God answers prayer. Let there be no doubt about that. God
answers prayer. God responds to what His people ask. So
it has often been said that you had better be careful what you
pray for, because you just might get it!
There is something awesome, something even dangerous
about prayer. When we pray, we are in touch with God’s
power. When we pray, we are connecting our wills with the
one who holds all things in the palm of His hand and whose
mind understands it all. And so our prayers had better not
be the idle ramblings of a confused spirit. Our prayers had
better not be the unexamined ravings of a troubled heart.
We could do damage that way. We could cause harm. Be
careful what you pray for; you might get it!
Have you heard the story about the guy who rubbed a genie
lamp, and out came the genie, who announced that she
would grant three wishes? Astounded by the thought of
having anything he wanted, he tested it out and said, “Well, I
wish for a shiny new convertible, with all the gadgets.” And
poof! There it was, big, shiny, red, four-on-the-floor, with
stereo speakers and quadraphonic sound (I have no idea
what that means, but that’s what all the ads say, so it must
be good stuff!) – a new convertible, BMW or Mercedes or
whatever it is that’s going now. I’m not familiar with all those
brands, but let’s just say it was not a sawed-off version of my
Plymouth Horizon. “Wow, he said; it works! I can actually
get what I wish. All right, a second wish. My second wish is
that in the front seat, next to me, there would be a pretty girl,
and that in the back seat there would be a suitcase full of
cash.” And so again, poof! In the front seat of his car, a
lovely young thing, giving him the come-on; and in the back
seat, a huge suitcase with hundred-dollar bills sticking out
here and there. “This is fabulous! This is fantastic! Wow”.
But then the genie reminded him. “That’s two wishes. You
have one more. But only one. Be careful with your
remaining wish.” The guy said, “Right. I do need to be
careful. I need to think about this for a few moments.” And
so he got in the car, started it up, smiled at the lovely lady.
As he raced down the road, so happy, he snapped on the
radio, and began to sing along with what was playing, “Oh, I
wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener.”
Be careful what you ask for; you might get it. And the
consequences could be tremendous. Be careful what you
pray for. You are in touch with power. And you just might
get it.
Let me offer this proposition -- that when we pray, we pray
either out of fear or out of hope. There are only two motives
for prayer. Either we pray motivated by fear or we pray
moved by hope. That’s all. Only two motives for prayer, fear
or hope.
When we pray out of fear, we are afraid of what might
happen, we are afraid of what is going on, or we are
insecure. Praying out of fear is perfectly normal sometimes.
Your car is skidding on the ice into the path of a semi, and
instinctively you say, “Lord, help me!”. That’s reasonable.
That’s what your instinct tells you to do. But if you always
pray out of fear; if your very style of life and prayer is riddled
by fear, the consequences are often destructive. Praying out
of fear will lead to the destruction of your own soul or it will
lead to the destruction of others. It is playing with fire.
Praying out of fear is very dangerous. But some of us do it
all the time. We need to be careful what we pray, for if it is
praying out of fear, we might get it, and it will be costly.
But another option is to pray out of hope. When we pray out
of hope, we are confident that God’s will is best, we expect
great things from God, we sense that we are His children
and that He cares for us. Praying out of hope will lead to our
salvation and it will lead to building up others. Praying with
hope is being a good steward of the spiritual goods that have
been given us. Every time I stop by a hospital bed, I look for
hope in my heart, no matter how grave the situation. I know I
must pray out of hope, for if we pray out of hope and not out
of fear, we might get it, and it will be most rewarding.
Remember our theme? “The hopes and fears of all the
years are met in thee tonight.” The birth of Jesus brings to a
sharp focus what it is to pray out of fear and what it is to pray
out of hope. Herod the king lived and prayed out of fear; at
the same time the Wise Men from the East lived and prayed
out of hope. From them we can see how powerful and how
serious it is to pray. Be careful what you pray for; you might
get it.
I
First, notice that when you live and pray out of fear, you will
live a lie and you will deny God. But when you live and pray
out of hope, you will find satisfaction wherever God leads
you. Live and pray out of fear, and your life will be a lie. It
will be a bundle of contradictions. And in the end you will go
off the deep end because your fear factor will deny God.
You will not give God room in which to be God. But if you
live and pray out of hope, you will find satisfaction, peace,
and fulfillment, wherever God may lead you.
When Herod found out that these travelers were searching
for a newborn king, Herod reacted in fear. He thought his
position would be shaky. He sensed that this child might
become a challenge. You remember those old Western
movies, where one guy says to the other, “This town ain’t big
enough for both of us”? Well, that was Herod’s reaction.
“This country ain’t big enough for two kings. So I’ll have to
find the other one and get rid of him.”
Now what was Herod’s strategy to deal with this threat?
How did Herod handle his fear? The first thing he did was to
call a secret meeting and to tell a lie. Wise men, “go and
search diligently for the child; and when you have found him,
bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”
But of course homage was not his intention at all. Herod
was not the least bit interested in acknowledging this child.
His desire was to challenge the threat and stop it. Under the
guise of piety, acting like the most spiritual thing you ever
met, Herod lived and prayed out of fear, and it was a lie.
I’ve discovered that some of those who voice the most
unctuous prayers are not telling the truth. I’ve found out that
those who bombard the gates of heaven with high-sounding
prose and sweet slobberings are not always truthful. I’ve
been prayed over by people who really wanted nothing more
than for me to go away! Do you know what I’m talking
about? “Lord, we just hope you will bless this brother. Give
him the words to say that we ought to hear.” Sounds good,
except that there have been times when I’ve gotten the
feeling that what somebody really wanted was for me to say
a few little nothings, shut up, and sit down, because he really
didn’t want the truth! Do you know what I am talking about?
The most eloquent and most unctuous prayers are often the
prayers that are sheer lies.
And those prayers deny God. They deny God. They leave
no room for God to be God. The prayer of fear tells God
what to do, and thus denies that there is a God. The prayer
of fear, the prayer which is a lie, does not really believe that
God will be a God of justice. So Herod dreams of a plan for
crushing the Christ child – never mind what God wants to do!
Herod is bent on having what he will have. And it is a lie, it is
a denial of God’s godness. Oh, be careful what you pray for;
you might get it.
But the Wise Men, being wise, and more than that, being
tuned in to the God who is; the Wise Men, listening to the
God who speaks with clarity; the Wise Men, praying out of
hope, are not taken in, but just follow the star, wherever it
leads, and find satisfaction. The Wise Men do not attempt to
tell God what to do; they do not bring a selfish agenda; they
just watch and wait and obey. They just follow the star
wherever God leads, and when they get there, they are
satisfied. Satisfied just to have been obedient. Satisfied just
to have been faithful.
Brothers and sisters, if you pray out of fear, you will live and
pray a lie, trying to tell God what to do, which is a denial of
God’s essential godness. But if you live and pray out of
hope, obedience to His directions will be all you want.
Following His guidance will be your all-in-all. And wherever
your star leads you, whether it is a rough, rude stable or a
marble palace, you will be satisfied. Be careful what you
pray for; you might get it. In fact, if you live and pray in hope,
be careful to follow what you pray for; you will get it.
II
Something else. Notice that when you live and pray out of
fear, your fear will be contagious and therefore it will be
destructive. But if you live and pray out of hope, your hope
will also be contagious, but it will result in giving. If your life
is shrouded in fear, if your prayers are captured only by the
things you are afraid of, you will infect with that same fear
everyone around you. But when your life is grounded in
hope, and you live and pray as one who truly believes that
the love of God is infinite and that the power of God reaches
everywhere, then you will find ways to give hope to others.
You will develop a giving lifestyle.
History records few men with more malicious fear than King
Herod. Imagine it! Just because he has heard that there
may be one little baby boy out there in Bethlehem, he thinks
that eight or nine pounds of soft flesh spells trouble. So
Herod gives the order, “Kill all the babies two years old and
younger. All of them. Spare no child. I don’t care how many
there are. I don’t care what their moms or dads feel. Kill
them.” It sounds incredible, doesn’t it? As we now have two
grandchildren under two years old, it sends chills up and
down my spine to think of what I would feel if someone
should attack them. I don’t believe I could stand it.
But this is what a lifestyle of fear does. This is what
threatened people do. They strike out at the vulnerable. An
insecure and frightened father intimidates his son. An
overwhelmed and ill-equipped mother slaps her daughter
around. The Fuhrer orders the destruction of Jews and
homosexuals. Dictators mutilate the children of Sierra
Leone. Fear destroys. Insecurity wipes out everything.
And you say, but I don’t understand how anybody gets away
with that. Why doesn’t somebody stop the child abuser?
Why doesn’t somebody challenge the mass murderer? Why
do people put up with machetes and mutilation? Because
fear is contagious, and people catch fear, they lose their
senses to fear. Did you catch it in the story? “When King
Herod heard this [about the birth of Jesus] he was
frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.” All Jerusalem with
him! One man’s insecurity got the whole city upset! He went
down into the muck and mire all alone, but pulled them all
down there with him! Fear is contagious and therefore
destructive..
A friend and I were talking the other day about a mutual
acquaintance. My friend said that the issue with that brother
is that when he gets emotionally upset, he wants everybody
around him to be upset with him! And if you don’t join him in
being wound up, you are considered disloyal! That’s what
fear does, do you see?
When you live and even pray out of fear, you will destroy
others, you will infect everybody around you. Be careful
what you pray for; you might get it, and it will not be pleasant!
But when the Wise Men, without fear or malice, but simply
with hope in their hearts, found the Christ child, what did they
do? They knelt and worshiped him and offered him their
gifts! Nothing there to worship, you might think. Just eight
or nine pounds of soft baby flesh. But they had lived and
prayed and traveled in hope. And when they saw what God
was doing, they worshiped and they gave.
Brothers and sisters, let me commend you for something.
This year, as never before, you have lived and prayed and
given in hope. You have believed God for the future of this
church. You have begun new ministries, you have
established a new congregation, you have reached out to
others in need, you have given as never before. More
resources for the church’s life and work and more giving for
missions than we have ever seen. Why is that? Where did
it come from? It is happening because there are those who
are living and praying in hope. If you live and pray in hope,
you believe that new ministries will reach new people and
lead them to salvation. If you live and pray in hope, you
believe that in distant lands missionaries will reach people
you will never see. If you live and pray in hope, you imagine
the church we could be, you envision the congregation God
wants us to be. And so many have, like the Wise Men of the
East, brought your treasures and put them at the Savior’s
feet. I thank you. I salute you. I thank you and salute not so
much for the gifts as for the spirit of hope, living and praying
in hope. Many of you have learned that when you live and
pray in hope, you become believing, trusting, giving people.
So again, be careful what you pray for; you might get it. In
fact, praise God, as you pray in hope, your hope will grow
and grow and so will your giving.
III
But remember, the hopes and fears of all the years are met
in Christ Jesus. He is the one we focus on today. He is the
challenge to every fear; He is the ground of every hope. He
is the antidote to the poison of anxiety, and He is the abiding
joy of every genuine heart.
And so take note that whoever lives and prays out of fear will
simply die. And that will be the end of that. But whoever
lives and prays in hope will have life, life abundant, life
eternal. Take note: if you live and pray out of fear, the very
thing you fear will finally come and conquer you. You fear
death; you will die a lonely, wretched, sad, hated person.
But if you find this Christ – if you know this Jesus, intimately,
closely, personally – yours will be joy and peace forever.
Herod – what does it say about Herod? He was frightened,
he was infuriated, he killed the children, and he died. He
died. That was that. Who cares? Did anyone grieve? Did
anyone weep for Herod’s death? Not that history records.
Not that we know of. The king is dead, ho-hum, what’s
next? He reaped the consequences of fear.
But the Wise Men – what does it say about the Wise Men?
“When they saw that the star had stopped, they were
overwhelmed with joy.” Overwhelmed with joy! Filled up to
the brim with authentic joy, knowing that they were in the
presence of God, realizing that all they had given themselves
to was right, knowing that here, in the child of Bethlehem,
mysteriously and wonderfully, the hopes and fears of all their
years were met – and resolved – and fulfilled.
This year, this Christmas, are you afraid? Are you so
consumed by fear that you have let yourself become cynical
and callous? Have you allowed your anxiety to infect and
even to destroy others around you? Are you Herod, lashing
out at everyone in your path, because you are insecure? Be
careful, be very careful, what you live and want and pray for,
for you might get it, and it will be painful and deadly.
Or is it possible – just barely possible – that there is hope left
in you? Is it possible – just barely possible – that Jesus the
Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, who seems so fragile, is
actually the goal of all your hopes? Is He the target of all
your wanderings? Is He the desire of all your dreams? Is it
possible that today you need to follow wherever He leads,
you need to love Him, you need to give yourself to Him? Be
careful what you pray for; praying in hope, you just might get
– overwhelming joy!
