Devoted to Prayer

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Sunday, April 25, 2010

“I prayed more for you than all the rest.” The words of a mother to her son. The words of my mother to me. “I prayed more for you than all the rest.” You see, my mom was devoted to prayer and if you knew all the rest, you’d know how effective that prayer was. I always felt it was a little bit of an overkill because I ended up being a pastor. “If you could have backed off a little bit, Mom, I would have just been an elder or something like that.” But my mom was devoted to prayer just like the early church.

The early Christians were devoted to prayer. Their life was focused on their gatherings together and each day, as they gathered, prayer was an important part. I think it was some of a carry over from their Jewish background. You see, in the Jewish practice of their religion, there were three times a day when you would offer your prayers, early morning, 3:00 in the afternoon and sunset. So the people who lived in Jerusalem would actually go to the temple at those times and offer their prayers. I think the early Christian church, even though they were converted to Christians from Judaism really still considered themselves Jews. So as they gathered day after day, I would imagine they stuck with that obligation, that prayer three times a day that all Jews observed.

But even if they prayed three times a day, it seemed like sometimes they got a little off track with what their prayer was about or what the focus of their prayer was. Luke 18 has the parable of Jesus talking about two people who went to pray. “To some who were confident in their righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable. ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself. ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other men, robbers, evil doers, adulterers or even this tax collector over here. I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of everything I get.’ Clearly, his prayer wasn’t focused on God but on himself and on his behavior and his performance of which he was very proud.’” Scripture continues, “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’” This man is so overwhelmed by the guilt of his sin that he doesn’t feel worthy even to approach God or to look toward heaven. Although in this passage, Jesus commends the second person, the tax collector, because of his humility, neither of these people is praying with the right spirit. They’re not praying with the right understanding of their relationship with God.

So what is prayer and how can we be devoted to it? And how can we be effective in our prayers? First, Martin Luther believed that prayer was actually commanded by God. His conviction comes from the second commandment, which says, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God,” which is a negative statement. Don’t misuse it. But if you turn that around and say it in the positive form, it’s use God’s name. Use God’s name in appropriate ways. Use God’s name in prayer. Use God’s name in praise. Use God’s name when you thank Him.

And, in fact, Luther’s explanation bears out this positive aspect of the commandment. “We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie or deceive by His name but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise and give thanks.” Still, to me, saying that God commands prayer sounds a little bit heavy, sounds a little law-oriented. What I really think the spirit behind God’s offer for us to pray comes from Psalm 50:15 where He says, “Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you will honor me.” While this verse does have the verbal form of a command and imperative, I believe when God tells us to pray, it is more of a loving Father giving a warm invitation to His child to call upon Him.

Think about how many times you’ve talked to your friends when they’re going through a difficult time, difficult diagnosis, job change, something’s going on and you say to them, “Call me if you need anything.” Now in those words, are you telling them what to do, bossing them around, giving them a rule to follow? No. What you’re saying is, “When you need me, I’ll be there for you.” And that’s what I believe our heavenly Father is saying to us in His words, “Call upon me in the day of trouble.”

I believe He’s offering this warm invitation to us to come to Him as our loving Father in heaven and to offer everything that’s on our hearts, to ask Him to be part of our struggle, to be part of what’s going on with us. God desires to be in communication with us. That’s why He urges us to call upon Him in the day of trouble.

Now the Jews and the early Christians prayed three times a day, but how often should we pray? How often should you talk to your heavenly Father? Again, Luther provides some guidance. He says, “Call upon Him in every trouble. Pray, praise and give thanks.” So how often should we pray? Whenever you have trouble, whenever something goes wrong, whenever you’re facing a difficulty, whenever you reflect on His love and forgiveness and just want to praise Him. Call upon Him. Whenever you have something in your life that you’re thankful for, call upon Him, pray to Him. That’s what He’s inviting us to do.

Here’s another way to think about it. Those of you who like to do all that texting stuff, I know a few of those in my family. I’m not really good at it. My old thumbs just can’t handle that stuff. But I remember the first time my daughter got texting. We went to visit our relatives in Fairfield and that phone never left her hand the whole time we were there. It was in her hand and she was doing this. I’m like, “I don’t know if that’s a good thing because here we are with all of our family and friends and relatives and she just has to be talking to those friends back home. She has to be in touch. And she can’t set that phone down. What if somebody texted her? You have to be there. You have to be able to answer. Well, just imagine if God was that person you want so desperately to text, if God was the one you wanted to stay in communication with, if God was the one you wanted to share every thought with, every feeling with. What would your life be like if you prayed that often? My kids text hundreds of times a day and I think you know people like that, right? Imagine your life if you prayed that much in a day. “Thank you, God, that I had a good night sleep.” “Thank you, God, that I have a family.” “Thank you, God, for my breakfast.” “Thank you, God, for a day when I can go to work. I have a job to go to, a roof over our heads.” Just think of all the thoughts you could express to God in prayer and what a difference that might make in your life. So prayer is commanded by God but not as a burdensome law and rule but as a warm and loving invitation to you to be in communication with Him.

The second thing I want to talk about is prayer needs to come from a spirit or a basis of grace. That’s a challenging concept but Luther said, “A truly Christian prayer should and must proceed from a spirit of grace which says, ‘I have lived as I could but I pray thee not to take my life and actions into consideration but thy mercy and goodness promised through Christ and give me what I ask for His sake.’” This is where the Pharisee and the tax collector in that earlier passage got off track. This is where they got confused about what prayer is. The first one was all arrogant about himself and proud of his behavior, how he performed so he was pretty confident going before God because he thought that’s how things worked. The holier you were, the more God loved you, the more wide open the door of blessings would be. But that wasn’t the case, was it. The other person was so overwhelmed by the sorrow of his sins that he could barely communicate to God. He could barely even think about God. He was so preoccupied with his poor behavior. Neither one is what God wants us to focus on.

In our prayers, He doesn’t want us to be overwhelmed by what we’ve been doing. He wants us to be captivated by what He’s already done. It needs to come from a spirit of grace and understanding of how much God loves us and all that He’s done for us. Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God not by works so that no one can boast.” Grace, God’s undeserved love. It’s very challenging just for us to get our minds around it because, in this world, everything seems to work on what you do. Everything’s based on how much you can produce, what kind of grades you can get, how much you sell, all the different things you do give you compensation, provide for your well being and all those kinds of things. You earn it and then you get it.

But that’s not how God’s relationship with us is. It’s great. God gives it to us in spite of our behavior, no matter what our behavior, good or bad is, God gives us His love and forgiveness. It’s the same thing we have to keep in mind as we approach God in prayer. Yes, we are sinners and we should repent and we should be sad when we sin but not overwhelmed with sorrow and despairing and wondering if God even loves us or why our life is such a mess. We focus on God in our prayers. And the best way I think for us to get this concept of grace is to think about the whole scene of the crucifixion, that whole episode of Jesus being on trial, being whipped and tortured and falsely accused and then, as He carried the cross, being ridiculed and spit on and everything else and then, as He’s laying on the cross, they’re mocking Him and pounding nails into His hands and His feet. And then they raise Him up there and they’re still insulting Him, saying horrible things to Him, making fun of Him as He’s stripped naked on the cross. And what does He say? “Father, forgive them. They do not know what they’re doing.” That’s grace. “Forgive them, the ones who spit on me. Forgive them, the ones who insulted me. Forgive them, the ones who pounded the nails in my hands. Forgive them.” That’s grace.

And that’s what you and I have. We exist as God’s children in a state of grace. Every moment of every day, His love is being poured out on us. Every moment of every day, when we sin, we can turn to Him and ask for forgiveness and He will freely pardon us. And that’s the spirit that needs to be in our prayers, not proud and arrogant, not so overwhelmed with what we’ve done that we can’t even think about God but just knowing that our loving, heavenly Father invites us to come to Him at any time and for any reason.

The last thing I want to point out to you is that prayer is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity. Think about this. I’ve always been captivated by this thought that in my prayers, Tim, when he prays, he’s talking to the creator of the universe. Can you imagine? In our prayers, we’re talking to the guy who made everything. Not only that, but He’s listening. I just can hardly believe it that when I share what’s on my heart, He hears it and He answers it. And when I repent of my sins, He eagerly welcomes me back as a loving Father.

Another thought that’s almost as compelling is the one when you think about what God’s resources are. When we have our problem, our struggle, our prayer that we’re offering to God, what resources are available to Him to respond? Probably impossible to say anything that He doesn’t have at His disposal. He can do anything. He created the universe. He can do anything. So whatever our problem is, He is more than able to respond. Whatever our struggle is, He can do it, He can fix it. He has everything to respond to our struggles.

Paul writes this way about this in Ephesians 3:20-21, “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.” That’s what Paul says. More than we ask or imagine. Can you imagine? All those things you think you’re struggling with that are so big you can hardly get through a day thinking about them and He can supply even more than you can ask or imagine.

I know a lot of you are going through some tough things, struggling with some big challenges but the focus isn’t the challenge or your behavior. It’s God and His power and His love and His mercy. That’s what our prayers focus on. And God is able to do it. Whatever is on your heart right now, whatever impossible task, whatever overwhelming trouble, whatever pain, whatever loss, God is able to help.

Recently, I read a poem about this and I want to share that with you now. It’s called He Gives More Grace. “He gives more grace when the burdens grow greater. He sends more strength when the labors increase. To added affliction, He adds His mercy. To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength has failed before the day is half done, when we reach the end of our hoarded resources, our Father’s full giving has only begun. His love has no limits. His grace has no measure. His power, no boundary known unto men, for out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He gives and He gives and He gives again.”

The early Christians were devoted to prayer and sometimes we think that God did miracles back then but not so much today. But that’s not true. We face the same challenges they face. We have the same problems in our personal lives that they had in their personal lives. We deal with the same enemy that they dealt with and we have the same God who can respond to our prayers.

Listen to the believer’s prayer. This is the passage that Pastor Burcham read earlier. Believer’s prayer from Acts 4. Think about that major obstacle, that thing that you want to pray about, that thing you want God to help you with and, as I read this prayer, you substitute your prayer request in as you hear what they’re praying about. The believer’s prayer, “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “You made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father, David. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one? Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant, Jesus.” After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Brothers and sisters, as you carry your prayers before your heavenly Father, may God shake the place where you meet Him and fill you with the Holy Spirit and a boldness and a confidence to come before your loving Father in heaven with all the prayers on your heart. Amen.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church