he was going to do it.

I mean if God's got a purpose he's got a purpose. God got a plan. He's got a plan. If God's made a promise he made a promise. But then he brings in prayer. Then you will call upon me and I will answer you.

Now the question is when is the then. Where does this then fit in with this scenario of the promise. The next verse tells us God says I will be found by you and will bring you back from captivity and exile after you pray what I already promised.

The main question is when is the then. This is what's afflicting modern Christianity in America today. We talk about the promises and the purposes of God. And we thought we were we're losing the missing element that God says.

Then you will call upon me and I will answer you. Well when is the then after God already did that. That would sound that sound odd. I promise you this I'll bring you back. It's part of my purpose. You would think first it would mean and then after you come back to the land you're gonna learn how to pray.

No. Then you will call upon me and I will bring you back. In other words I make this promise to you. It's part of my purpose for you. But you must pray it because then I will fulfill it and my name will be glorified and honored throughout the earth.

Not because I made this promise. Should you sit back and watch television for the rest of your life and say look what God's gonna do. God's gonna do. No. God brings them into cooperation with it. God says that his divine the method is this.

He plans he promises. He then waits for someone who believes and prays to him. Then the plan and the promise are fulfilled. Think of how backwards most of us have it. Think of the teaching that goes on today.

And this is why in churches across the land there are no prayer meetings very little emphasis on individual prayer. Because we've just got well I found it in the word and God's going to do it and he's in charge and he's on the throne and praise God.

But that's not what God told these people to do. That's not why Paul said I travail like a mother giving birth to Christ be formed in you. I mean either Christ is going to be formed in them or he's not going to be formed in them and only God can do it.

So what are you getting upset about. What are you getting all emotional about. No God plans because of those plans he makes a promise and then he waits for someone who gets stirred up to pray that promise so that he can fulfill the purpose and the plan.

You can have a prophetic word say said over you that God says I will do this and I will do that. And of course it's almost always contingent upon you walking with the Lord and seeking him. And when you seek him you will find him.

For he is a rewarder of them who want diligently seeking. This is why pastors can be have a call to the ministry and their churches can go nowhere. Carol said to me the other day as we were heard of someone another state who wrote an email to us we're an airplane coming back from our vacation and and I was going through all these emails that I had a whole stack of from just one week and because I was working on this book I hadn't got to them.

And now I was looking at him and one was a very negative depressing situation and the man had been there for years and she turned to me in the plane and she said you know maybe Jim he's not called to the ministry.

But that's not necessarily so I don't know about the specifics of that but just because God calls you to do something doesn't mean that it's automatically going to happen. If you don't seek the Lord if you and I don't look to God and call on his name am I right past the book there am I right pastor Hammond.

Just because someone said God once spoke a word over me and praise God what's what's to worry what's to be concerned about. No no God said then you will seek me. And when I hear your voice then I will do what I promise.

Think of the things that we might not be receiving because we're not praying the promises of God. We're not getting a hold of the things God has told us and said God like David does in the Psalms God and others do in the Bible.

God you said this now do it not. Oh he said it. He's got to do it. No God you said it now do it. That's how Daniel prayed. That's how Moses prayed. They got a hold of God based on the promises of God.

Cooperation and Giving God the Glory

Now this method yields two things. First of all God has us cooperate with him. We're not just robots and we're not just extraneous to the situation. God brings us into cooperation with him. He says I'm going to do this but you'll cooperate with me.

Secondly God gets all the glory because the plan comes from God. It's his plan it's his purpose. And it's he who answers prayer. When God works out something in your life and blesses you. You can't walk around and say.

And this is the sign of someone who really knows how to pray. People walk around and say this is what I did and this is my church. Or this is my ministry or this is my home or look at the job I have. That's someone who doesn't know how to pray.

The one who really has prayed and got a hold of God and is enjoying the blessing of God and who is in the right place with God says I give God all the glory. He's the one who has purposed this for my life and he's the one who planned it for my life.

And he gave me a promise and he made it real in my heart. And uh yeah. But didn't you pray. Oh yes. But he put the prayer in my heart because unless he promised I couldn't have said anything. I give him all the praise and honor.

Let's put our hands together and give God all the praise and honor. See this this divine method that God has secures and guards all the glory for him. Now let's in that context go to the most overlooked prayer promise in the Bible.

Confidence as God's Children

Now the context is that John says you're children. You put your faith in Jesus and everyone who puts their faith in Jesus has eternal life. And they know it. If you're here today and you're not sure you're a Christian you're not.

Unless the devil is doing some number on you trying to confuse you. But the spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. How many know even though you're not perfect and God's working on your life because you're like me you're under construction.

But how many know you're a child of God. Come on. You're a wave your hand at me. You're a child of God. Up in the balcony come on wave your hand at me. You're a child of God. If you die today you're going to be in heaven.

Amen. All right. We know that now because of that privilege of being in the family of God John quickly jumps to one of the great privileges of being in God's house in God's family. And that's the privilege of prayer.

Adam Clark who has the great commentary series said prayer is the language of dependence on God. Where the soul is mute or silent not praying there is neither life nor love nor faith. Prayer is the language of dependence on God.

People who truly depend on God. This is why pride is the enemy of prayer. Because pride is the enemy of dependence on God. We give lip service to it. Oh I couldn't do anything without the Lord. But people who are truly dependent on God when we're truly walking in humility and understand how much we need God we will pray.

And when there's no prayer he's right. There's no love there's no light there's no faith. We're like in a coma. Now notice God's desire in this overlooked promise that I did not see when I was younger and when I first even went in the ministry God's great father desire is this.

Prayer According to God's House Rules

I will answer you and I want to answer you. But it's only going to be according to house rules. In other words prayer is dynamic and it's working. But God says prayer works according to my rules. And what are those rules or principles or conditions.

Well we know praying in Jesus name. You don't come to God based on your own righteousness. You don't tell God. Now I've been good you got to do this for me. How many know that's not a good thing to say to God.

Or I gave money in the offerings. And now you have to do this for me. That that's. No. No it's in Jesus name. The authority of Jesus name is through the blood of the cross of the cross that we have access to God.

Then without faith it's the prayer of faith. When you pray you must believe that there's different elements. One of them John touches on earlier in in this book. It's in first John 321 where he says if our hearts do not condemn us we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

And that's another element in in being successful in prayer. In that you have to have a clean heart. You can't be practicing sin and get and have God answer your prayer. How many say amen with me. Come on.

That's obvious. How could I be practicing something that nailed Jesus to the cross. And then go to God and say now God do this. If I'm mistreating my wife. Worse yet what some husbands do they actually these are Christian men actually strike their wife.

If I talk brutally to my wife and I'm unkind to her and she points it out to me and God convicts me. But I I won't give that up. I'm not going to be strong in prayer if I'm living a lie on the job. If I have a relationship going on with somebody that is improper.

You could pray fast do whatever you want. If I regard iniquity in my heart the Bible says the Lord will what he will not hear me. So it doesn't mean perfection. Or else then nobody would get the answer to prayer.

How many know that. For sure. But it means going to God and saying God cleanse me of all sin. I want to walk in the light even as you are in the light. Please Lord take away anything that would cause an obstruction an obstruction in this prayer channel.

So there are different principles. But now John touches on something to get back to what I said before that I never saw when I was a younger Christian. And even when I first went in the ministry note the repeated exhortation that John gives in that first verse I just mentioned if our hearts do not condemn us we have confidence before God.

Boldness Before the Throne of Grace

Now here's the most overlooked promise in the Bible. This is the confidence that we have when we approach God. God wants us to know that prayer is not as George Mueller said is not overcoming God's reluctance but is laying hold of God's willingness.

God says I don't want you coming to me as if I don't want to do this for you. And I don't want you coming as a son or a daughter like we just met you're. You are one of my children. So when you approach me I want you to have confidence and boldness.

And I don't want you to think you got to pry this thing away from me. I want you to know. I want to give it more than you want to receive it. Oh hallelujah praise the Lord that encourages my soul. Aren't you happy that God wants to do it more than we want to receive it.

Now this confidence when we pray is in contrast to a mix of vague hope and doubt. One in a billion. Why not try it. I don't have to play the lottery. I can pray got the same odds. But maybe it'll work out this time.

You know like they say in the lottery ad. Hey you never know one of the politicians very well known who visit us here. Um who was up in my office recently before he came down and greeted all of you. We were talking about something and he said well you know pastor I want you to know.

I'm not an atheist. I'm not sure about a lot of things. But you know I I I always tell my friends hey listen even if you don't believe in God pray anyone. You pray anyway. You never know how many know that's not the way to approach God.

Now God wants us as a father. He wants us to have confidence. He says that twice now in second John first John this is the confidence that we have. He wants John's telling us. And God wants us to have this confidence you you remember what happened uh back in the 60s before President Kennedy was assassinated.

Even those of you who are too young to have witnessed seen it on television or read about it when it happened. Um high level meeting big time meeting of some crisis. Maybe the Cuban Missile Crisis back then.

And there was a lot of tension guards everywhere people meeting with President Kennedy. And suddenly the door flies open and somebody walks past all the guards and just strolls up to the president. Not exactly.

He kind of crawled up under one of the benches and started playing with a truck. And who was it. No one else could get access but it was John John Kennedy as he was called then John Kennedy his son who died a few years ago in that plane crash.

And the meeting stopped and President Kennedy walked away from all the dignitaries and the big people making big decisions to help his son find a little truck that went under a sofa. Now the son didn't come in and say oh I hope I can get to see the president just walked right in because he was his son.

Oh how many are happy we have a God that we can call father that we don't have to go in and say oh. I hope he'll talk to me today. And I hope I've been good enough. You know how parents feel about kids that have been failing.

They don't love them less. They love them more because they want to help them. They see that they need it. So this is the kind of confidence that God wants us to have now. That word for confidence it comes from a greek word called parousia.

And it's from a root which means all outspokenness all outspokenness. In other words it's translated that root frankness and bluntness. And then by implication this word parousia comes to mean assurance.

Or the king james translates it confidence or boldness. The niva here has confidence. So ephesians 3 12 paul says in him christ and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

In other words outspokenness and frankness and boldness when God wants when God draws us to pray to him brothers and sisters. He doesn't want us coming like beggars that hardly know him. He wants us to walk in through the blood of Jesus in faith.

But he wants us to come in with confidence and boldness like a child of God to the throne of grace. And he wants us to have a spirit of confidence and assurance that this is my father. He's going to listen to me.

He's going to help me. This is where many of us fail in prayer. Well I wonder I haven't been what I should be. And the devil will work you up one side and down the other. On this on this point do you really think you're worthy.

Have you been what you should be in the last week or month. Have you been reading the bible like you ought to. And all of those voices are demonic to keep us away from what God wants to do in our life.

You come in through the blood of Jesus right into the throne room of God as a Christian. Come on let's put our hands together and thank God for the confidence and assurance and boldness that we have anytime I was in trouble my it doesn't matter how bad I was acting.

I could always as a kid go to my mom or my dad. That was my mother that was my father. And I would have all outspokenness. I wouldn't be hemming and hawing I when you God says when you come to me tell me how it really is.

Tell me what you really want. Unburden your heart. Speak out of your heart. Don't use King James language. Talk from su corazon. From your heart to the Lord. Have all outspokenness and confidence that you're talking to your father.

If President Kennedy would stop a meeting to help a little kid his son find a truck. How many know God is going to listen when we talk to him at the throne of grace. That's our father. So the Bible says that this confidence and this boldness is a key failure for many in their praying.

And why we don't pray more. False humility humility and timidity that keeps us from approaching the throne of grace. Boldness is really an excuse for a lack of faith. This is the confidence we have. God hears and answers prayer.

I am a child of God. He wants me running around to everyone else in town. God invites me. I didn't think this up. He's the one who said call upon me in the day of trouble and I will answer you. Oh hallelujah.

We have a God who wants us to talk to him. And he wants us to have confidence as we approach him. And if he hears us the Bible says whatever we ask we have present ends. What we asked him now this is incredible promise.

Asking According to God's Will

Listen. This is a promise latent with power untold imaginable power. And grace is wrapped in this. Here's what John is saying. This is the confidence we have that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

And if he hears us which means all prayers are not heard God hears it because God's everywhere. And he hears it in that way. But it's not heard in the sense of reception. If we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

And once I know that he hears us then we know that we have already received that which we've asked for because he heard it. And whatever he hears he doesn't say no to look how quiet it got because of the immensity of that verse that immense passage James John says.

And this is the confidence and assurance we have when we approach him because he's our father that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And once I know that he hears us then anything we ask then we already have received that which we've asked for.

It's like it's like someone said today I say go to my mother and ask her. I tell her I'm broke if if she could just give me lend me a dollar. Person comes back and says I don't have the dollar for you.

I go. You didn't talk to my mother. Did you tell my mother I needed a dollar. Because I know that if you told her I'll have the dollar after all she's done for me. She's gonna spring for a dollar. I can guarantee you that after all she's done for me.

John is saying the key now is to get God just to hear you. Because if he hears you he's not gonna turn you away no matter what you ask. Think of the power he said. In fact you'll have such a confidence.

You already have what you asked of him. But now let me bring this to a close. There's house rules when you pray it's God's house rule. This is why certain books you know certain things about prayer and certain sermons can be so misleading.

And why the modern prosperity faith movement can be so deceptive. Because they overlook this verse on purpose. Because they know that people like their flesh to be appealed to. And it can draw a following rather than preach the whole counsel of God.

Yes with God everything is possible if it's according to. For this is the confidence that Jim Simba look and have today. And God wants me to have think of it. Oh God help me. That if I ask anything according to his will prompted by his promises and his spirit working in me.

If I ask anything according to his will he hears me. Because it's part of his will. He's the one who put that thing in me. If I ask according to his will he hears me. And if he hears me case closed I don't care how long I have to wait.

It's on the way God's gonna answer me. Come on let's put our hands together and praise him. That's what God says. If you ask anything as Warren Weersbe my friend said God doesn't. God supplies your needs not your greed.

He would say that right. God supplies your needs not your greed. In other words you can't go to God and say God can do anything. And that boss has been acting so mean to me God give him a stroke in Jesus name.

Don't you don't pray like that. Why don't I don't receive that God can do anything. Yeah. But that's not asking according to his will. All this foolishness about people just claiming and praying for Mercedes Benz.

I saw a minister down in Atlanta. It was so bad. Some of our choir members there were going visited the church. I wish they wouldn't have one of these charlatans one of these false prophets yelling at the people and make fun at them because they drove Chevrolet's or Ford's he says where's your God.

What are you driving some beat-up old car. You should be driving a Lincoln or a Mercedes or a Jaguar. No. It's not about greed. It's about need. It's about what God's will is. Did you know as I closed.

Did you know. That's the way Jesus prayed. Did you know that we're talking now about way Jesus prayed. How many know where Jesus prayed that way. Tell me where most explicitly in the garden of what. Where he said father if it's take this cup away from me.

But nevertheless not my will. But what. So you can play better. Did you know Jesus prayed that way. Jesus knew that the secret was to ask within the realm of the promise and purposes of God. Now look let me clean this up here for us and end on a clear note.

What does that mean to me. It means that we may plead boldly only what God has promised. In fact God wants us to plead everything that he's promised and purpose for our life. Praying the promises of God is the heart of prayer.

This is why this is what holds people back from being stronger with that assurance. Because when you have taken time to know what God's will is. And when you have a promise from God it gives you such assurance.

Because you know you're asking something that the father has promised. When you're just making up prayers on the fly it gives you a shakiness rather than a confidence and assurance that God is hearing you.

Biblical Promises and Knowing God's Will

I want to pray more. This year in 2003 I want to pray boldly with confidence according to God's will. How do we know God's will. That's the symbol of that's great. How do you know God's will. Well where you find a promise of God.

For example James chapter 1 if anybody lacks wisdom let him ask of God and he'll receive wisdom. So I know that every day of my life I can start in the morning and say God give me wisdom. Because I know God is going to give me wisdom for that day.

Yes. God is going to give me wisdom. Because I'm praying according to his will and his promise. Did you know yesterday I started praying for you. Oh before I tell you about that. Did you hear I passed the book staff.

It was just praying there before God. You promised that you would never leave us nor forsake us. And you promised that you would supply all of our needs. So God we lift our voice to you and we call upon you to do that which you have promised.

He was preaching my sermon before I got to it. Praise God. Why didn't he just say. Well since God promised it we don't have to pray. Just sit back. No you pray that which God has promised. He's promised wisdom to everyone who will ask ask and you shall receive.

Remember what James says in another place you ask and receive not. I'm paraphrasing because you ask amiss. First he says you don't have. Because you don't. What ask. So you got to ask. But then you ask for some things that you don't get.

Why. Because you ask amiss with wrong motives wanting to spend it on your pleasure. You're not asking according to God's will. So how do you know God's will festival. Well you know what. Number one through the Bible you get the promises of God.

Number two the Holy Spirit sometimes will direct you to pray for a certain thing. And you know this is God's will that I pray for for this this move that he has put in my heart to make. And you know what he bore witness.

I believe the Holy Spirit my wife. And I felt that this house is where God wants us and we want to use it for his glory. We're not sure how we're gonna do this. But we're praying for God to make a way.