Sermon Nuggets Mon June 12 Preparing for Prayer
Verses- Matt 6:5-8
5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.(NIV)
Preparing for Prayer
A few years ago our conference commissioned a new committee. It was the prayer commission. Its purpose was to call our conference of churches to prayer. Each annual meeting had a day set aside for prayer. We were led through the day in various ways to praise, and pray for various concern of the conference, world and at home.
I have been at meetings were there has been people signing up for prayer teams to intercede while services were going on. During Promise Keepers, I was in a prayer tent during one of the gatherings which allowed people to drop in for personal prayer. I enjoyed talking to God on behalf of some of the men having burdens, problems and needs.
In Acts 6 we have recorded that apostles were so busy doing ministry they didn't have time to pray as they wanted, so they formed a task force and called them deacons. The apostles then could devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. This was an unbending commitment by the apostles to preserve time for prayer. It means to persist at and remain with. The apostles were saying in essence:"No matter how urgent the pressures are to spend our time doing good deeds, we will not forsake our chief work. We will seek to persist in prayer. If the work we are doing requires great spiritual depth and power, then how much more crucial and demanding must be the work of prayer?”
There is a movement in our country were 1,000s of people gather in the cities for concerts of prayer. People from various denominations burdened for our country and for the world. They seek revival. They cry for confession. They are praying that God cause a movement of his spirit in an unusual way again. Close together we have a National Day of Prayer and a few weeks later we have Global Day of Prayer. In the fall there is the world day of prayer.
Spiritual awakenings, both historical and present day, point to prayer in humility and faith. The last Sunday night of this month we will have an evening of prayer as our long range planning committee is seeking to give direction to our call during this time in our church life. We will also address community needs in prayer as well as personal needs for those who wish to ask for prayer. WE also have prayer chains, email prayer chains, gathering for prayer before Sunday service, and small groups that pray at various times.
We cannot be effective as a church in prayer unless we are praying at home. How is your own personal prayer life? Jesus gives us some instructions about our Prayer Life. This week we will consider some of his teachings to prepare for prayer.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues June 14 Public Prayer
Verses Matt 5: 5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
Considering Public Prayer. v 5
Jesus accused others of killing prayer because they prayed for the purpose of being seen by others. A few weeks ago we discussed why some people gave money to the needy. Many didn't care so much for the needy as they did for the prestige they would get from others who thought them to be kind and generous.
Jesus tells us do not pray like the hypocrites who love to be seen by men. Prayer is conversation with God. It was common for people to go to the temple to pray and some attended at 9 , 12, and 3 o'clock. It was easy for man to be at a busy street corner, or in a crowded city square so that all might see with what devotion, dedication and commitment he prayed. It was easy for a man to halt on the top steps of the entrance to the synagogue and pray lengthily and demonstratively so that all might admire his piety. He would stay with hands stretched out, palms upward, head bowed. Such prayer that seemed to impress people is not prayer at all. It is play acting. If he gets praised by men for all his piety that his all the reward he will get.
At my home church when I was a teen our pastor that made it a practice as he came out of his study to the platform he would get on his knees at the pastors bench and pray. I always thought he was very devout.
Such action caused me to think he was much godlier than my other pastors with his commitment to prayer before the people.
He also ran off with our church secretary.
Now do not misunderstand the passage. Jesus is not teaching that public prayer is wrong. Indeed there are many examples of public prayer in the Bible, including Jesus. Corporate prayer is prayer offered to God in the hearing of believers who can agree and affirm it. It can bring us to unity as one represents the people in their prayer. It enlarges the vision of what we are praying toward. Others learn to pray by listening to others. Passion is contagious.
But the problem with public prayer is that people often are not really praying to God on behalf of the people, but rather for others. Many fear praying publicly because they might say the wrong words. People are afraid they might not do it right. Hence there is the problem that you are praying for men instead of talking to God on behalf of others. Public prayers, like the hypocrites pray, makes it easy to drift into flowery, abstract language that prayer has almost no substance. Some pray for the infirmities of an anguishing and distraught humanity, rather than Mrs. Brown and her pain from a broken rib.
In public prayer remember to whom you are praying and the causes that would be appropriate for those who want to join you in your prayers for one another. Praise, requests and sometimes even confessions are good for the body of believers.
Sermon Nuggets Weds June 15 Personal Prayer
Verses- Matt 5: 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Considering Personal Prayer
Just as a young child is dependent on his Father, so effective praying is focused on our Father, We are completely dependent upon Him. An unsaved woman once told a minister that she had no need to go to church or read the Bible She did acknowledge, however that before she went to bed at night she would pray this simple prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." Noting the preacher's surprise, she explained, "I can take care of myself when I'm awake, but I want protection when I'm asleep."
Many Christians would never say that but by their practice that is what they do. Whenever things are going well, they feel self-sufficient and seldom pray for than token prayers. Then, when circumstances make them realize that things are out of their control, they cry out to the Lord for help. The Lord finds pleasure in listening to His children who come to Him in a spirit of humble dependence.
Ned Holmgren, former pastor here at Stanchfield, wrote on prayer in the Standard magazine. Listen to the personalness as expressed.
"Oh to feel the urgency of prayer!
Like watchmen placed high atop the city wall,
High enough to sound the call,
While Godward to plead persistently to plead in Prayer.
Oh, to know intimacy in prayer!
With Jesus kneel,sharing deeply in his love,
Crying out to Him above,
With longing feel The Masters closer touch thought prayer.
Oh to find Creativity in prayer,
Growing, shaping in the mind. With every thought.
In the Holy Spirit find God's answer brought,
Effective and complete by prayer.
Oh, to learn Authority in prayer
Through the unleashed power of the risen Lord.
Power none can e'er afford,
Save in deceased Authority of self by prayer.”
Oh, to shape A constancy in prayer
By sheer resolve, coupled with a growing love
For the living Lord above,
Thus to involve consistently each day More prayer. "
How's your prayer life? Is it an intimate discussion with a friend intimacy of communion with Christ need to be recaptured in personal quiet times. Call it what you want quiet time, personal devotions, morning watch, individual worship. These holy minutes explain the inner secret of Christianity. Without it there is no vitality in the relationships.
From Moses to David Livingston, Amos to Billy Graham every person who ever sought to serve God mightily needs to spend times alone with God. Psalm 57:7 "My heart is fixed O God, my heart is fixed."
Now if you do not have a personal time with God I implore you for your own sake and spiritual growth take the Word read it. Pray about it. Meditate upon it. Maybe it will help to have a prayer journal with thoughts and requests and impressions, asking God to direct your day to honor Him.
Spend personal time with God.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets June 16 Private Prayer
Verse- Matt 5: 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Considering Private Prayer
The best preparation for praying in public is, of course, praying in private. It is there that a person really gets on speaking terms with his Lord. Prayer can flow naturally when God is not a stranger.
I am not as concerned over the one who has private prayer and never prays in public as I am for the one who has public prayer but never prays in private.
The idea of the closet or the room is a time of intensely private time each of us needs to spend with God. There is value when husband and wives praying together; there is need for family prayers; there are times when the church body comes together and prayers; there are times when two or three gather in the name of Jesus and agree together in prayers. But there is also a time when God wants just you talking with Him. This is a time to confess sin, to express praise, to pour out our hearts, confusion, fears, requests, doubts, and love to the one who loves us and is concerned about you.
The point of Jesus remarks is contrasting sincere prayer from the heart with public display before men. Secret prayer is special because of the relationship that is personal. It is special because we know of the work of God also in your own life. There are things that only God knows and some things that ought to be prayed that only God hears.
Francios Fenelon- wrote this in 17th Century. "Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads ones heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him that wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bear your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self love makes you unjust to other, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and to others.
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration they say just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God."
It is in such meditations of the private heart that we grow in faith and love.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets June 17 Pretentious Prayer
Verses; Matt 5: 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.(NIV)
Considering Pretentious Prayer.
It is easy to think if God wants us to pray then the longer the prayer time the better He will think of us. The length, the place and the position of our praying is not as important as the manner and the intention. God likes short prayers if they are real, and likes long prayers if they are sincere. It does not gain us any more rewards in heaven by how many minutes we spend in prayer. Prayer comes from sincerity of the heart, not from the outward expression. It bothers me to see people going through motions to be acceptable to God.
We are not forgiven by how many times we repeat a certain prayer. Penance is not going over a formula repeatedly. If there is ever a problem with misunderstanding of prayer it is in vain and continuous repetitions that many practice. That is not prayer according to Christ. Buddhists have a prayer wheel. Some uses rosaries beads, carry crosses, some repeat table graces, or repetitious memorized prayers before they go to bed.
It was a humorous incident when I was by myself carrying out duties around the house and I was conversing with the Lord. You know you can also pray that way. While you drive or work or do dishes, just open your heart and mind to God and talk things over with him while your work. It certainly makes the time fly quicker too.
I was fixing breakfast and talking with the Lord in my mind. It was an informal “prayer” just speaking what I was thinking in the presence of the Lord. When I got things prepared I sat down. I caught myself silently saying, "Excuse me Lord, I need to pray before I eat, then I'll be right back." I bowed my head and started to say a table grace. I started to laugh. Here I am talking to God while preparing breakfast enjoying personal communion with God while working, but I had to stop talking to Him to say a prayer. My table grace became mere babbling words that lost their meaning. If my heart was truly thankful and I want to invoke His blessing, that is prayer. But if it is going through a habit and motions then it is meaningless. I wondered how many times I said grace and never talked to God because the words were babbling repetitions.
Even group liturgy many churches use in prayers can be meaningful; it can also be meaningless.
God listens to the heart, not to the words. If we are afraid of not saying the right things, or saying something wrong, God isn't the least bit concerned. Say it. Don't worry about your words. God is not concerned if we use wrong grammar, make mistakes. Don't worry about putting your personal, private prayer in special terms. But be sincere. Don't you use your mouth instead of your minds, or think quantity is better than quality.
Wise professors will recognize that verbiage doesn't necessarily mean a thing when making a speech or writing a term paper. God is neither ignorant so that we need to instruct Him nor hesitant that we need to persuade Him. He is our Father who loves and knows our needs even before we ask. What changes is us. He wants us to speak with Him and know from His presence, love, and power. He wants to talk with us and us with Him.
When you consider prayer don't worry about other people. Don't worry about using the right words; don't worry about the place and time but have a heart for God and speak honestly and be open to listen.
Pastor Dale
