Praying As a Church
Do you know how important prayer is? Do you know how powerful prayer is? Do you know what kind of a difference prayer can make in your life, in the lives of those you love and for the world? The enemy and the world wants to convince us that our prayer doesn’t do anything. The enemy loves pointing at a prayer that we haven't seen answered so that we ignore how God has answered and solved a thousand more. In a world that is divided, filled with violence, isolation, vice and more, we need prayer to connect with God, but also to connect with our neighbor. Today, as we look at our community prayer, in what we call the prayers of the people, I want to look at three very important things:
The definition of prayer as the way that we communicate with God.
That we need to be praying for protection and strength
That prayer is one of the primary ways we find unity and connection
God wants to give us so much, and prayer is one of the ways he lays a foundation for us to realize the gifts he gives.
So first, prayer is one of the central ways that we relate, communicate and build a relationship with God. We can think of prayer like any conversation. We acknowledge that God is present and that he wants us to reach out and speak to him. Yet, if prayer is like a conversation, we have to realize a few things about it that may not be obvious.
Prayer can’t primarily be about asking for something, unless it is a better relationship with God. You have probably known people in your life that only ask for things, but never give back or seem to recognize you for you. These relationships don’t feel like relationships, they become onesided and painful. So, our prayer needs to be about more than asking God for something. This makes us look a little harder at our practice of the prayers of the people a little, because how much of it is asking God for something. Yet, what we have to realize is that our whole service is a prayer. We spend a good amount of time praising God, especially through music, we listen to him in Scripture and preaching, we recognize his presence, we thank God, we remember God, we commune with God, and we respond to God as we are sent out. Our whole service gives us a much better idea of the shape of prayer. Our prayer should include all of these things. Asking for God’s help is important, and praying for others is something God calls us to do but we need to make sure we are praising God and making space for him to respond in our prayer life.
Prayer as a conversation with God should be just as much about listening as it is speaking. Actually, Scripture tells us Proverbs that we should be quick to listen and slow to speak. So, our prayer should be even more about listening. Already, I think this challenges a lot of our practices with prayer. Do we really believe that God is speaking to us, or do we define his desire by our inability to perceive him? Remember that Scripture is God purposefully revealing himself, remember that Jesus was God become man so that we could meet him and be reconciled with God, remember that God has sent His Holy Spirit to dwell with us and in us. If these aren’t the most blatant ways for God to tell us that he wants to speak to us then I don’t know what is. It is especially important that we as a community take time to listen, because as Jesus says, “Anywhere two or three are gathered together in my name I am with them”.
Briefly, I want to address the challenge here, “What stands in the way of us hearing God?” I think sadly there are a lot of things, but I think the biggest general thing that stands in the way of us hearing God is that we don’t take purposeful and dedicated time to listen for God. Sometimes, it is hard to discern God’s voice vs. our own, or the broken world. This means that we haven’t spent enough time getting to know God’s character and voice as it has been spoken in and through Scripture and Jesus Christ. The enemy tries to trick us into thinking we can’t actually connect with God. We all know what it means to recognize someone’s voice, even their character, we can do the same with God. Sometimes there are just too many demands and voices in our lives. This means that we need to take dedicated time - stepping away from everything else - just to focus on speaking and listening to God. The enemy is trying to distract us. Sometimes, there is just too much happening, and we are too busy, or there are little ones that want our every moment. This means that it is especially important to carve out time to give these things over to God and listen for his direction. The enemy is trying to overwhelm and overburden us.
Prayer, as we connect with God and recognize his presence, is immensely powerful. If God is listening and responding to our prayer, then that means that there is very little that prayer can’t do. Yet, one of the most important prayers is for protection, but not primarily protection from illness or physical harm, it is important for us to be praying for protection from the enemy, from temptation and evil. Did you ever notice that the Lord’s Prayer only has one line pertaining directly to our physical needs, but has 4 lines pertaining to sin and deliverance from evil? The night before Jesus dies, in the longest prayer we have from Jesus, he spends a long time praying for two things: protection from the evil one, and unity. Isn’t that interesting? Jesus knows what we really need most. He knows what the enemy can do to destroy us and he knows that we need the Father's protection. What is food or health, when our hearts and souls have nothing left. Or as Jesus says, “what good is it for you to gain the world, but lose your souls”. We know it is far too easy to fall into sin, or anger, or resentment, this should point us to our even greater need for prayer protection. In our passage from Ephesians we heard about the armor of God, all the ways in which God can and will equip us to protect us through things like faith, salvation, righteousness, truth, the Word of God and the Spirit. Paul immediately follows this with our need to pray in the Spirit, because he knows that this is a way to put on that armor and keep it on tight. Are you praying for protection from temptation and deliverance from evil, because you should.
Lastly, Jesus spends a long time praying for unity. This is something desperately needed in our world today. There is so much division, factions, and more. Jesus’ days would have been the same. One of the first things the enemy tries to destroy is unity, because unity is a relationship. Jesus knows that unity doesn’t start out there, unity has to have something that binds people. People are bound by a lot of things, blood, a common joy, time spent together, a memorable event or experience and more, yet all of these are not good enough when the rubber hits the road; these ties that bind can all unravel and become like nothing - or can become barriers to true unity. Jesus knows that the only thing that can truly unite us, is the one who created us, one who ordered and gave a place to all things. So, first, we need to be united with God as the foundation and lasting one. It makes sense then that prayer as one of our primary ways of connecting with God, should be a means by which we find and create unity. We need to be united with God, if we ever hope to truly have unity with anyone else. It is why we often used the strength of the three bound cord as a symbol for a strong marriage. It may be a man and a woman coming together, but they need God interwoven into their relationship if they ever hope to stay bound together. We need this for every relationship and for our relationship as a community. Our church and the church as a whole need to find this unity with God a fresh, because we need to be united in him. If the church can’t find unity through our disagreements, how do we expect the world to? If we aren’t willing to take time to listen and understand one another, how do we expect the world to? If we who have the strongest force binding us together, ignore it and would rather let words divide us - isn’t that what we will see in the world? Both Paul and Jesus saw this lack of unity and division within the church, the community of faith as one of the greatest things that stood in the way of our witness and our experience of God, because it is a symptom of our lack of humility and our lacking relationship with God. It is also a sign that we have given the enemy too much sway in our hearts and communities.
On the opposite side, we are meant to show the world a different kind of unity and love, which in itself invites people into a relationship with God and the reality of his coming Kingdom. This is an important part of our witness and how we gather people for a relationship with Jesus. I think we have a bit of that here at St. Matthew’s. When I last counted, there were around 12 different Christian denominations present in this church, we have people from throughout the world, we have people left leaning and right leaning. You don’t always agree with me and I don’t always agree with you. Yet, despite all of the differences we have a unity and love in Jesus Christ that is beyond what the world can understand, because it is founded in Jesus Christ.
On this St. Matthew’s Sunday we recognize that together we have been called by God to a relationship with him. We may have been tax collectors like Matthew who were cut of from society or Pharisees like Paul who were considered the cream of the crop, but it doesn’t matter who we were, we were all called to be children of God who live together in his home, in his Kingdom, in his peace. We have been called together, to pray and build a relationship with our Father in heaven, our Brother the Christ and that Holy Spirit. We know we need their protection. We know we need the unity that we meet in our God who is three in one. So, let us all together and alone lean on prayer, knowing that God gives us his strength, courage, his closeness and love in a way that nothing in this world can offer. AMEN
Children's story
The cord analogy for unity
A rope binds them but people letting go of a rope - pull in opposite directions
God tying the rope around them and him. They still get to pick it up through prayer - see and live in our connection
This Sunday is St. Matthew’s Sunday. A day where we celebrate our patronal saint, Matthew and what God has been doing in this place. As we continue our sermon series on the liturgy we look at why we pray together - in the prayers of the people.
First: we reflect on what prayer is, as a way in which we connect and build a relationship with God
Second: through Jesus’ longest prayer we will explore one of our most fundamental needs, next to God, as he says, “protect them from the evil one”.
Third: we will look at how prayer actually is meant to lead to unity with God and one another.
Prayer is powerful and lifegiving. It is something we all need more of. As a way in which we connect with God, it should be incorporated into every moment in our life. Let us all practice and experience how effective and affective prayer is, as we know and trust that God works through it. God has been doing that in our church and I thank God daily for it.
Children's story
The cord analogy for unity
A rope binds them but people letting go of a rope - pull in opposite directions
God tying the rope around them and him. They still get to pick it up through prayer - see and live in our connection
