“Yes & “No”
The
apostle Paul once prayed to the Lord that what he called his “thorn in the
flesh” would be taken away from him. In
fact, Paul prayed that prayer three times.
The Lord said no. King David
pleaded with God that he would spare the life of his newborn son. The Lord said no. Jesus himself, as a real human being, prayed
passionately to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane that another way could
be found for the salvation of all people instead of the intense suffering he
was about to experience. The Father said
no. Now God loved Jesus and David and
Paul of course, but sometimes God says “no” to the prayers of those he
loves. Because sometimes “no” is the
most loving answer he can give.
But God
loves to say “yes” to our prayers as often as possible! Think about these same three men: Paul prayed
that the door would be opened for him to spread the gospel. The Lord said yes at many different times. David prayed that he would be delivered from
the hands of his enemies. The Lord said
yes on numerous occasions. Jesus prayed
that his Father would protect his disciples.
His Father said yes to that prayer for years. Our Lord loves saying “yes!” If you would read through the Bible and keep
track of all of the times that the Lord answered “yes” to the prayers of his children compared to the
times that he said “no,” you’ll notice that the Lord gives what is asked for on
far more occasions than he does not.
Because as long as it will benefit his children in some way, the Lord is
thrilled to give his children what they want.
What father wouldn’t?
This
morning King Hezekiah provides for us a few more wonderful examples of how the
Lord loves to say “yes” to the prayers of his people. We read that Hezekiah was under pressure from
the King of Assyria when he prayed to the Lord for help. The Lord answered that prayer with a “yes”
and rescued Hezekiah and his people in a truly miraculous way that we will talk
about again in three weeks. When
Hezekiah was sick and at the point of death he prayed to the Lord for
healing. The Lord once again said “yes”
and added 15 years on to the end of Hezekiah’s life. And the last of Hezekiah’s prayers that we
looked at this morning was also answered with a “yes” by his Lord. But this prayer, prayed for the people
during the celebration of the Passover, was different than the other prayers
Hezekiah prayed. Because this prayer was
the most important prayer of all; and it was a prayer to which the Lord will
never say “no.”
The Most
Important Prayer of All
Most of the many people who came from
Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they
ate the Passover, contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them,
saying, “May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets his heart on
seeking God—the Lord, the God of his fathers—even if he is not clean according
to the rules of the sanctuary.” And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the
people.
The
prayer that Hezekiah prayed was for a prayer for pardon, a prayer for forgiveness. And he had to pray that prayer because he had
just led the people back to the Word of God, instituted worship practices that
had fallen out of favor over the last few decades, and had organized a
nation-wide celebration of the Passover festival unlike anything that had
happened in the land of Israel for the past 200 years. And yet, there were still some Israelites who
failed to perform the necessary cleansing rites that the Lord has prescribed
for them. We don’t know if they did it
simply out of ignorance (maybe they just didn’t know what was required of them)
or if they did it out of carelessness and disregard for God’s Word, but we do
know what Hezekiah prayed on their behalf: “May the Lord, who is good, pardon
everyone who sets his heart on seeking God.”
It was a simple prayer but an important one. A prayer that the people desperately needed a
“yes” answer for; a prayer that the Lord was pleased to give a “yes” answer to.
We are in Desperate
Need of the “Yes” Answer
There
are many prayers we pray in our lives that we can survive a “no” answer to,
aren’t there? We can pray for rain next
week, we can pray that our hip stops hurting, we can pray that our family life
improves, that the dog stops barking at two in the morning, that tomorrow is better
day than today. And if the Lord decides
to say “no” to any one of those prayers for any reason, we’ll survive, we’ll
move on, we’ll still be just as richly blessed by our God than if he had said
“yes” to those prayers. But there is one
prayer that we must have a “yes” answer to if we want to survive; and that is the
prayer that Hezekiah prayed: the prayer for pardon.
Have you ever done something so awful to a
person that you had to almost beg for forgiveness? Have you ever had to profusely apologize for
something that you could not make any excuse for, something that almost forced
you to your knees in regret? When that
happens you are at the mercy of that person you have hurt, aren’t you? You humbly place your good standing in their
hands and hope that they are compassionate enough not to hold your sin against
you.
Have you
ever had someone beg you for
forgiveness? Have you ever had someone
do something so awful that they placed their good standing in your hands and
hoped that you would be compassionate enough not to hold their sin against
them? Imagine yourself in that situation
and that you forgive that person. But what
if that person did the exact same thing the very next week and asked for your
forgiveness again. I would assume that
you would be a little more hesitant to forgive the person the second time
around. But what if that person did it again
the week after and again the week after that and again the week after that -
asking you for forgiveness each time?
Wouldn’t you start to doubt the sincerity of that request? Wouldn’t you start to become a little angry
with this individual? Maybe you’d even
try to avoid that person altogether.
Consider
how similar that is to our relationship with our God. Every Sunday we gather together for worship
here and publically confess our sins together, pleading for the Lord’s grace,
humbly placing our lives into his compassionate hands. And he forgives. But then we do the exact same thing again the
next week. And the week after that and
the week after that. And I would guess
that if you are like me, many of the sins that you bring in front of your
Father are the same sins that you commit week in and week out, repeating your
faults, duplicating your evils, doubling up on the sins the Lord had just
forgiven the week before! What nerve we
have coming before our heavenly Father expecting him to immediately forgive us
once again! What audacity to show our
faces in his house carrying the exact same sins with us that he had so
graciously pardoned 7 days ago! What
makes us think that he will forgive us again?
What makes us so bold as to try his patience one more time?
The Lord Loves
to Answer That Prayer
He
does! Our God gives us the courage to
come back to his house each week even when we have a whole slew of sins in our
wake. Our God encourages us to place our
sins before his throne for them to be wiped away. Our God makes it possible for us to expect a
“yes” answer to that prayer for forgiveness no matter how many times we have to
ask it. Because he loves to hear that
prayer! He wants to hear that
prayer! Regardless of the number of times
we come before him and plead with all earnestness for him to be gracious, he
loves it! And he loves to answer with a
“yes.” In fact, he answers that prayer
of his people for pardon with a “yes” every time.
It
certainly wasn’t the first time a prayer for forgiveness had been prayed on
behalf o the Israelites when King Hezekiah went to the Lord for the
people. They had been praying that
prayer to the Lord for hundreds of years!
If you read through the book of Judges for example, you see just how
often the people had to ask the Lord for pardon because they kept falling into
the cycle of sin over and over again.
But you’ll also see that the Lord forgave them every time.
Isn’t
that amazing? Our good Lord never gets
tired of that prayer. He never gets
frustrated with that prayer. He never
becomes pessimistic or gets angry or holds something against us when we
approach him with sins in hand. He
welcomes us, invites us, listens to us, and immediately answers with a
resounding “Yes! Yes I will forgive
you! Yes I will pardon you! Yes I do still think of you as my child and
your soul has been completely healed!”
Our God never says “no” to that request.
He immediatley forgives you. He
pardons you. He heals you. Just ask.
Just Ask
Just ask
him to forgive you. He’ll do it! You don’t need to cry, you don’t need to fast,
you don’t need to pray a long drawn-out prayer to show how serious you are;
your good Lord doesn’t require you to do anything to gain his forgiveness. He just wants you to ask him. King Hezekiah asked that God would pardon the
people who had sinned against him. Did
the Lord tell him that each person would have to come before him, get down on
his knees, and express how sorry they were?
No! Did the Lord say, “Well, I’m
still a little bit angry so I’m going to hold off for a little while and come
back when I’ve calmed down”? No! Did the Lord ignore Hezekiah’s prayer since
the sins of his people were no different than they had been for the past
thousands of years? Of course not! The Lord simply forgave them! Hezekiah asked; the Lord said yes; the people
were healed. And you can count on that
exact same outcome every time you pray that prayer yourself.
I hope
you pray that prayer often. I hope you
pray that prayer every day. And when you
pray that prayer for forgiveness, you can list all of the sins you can think
of, you can mention some of the sins that are really bothering you, you can
simply refer to your sins and your sinfulness in general. But however you word that prayer and whenever
you ask for forgiveness, what does your Lord say? He says “yes.” Not begrudgingly. Not because he feels obligated. But because he actually wants to, he loves
to, he eagerly anticipates giving you the forgiveness that he won on the cross
so long ago. There is no other gift that
he is happier to give. And there is
really no other gift that we actually need.
Make a habit of confessing your sins to your God. Make it a point of throwing your faults at
the foot of his cross. And ask him to
pardon you for whatever you’ve done. And
I promise you: you will never be disappointed with his answer. Just ask.
Amen.
“To him who loves
us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom
and priests to serve his God and Father - to him be glory and power forever and
ever. Amen!” - Rev. 1:5-6
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