Prayer and Petition

When you pray for the church, what do you pray for?

987God the Holy Ghost writes our prayers, God the Son presents our prayers, and God the Father accepts our prayers. And with the whole Trinity to help us in it, what cannot prayer perform?—54.342, 343

Charles Spurgeon

In this season of transition we are in, prayer is more important than ever and so I want to encourage you to pray for this church. But what should we pray for?

Should we pray for a smooth transition? Maybe. It would be great if it all went smooth, but sometimes, it’s in the struggle and jostling around that we grow deepest. Easy can be the enemy of great.

Should we pray for more people to come to church? Maybe. A healthy church is a growing church. But we have to be careful. Are we ready for an influx of people? Do we have enough volunteers and leaders to care for them? Too many people is a good problem, but its still a problem if we don’t have the infrastructure to minister well to them.

What should we be praying for?

We are starting a new teaching series this week on Paul’s letter to the Colossians and he starts the letter in a deeply personal way, sending them greetings and then talking about his prayers for them.

He tells them about two types of prayers he does over and over for them: First, he offers a prayer of thankfulness about the type of church they are. Second, he offers a prayer of petition, telling them the main thing he wants for them.

So today, as we look at these two prayers, my hope is that you, North Park Stratford would both pray these prayers for this church AND you would embody the heart of these prayers in your lives.

Let’s read God’s Word:

Colossians 1:1–14 (NIV)

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. 3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. 9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

To the author and object of our scriptures : God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - the one who was, who is and who is to come - we give thanks and we ask that you plant your word deep in our heart so that we might better reflect you to those around us. Amen.

NEED TRANSITION

Faith in Christ Jesus

Definition - Faith = Belief + Action

Our scriptures are filled with stories of people who expressed true faith in God.

Abram’s Faith in God led him to leave his country (Gen 12)

Shadrach, Meschach, Abed-nego’s faith led them to persevere under pressure (Dan 3)

In Paul’s opening to his letter to the church in Colossae, he thanks God for their faith in Christ. You see, Paul is writing this letter while sitting in jail for preaching about Jesus. While he’s in jail, a guy named Epaphras visits him and tells Paul all about this church he planted in Colossae. And one of the things he brags about in this church, is their faith in Jesus.

The church in Colossae is not a group of audience members watching a preacher each week, then going home to do their own thing. They are not just consumers of a religious product. They are people who have faith - who pair their belief with action.

But they don’t just have faith - they have faith in Jesus. Pastor and author Stuart Briscoe once said,

Faith is only as valid as its object. You could have tremendous faith in very thin ice and drown.… You could have very little faith in very thick ice and be perfectly secure. —Stuart Briscoe

How many of us have put our faith in the wrong thing? In a person who let us down, in a system that failed us, in an ideology that doesn’t work in real life? The good news for us though is there is one whom we can put our faith in who will never let us down. He will never leave us or abandon us. He will always walk through us, even when we walk through the darkest valley. Now matter what we have done, he will never condemn us because he loves you and I with such a burning passion, that he gave his own life so that you and I can experience grace, freedom and redemption. That person we can trust is the same person the church in Colossae put their faith in - Jesus the Christ.

So I wonder, what will faith in Jesus look like for you? For some of you, it might be taking a first step towards Jesus and in prayer confessing that you believe Jesus died and rose again and that you will follow him. For others who may have done that confession years ago, I ask you: what action is God calling you to?

Faith = belief + action.

The second thing Paul is grateful to God for is their

Love for God’s People

I have been thinking about this one a lot lately. I don’t tweet much, but almost everyday I scroll through twitter to see what’s going on in the world. I see tweets about sports, about the news, and there are some great comedy bits on twitter that are a lot of fun, like Stratford’s own Brittlestar. I also follow a few Christian pastors, historians and theologians. And it is the Christian accounts that discourage me the most.

It’s not because of what anyone actually posts, by the way. I’ve seen people post their thoughts on both sides of the conversation on a variety of topics including women pastors, lgbtq inclusion in the church, the validity of certain atonement theories, and whether some pastors are heretics or not.

It’s not their opinion that bothers me. It’s the response by a horde of people who claim Jesus but spew out vitriol to these believers in the comments. I’ve seen people, in all caps letters, tell certain pastors and theologians that they are going to hell and need to repent over a doctrinal difference that isn’t even about Jesus.

Why are we, the people who say we follow God and that God is love, the people that can be the most hateful and harmful to those both inside the church and those outside the church? Especially when our Lord and Saviour Jesus says,

John 13:34–35 (NIV)

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Why is love so hard for us? Why are we so concerned with being right and so unconcerned with loving each other? Brothers and Sisters, this should not be so. The lips of every person who isn’t a Christians should be saying, “I may not agree with them, but I know that they love God, love me, and love each other.” Like the church in Colossae, it should be our primary reputation in the community.

What would it look like to be loving today? I don’t have all the answers on that, yet. But here are three simple ways we love each other:

We would care more about listening to people’s stories with empathy than we would about converting them to the faith or imputing truth to them.

We would be humble enough to let each other into our problems and struggles and caring enough to help each other with both prayers AND actions.

When we do talk about faith, we would do so with a beautiful mixture of experiential confidence and hopeful humility.

1 John 4:9–11 (NIV)

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

I hope and pray that this church will continue in, and grow, a reputation of love, both for the community and for each other. I also hope and pray that each of you would also have that reputation. Like the church in Colossae, let us be known for our love.

In verses 3-8 in our passage in Colossians, Paul tells them he is so grateful to God for their faith in Christ and their love for each other. In verses 9-14, he tells them what his prayer priority is for them. And his prayer for them is that they would

Pursue God’s Will

I read an anecdote this week about a woman who in olden days went from home to home across the countryside selling little things like thread, buttons, thimbles, and shoestrings. When she came to an unmarked crossroad, she would toss a stick into the air and go in the direction the stick pointed when it landed.

One day, however, she was seen tossing the stick up several times. "Why do you toss the stick more than once?" someone asked as they passed by. "Because," replied the woman, "it keeps pointing to the left, and I want to take the road on the right."

How often are we like that? We want to follow God’s will, as long as it aligns with ours. But Jesus isn’t a Kirk follower - I am a Jesus follower. I need to obey what God wants for me, even though it may cost me.

Many years ago now, when I was 19, fit and still had hair, my dream was to teach Taekwondo as a career. I was moderately talented at it, worked hard as was a good teacher. But then I surrendered my life to Jesus and soon after, Jesus ruined my plans. Instead of that career, he led me into being a pastor. Being a Jesus follower means we follow Jesus - wherever he leads us.

Paul writes:

Colossians 1:9–13 (NIV)

9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will ...

Paul’s priority in prayer isn’t that they grow numerically. He’s not praying that everything goes easy for them. He’s praying that God fills them with the knowledge of his will. That will is revealed by the Holy Spirit, who gives us wisdom to make good choices and understanding to see the trials and opportunities that are presented to us.

But why is Paul praying that they know God’s will? Because he knows that if we have ears to hear God’s will and courage in our hearts to follow it, then we will live lives worthy of the Lord and please him in every way (Colossians 1:10).

What does a life that is worthy of the Lord and that pleases him look like?

1) Bearing fruit in every good work

2) Growing in the knowledge of God

3) Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience

4) Giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

Paul gives thanks for their faith in God and their love for God’s people. Then he prays that they would know God’s will.