Grapevine Ministries
Messages from the bible to uplift and encourage those that need a word from the Lord, to strengthen their faith. Ps Phillip Barker is an itinerant pastor in Perth, Western Australia.
Grapevine Ministries
God's Benefit Package: Intro
Prayer isn't just a spiritual discipline—it's your direct connection to God's comprehensive "benefit package." This eye-opening exploration takes you on a journey through the fundamental principles of effective prayer and reveals how many believers miss receiving answers because they don't truly expect them.
The discovery of an old prayer journal serves as a powerful reminder that we often forget God's faithfulness over time. As Canon J John wisely observes, "When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don't, they don't." This simple truth highlights how answered prayer reinforces our faith journey, creating a beautiful cycle of trust and fulfillment.
Jeremiah 33:3 offers the divine promise at the heart of this message: "Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know." This isn't empty religious rhetoric—it's a guarantee from a God who cannot lie and whose character remains unchanging. Charles Spurgeon captured this perfectly when he said, "Prayer is nothing but taking God's promise to Him and saying, 'Do as you have said.'" When we align our prayers with Scripture, we're essentially praying God's will back to Him.
The core principle becomes clear: God loves to answer prayer when we want what He wants. This isn't about manipulating God to fulfill our wishes but bringing our hearts into harmony with His perfect plan. Through practical steps—praying to the Father through Jesus, ensuring requests align with Scripture, specifically asking rather than praying vaguely, and thanking God in advance—we position ourselves to receive.
Take the challenge to document both answered prayers and those awaiting fulfillment. This simple practice cultivates gratitude and builds expectation, creating tangible evidence of God's faithfulness in your life. Remember, hope builds faith, faith builds belief, and belief leads to knowing with certainty that God's promises will manifest in your life.
Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.
We're back and we're going to be starting a series which focuses on prayer, the importance of it, how you do things, and I'm calling this message God's Benefit Package. But there's going to be about eight or nine episodes to this, and a special hello goes out to Christina in South Australia. Hope the ragged weather wasn't too ragged on you and your family, but I believe this will benefit you. So, with you in mind, I've actually developed this course of sermons and I think that you will find that you will benefit from these greatly. First off, we're trying to do some culling around here. We're trying to clean up, tidy up, because we're in a three-bedroom house now where we came from, a four-bedroom with a large family room and lounge room.
Speaker 1:And you know well not going into great details and everything, but I rediscovered one of my prayer diaries. So as we attempt to do uh, so in this um and our downsizing, both physically and biblically, I recorded some of my early experiences of answered prayers in this journal and, as a young Christian, of course it was all a new experience and this was so many years ago that sometimes we forget the things that we pray for, the things that we desire in our life, and sometimes even some of the relationships that we have with our Heavenly Father. Now I know it's not possible to prove Christianity on the basis of answered prayer, because cynics can always explain them away as coincidences. But back then it was a new and exciting experience for me, as within all things relating to our faith at that particular time. So why is this? Why believers for something and we commit it to prayer, and then we seem to be not expecting that prayer to be answered, or it'll get to the other side of things and we're shocked. Because the thing is we pray for a lot of things and we also pray for things that in the natural we don't think that we can achieve. These things. You know, but bear with me as we go through this Canon J John.
Speaker 1:He's a preacher from the UK. He's a very, very funny man but brings a beautiful message and he used to always say this when I pray, coincidences happen, when I don't, they don't. Now I'll say that again. So when he prays, coincidences happen, and when he doesn't, they don't happen, and when he doesn't, they don't. See, the acclimate effect of answered prayer is to reinforce our faith in God. So over the course of my Christian faith journey, I've written in the New Testament passages for today and some of the prayers that I've done years ahead, and there's a lot of things that we pray for based on some of the circumstances that we're going through, and it is amazing to think back and remember the ways in which God has answered so many of these prayers.
Speaker 1:I find it very easy to forget all the answers to prayers that I've done and it's also easy to forget God's blessings. David reminds himself in the Psalms not to forget all his benefits Psalm 103.2. Many are conscious of the benefits they receive associated with their employment or from the country we live in, but what about the benefits that we receive from our loving Heavenly Father? God hears and answers all prayers, though not always in the way or in the timeline that we expect, but there's key principles to keep in mind. Keep in mind believing you receive when you ask is spoken about in Mark 11.24. Trusting God's perfect timing and plan, asking with pure motives to glorify God, approaching God with faith and without doubt, and approaching him with gratitude and praises and always with expectations. So over the next hopefully, nine weeks, we will cover some key themes on answered prayer.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to start with God hears all prayers. Now, the reason I'm doing this is because it's, without a doubt, is the most, I believe, the most important one. If you can't anchor your faith here, then you most definitely need to listen to these messages. Jesus teaches that if you ask, you seek, you knock, god will respond, and there's always scripture to back this up. So, if you look at Matthew, 7, 7, uh, 7, 7 through to 7, 8, have you ever called someone and heard a funny voicemail greeting?
Speaker 1:Here are a few that I've come across, and there's a reason behind this. Just just humor me for a little bit. He says hello, if you're hearing this, that means I'm probably trying to avoid you, so don't leave a message. Another one hey, hello. How do you do? Leave a short message and I will get back to you. Hey, small silence. What's up? Small silence. Sorry, I can't get to the phone right now, but leave a message and I'll get right back to you in a year. Bye for now. Finally, one more. Okay, there's a reason for this. All right, hi, if this is one of my parents, I'm at church. If this is my teacher, I'm studying. If I owe you money, I mailed you a check today. So leave a message, but if this is my BFF or just my BF, just say your name and I will pick up immediately. Thanks, aren't you glad that when you call God, he always picks up? When you call out to him, he will answer. You'll never get a busy signal or have to leave a voice message.
Speaker 1:If you don't know this or have doubt, it's time to learn an important truth about God. He makes promises and it's his nature to keep those promises. And as you go through the Bible, I think it's really, really good if, every time, you see a promise that God has made to his people, which is us as well, highlight it with a particular color highlighter, and then you'll be able to see just how many promises God has already, okay, made to us. And we know he's the same today, yesterday and forever. We know that he cannot lie and we know that he always says what he says. He will See.
Speaker 1:When I was very ill back in 2004, I was greatly challenged by what Charles Spurgeon once said. He said this prayer is nothing but taking God's promise to him and saying do as you have said. And saying do as you have said. When you please his promise, then your will is his will. Now I'll read that again, because you need to actually understand what it's really saying. Prayer is nothing but asking God's promise to him and saying do as you have said, so what he said in his word. When you plead his promise, then your will is his will. See, every time we pray, if it lines up with scripture, okay, then it's reliant on his words and his promises.
Speaker 1:Now I'm not saying things like, say, you go to church and you see this beautiful, attractive woman or this very handsome and devineer man and you say to yourself I think that that's the person that I'm going to marry and you decide to commit that to prayer to God. You decide to commit that to prayer to God, but unbeknown to you or maybe you do already know this that person is already in a relationship with someone else and planning to get married or is married. So you can pray until the cows come home and nothing will happen. Why? Because there's two main reasons for this. One, it doesn't line up with the word of God. And two okay, god cannot change a person's will. So you can't pray for someone's will to be changed. You can actually ask for them to get revelation, knowledge, to be a better person or to do kind things instead of nasty things and that. So it's all a matter of putting things in the right perspective.
Speaker 1:Now I come across Psalm 145.13 recently because I'm going through the Bible cover to cover in 365 days, and it says this the Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving towards all he has made. So here are a few of those the promise of eternal life, the promise of guidance, the promise of the life, the promise of guidance, the promise of the Lord's return, the promise of rest and the promise of victory. Our topic today is the promise of answered prayer. Now here's our main point. God loves to answer prayer when we want what he wants. All right, I want to draw your attention to a powerful prayer promise found in Jeremiah 33.3. It says this Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know. Right? See, it says call to me Now. That is a prayer. Now. I'll probably explain this later. This is the introduction, but I'll explain what prayer really is at a later time. All right, if some of you are not really sure what I'm talking about, right, in order to grasp the greatness of this passage of Scripture. Now, I know some of you will love this and others of you are already reaching for the mute button right now. But listen, when we understand the surroundings and the situation of a scripture, it will make more sense and we'll be better able to apply it to our own lives. To apply it to our own lives, plus right. It honors God when we approach his word accurately. All right.
Speaker 1:Jeremiah was a mouthpiece of the Almighty and was charged with delivering mostly bad news to God's people, known as the weeping prophet because it was many tears. But he was also very bold and very brave when communicating God's message. Now, delivering bad news from God is not a way looked upon favourably, right. But due to the deliberate disobedience of the nation of Judah after warming up, you know, god announced that they would be punished by Babylon, their land would be decimated and they would be deported to a pagan land. In the midst of all of this mess, god gives hope to Jeremiah by telling him to buy some property, and he does this in Jeremiah 32, 6 through to 15. Even though this didn't make much sense, because they were about to be conquered by a foreign army and this was God's way of promising that his people would return, which they did, albeit 70 years later. Okay, so it's important. When we look at scripture, we need to understand the message that it is really trying to portray to us. Now, enough of the history lessons. Okay. As you read the book that bears his name this is Jeremiah you'll discover that Jeremiah was also thrown into a well, he was put in prison and he was made a laughingstock.
Speaker 1:While most of us have not experienced anything like this, some of us can relate to feeling isolated, trapped, even imprisoned, or our past troubles, our past lifestyle and even our present habits and lifestyles. The point is, god loves to answer prayer. In fact, he promises to do so. And that reminds me of this pastor who owned a parrot. Now, look, this is fairly long and lengthy, so I'm trying to put a little humor in there, if you sort of like. Bear with me. All right, it's hard to tell jokes when you're only looking at a computer screen.
Speaker 1:All right, now, this was this pastor who owned a parrot, and all the parrot would say is let's pray, let's pray. While the preacher liked the spiritual nature of his feathered friend, he tried to teach him other sayings, and to no avail. The parrot was always going to say let's pray, let's pray. Now he remembered there was someone else in the church also had a parrot with a similar problem, except that his female parrot would only say let's kiss, let's kiss. He decided to try and experiment and convince this church member to let the parrots spend some time together in the same cage to see what would happen. And the parrot immediately proclaimed this is the church guy's parrot. He said let's kiss, let's kiss. To which the preacher's parrot said thank you, lord, my prayers have been answered. Now I know it's funny, isn't it? The other one's saying let's pray, let's pray, because he's praying for a parrot of the opposite sex and when he gets one, it says let's kiss, let's kiss, and he said Thank you, let's kiss, let's kiss. And he said thank you, lord, my prayers have been answered. I thought it was funny. All right, let me know, no nasty emails. All right Now.
Speaker 1:So let's look at the first three verses in Jeremiah 33 to see how God promises to answer prayer. He loves to answer prayer when we want what he wants. That's the key thing to remember here. All right, when we want what he wants, want what he wants. This is just a small overview to get you knowing that God not only hears your prayers, but he answers them, and we will go over this more and more as we go on.
Speaker 1:Now, next week, we'll be looking at believing in the moment Okay. Now we're going to go through different aspects here. Believing in the moment Okay, when you pray, believe you have already received your request, not waiting for a visible sign of a breakthrough. That's important. We'll go into this in greater depth, okay. And after that, then, god's perfect timing. Now not our timing, his timing, see, the timetable is in God's timeline, which is spiritual. He answers prayers perfectly and sometimes it may be a yes, it may be a no or it may be a wait, but he does answer your prayer.
Speaker 1:After that, we want to do trusting in God's plan See Jeremiah 29,. 11 also says you know, I know the plans I have for you, the plans for you to prosper and be in good health and have a long and prosperous life. Now, see, so Jeremiah once again is telling you that you need to trust God's plan, because there's a plan and a purpose for every single one of us, and not everybody gets to know what that plan or purpose is in your life. I'll reiterate that a little bit more later on God's power and love. Now, this is a very important one. Our Heavenly Father is all-powerful and loving, wanting to give good gifts to his children. We are his children, and motives matter. You need to approach God with a pure intention, seeking to glorify him. You know, it can't just be all about me, me, me, right, and then, given time, we're going to go on to the power of gratitude, right, which explains itself.
Speaker 1:Doubt kills prayers. Now, doubt is like a wave tossed by the wind, and faith brings life to prayer. See, if you pray and you're hoping that God's going to answer it, you're already defeated, right? You've got to know that. You know that. You know, like I said earlier, believe that you receive what you pray for when you pray. So you've already got to already know that you've got it. Now, the other thing is God's sovereignty. Now, the other thing is God's sovereignty To be aware that God is working behind the scenes, orchestrating events in your life and in ways you may not see.
Speaker 1:And sometimes certain other things have to happen before you can get the answer to your prayer, because if the prayer is arched prematurely, you won't fall into line. And there's certain examples of this throughout Scripture and I will give these to you later, okay. A classic example is there's Hannah's prayer, there's Moses' prayer and there's Elijah's prayer. See, the main thing to remember is that you've got to believe that you will receive what you ask for when you pray. That is the first stumbling block. But strangely enough, you'll see so many people that sort of tongue-in-cheek believe and when God fulfills that prayer request, you're shocked and you think, oh my gosh, I can't believe that God answered this. But, on the other token, what you've also got to be aware of is this Sometimes, when you're praying for something, little things are happening behind the scenes that you're totally unaware of.
Speaker 1:I would like you all to do a little exercise for yourself. This is purely and simply for yourself. If you're already deeply into prayer and giving things up to God and all this sort of stuff, it'll be easier. But get a piece of paper and, irrespective of how small it is, if God has answered a prayer for you, write it down. If there's prayers that you've done, that you're still waiting to be answered, write them down in another column, because you know, I was sitting down with maria, my wife, the other day and we were just going over how grateful we were and reminding the Lord that we were very grateful for the answered prayers that he's actually done in our lives.
Speaker 1:And I'm not talking about, like you know, I want a BMW, you know, or I want a five by three bedroom house overlooking the water. I'm talking about things like I'm just praying for my granddaughter to get well, I'm praying for that job to come my way, I'm praying for just the resources to be able to buy a second-hand car. You know there's so many things that we pray for without even realizing able to buy a secondhand car. You know there are so many things that we pray for without even realizing it sometimes. And there are so many things that happen in our life because God is blessing us, even though we may have thought about it, but we didn't actually physically pray about it, about it, but we didn't actually physically pray about it. And this is where we need to give all honor and glory to God. And everything that we want to take place in our life, whether it's a new job, a car, a promotion, to be able to actually get healed of something, give them all to God, but thank him Now.
Speaker 1:I'll repeat this probably several times through the course of these messages in relation to prayer, but I just want to start with this one. Okay, the what you need to do is you need to look at prayer from a very simple aspect. There's five principles that I believe that are important when you pray, okay, you've got to. First off, you need to ask God for something. Okay, some people will pray up a storm and in there, and even they'll get to the stage where they say, oh look, lord, you know what's in my heart. Yeah, of course he does, but he wants you to let him know what it is that you want.
Speaker 1:Okay, you pray first off to our Heavenly Father, right through Jesus. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask in Jesus' name. Okay, you have to ask for something. You have to make sure that it lines up with Scripture, and then you've got to thank him. Now, that's very important, see, because if you believe that you receive when you pray, then why don't you thank God for answering your prayer, even though it hasn't physically manifested itself right at that very moment? Right at that very moment? So you don't forget. Okay, and that's how you do things.
Speaker 1:Jesus stands in the gap for us, right? So we know that we can't go into the throne room of grace and speak directly to the Father, because God can't look on sin. So we pray to the Father, but through his Son, so through Jesus. Jesus stands in the gap for us. He stands in the gap so that we can come boldly into the throne room of grace and the desires of our heart shall be met. So we, first off, pray to the Father through the Son. We make sure that it lines up with Scripture, and there will be a Scripture relevant to the subject matter that you're praying about. You just need to find it, or God needs to reveal it to you. And then you ask I have seen so many people praying up a storm and they've been going 20 minutes and I haven't heard them actually physically ask God for anything.
Speaker 1:But they're really praying up a storm and I've even seen pastors do this. We all are flawed okay, none of us are perfect. So you need to physically ask for what it is that you're believing for, and once you do that, you thank God for it. All right, now I will go over this several times over the next seven or eight weeks.
Speaker 1:Now, I will go over this several times over the next seven or eight weeks and I'll remind you of the basis of prayer and we will go through some prayers that are in the Bible, because, if you remember, if you read through the Gospels and everything, what was one of the things that the disciples asked of Jesus? They actually asked him how do you pray? Now it's the Our Father's Prayer. Now you go through that and it'll give you a foundation to start on. All right, enough of that for today. I'll try and avoid the jokes, okay, but we will reconvene next week and we'll go through more of this and to give you a better understanding of where you should be standing with your faith and and hope builds faith, faith builds belief, and belief gets you to knowing that you know that. You know that you know that the word of God will come to pass in your life. Amen, all right, bye for now.
