Praying for the Church

In your bulletin and on the marque outside - you will notice the title for today’s message is “The Pattern of Prayer” and my original intent was to focus on the passage we heard from Matthew’s gospel where Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray, including a model prayer that we call the “Lord’s Prayer”. But throughout this week, the Spirit lead me more in the direction of the second passage we heard: Paul’s prayer to the church in Philippi.

So once again, last minute title change. Today’s message is “Praying for the Church”. This message is part of a series that I am working on for the next few weeks called Great Prayers. I’ve selected several prayers found throughout the New Testament that focus on various needs - it is my hope that this series will strengthen our prayer life.

As a church, we have faced several challenges in the last couple of years, we have had to make some momentous decisions, not the least of which was the decision to break ties with our former denomination and align with the Global Methodist Church. And I hope, through it all, you have recognized that prayer has undergirded all that we do.

Now I know that throughout the history of Grace Methodist - congregants have come together and prayed for the church. As I look back on my relatively short time here, I can recall all the times we have, as a Church, intentionally come together in prayer - seeking discernment of God’s desired will for us and the power to move forward. Some of you may remember, during the pandemic, coming together in the Fall of 2020, for a time of prayer and discernment as we sought new opportunities to reach our neighbors. As a resource, we read the book “Everything Can Change in 40 Days” by writer and musician Jean Watson. We kicked it off with a Prayer Walk from Grace to St. Paul’s - praying along the way what God desired us to do to reach our neighbors and for a spiritual awakening to happen here. We met weekly, in-person and by ZOOM, to discuss the book and to pray. And we wrapped up the 40 days by having Jean come and perform a concert here at the Church. The Lord heard our prayers.

Another time of corporate prayer that I recall was in the Spring of 2022 during Lent. As a church, our daily prayers were centered around the book “Thoughtful Prayers for Serious Believers” by some obscure author named Rev. Harold Bussell. I wonder whatever happened to that guy?

During that Lent journey, Harold broke down the Lord's Prayer into 6 weeks of personal prayers seeking God’s guidance in our lives. The real, authentic, deep and humble prayers that he offered helped us pray more boldly. The Lord heard our prayers.

On August 29th of last year, we held a Day of Prayer and Fasting for “the purpose of blanketing Grace Church in prayer, seeking the Lord's blessings over our ministries, praying for future ministries and an increase in people, for God's favor on our community, and to acknowledge that everything is in His hands.” The Lord heard our prayers.

These intentional exercises, I believe, and the many other times we pray together, have helped create a culture here - one that seeks to honor and glorify God in all that we do. We are a church of prayer.

And I hope we can recognize the fruit that has been born out of our prayers. One Mission Cambridge would not exist if it was not for this Church. Yes, there are others churches and groups that are involved and supportive of that ministry - but One Mission was birthed out of the people of this church praying, grabbing hold of a vision, inviting others to come alongside and providing the people and the money needed to establish that ministry. It is an answer to prayer.

Our children’s church - virtually non-existent a few years ago until it was decided to invest the time, talent and resources needed to launch it - trusting that it would grow. We have a wonderful and loving children’s ministry that was birthed out of prayer.

We have people in this church who have beaten the odds and received healing from major health issues because this church prayed and sought God’s favor. We have heard several testimonies just in the last few months.

Some of you serve in our committees and on our board, raise your hand if you do. I know you would affirm that there is a sense among those on our board meetings, an acknowledgment, that God is entrusting more and more to us as we faithfully endeavor to glorify Him. We are seeing increase in people and in finances. And there is agreement that this is a test for our church as well - how we use what we are given? Will we be Kingdom-minded?

I shared an overarching vision for Grace back in the January board meeting and church newsletter, “We are to be a healthy, vibrant, loving and bold church.” Each of those attributes can be further expanded on, but that is not the purpose of this message. But I can tell you How will we get there: By following the lead of the Holy Spirit in prayer, worship and active ministry.

That is the high level vision. This June, we will be refining that vision as a church.

What specifically is God desiring for us to do to become the Church that matches that vision?

When you dream of the future of Grace - what do you see?

And we will begin this discernment with, you guessed it, prayer! You will receive guidance this coming week and next Sunday as we communicate the plan for June - we will be praying for the Church.

Which is why I believe the Holy Spirit has lead me to focus on Paul’s prayer today. Paul is writing to a church whom he dearly loves - in this is letter, his heart is overflowing with joy and thanksgiving - which belies his current circumstance: for he writes this letter while sitting in prison - locked up for preaching the gospel.

His great love for this Church is the basis of his joy. From the beginning of their relationship with Paul, the church in Philippi have embraced the gospel and shared in the mission whole-heartedly. Later in the letter, we read in Phil 4:15-16

Philippians 4:15–16 ESV

And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again.

They were true ministry partners - supporting Paul by doing what they could to provide for his needs as he spread the gospel in his travels. They could see what God was doing and they wanted to be a part of it. They embraced the mission of advancing the gospel.

Paul writes:

Philippians 1:3–5 CEB

I thank my God every time I mention you in my prayers. I’m thankful for all of you every time I pray, and it’s always a prayer full of joy. I’m glad because of the way you have been my partners in the ministry of the gospel from the time you first believed it until now.

May this be our first prayer point in this series. When you approach the Lord in prayer, give thanks for your church family. Let joy fill you as you think of one another. And I would expand this even further. We are part of something greater - a new movement of Methodism called the Global Methodist Church consisting of over 4500 churches, each of which, like us, have gone through a challenging, difficult, painful season in order to follow their conviction, desire to be faithful to the scriptures, and advance the gospel. With great joy, give thanks for your church family.

And what does Paul pray for this Church in Philippi? I’m glad you asked. We find out in Phil. 1:9-11

Philippians 1:9–11 ESV

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Paul prays that their love would abound more and more. May the love they have for God increase!

May the love they have for one another increase!

May the love they have for their neighbors increase!

1 John 4:7 ESV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Love comes from God - so Paul prays that God would give them the capacity to love more. And look at what greater love brings: knowledge and discernment.

The greater our love for God, for one another, for our neighbors - the more we will know the heart of God and discern his will for our lives.

It is so simple but so overlooked. I’m ashamed to admit that I missed the connection between love and discernment. I hope subconsciously, when I seek discernment over a matter, I’m doing so out of love, but here Paul explicitly ties it all together.

Some of you may be thinking at this point, didn’t we hear a similar prayer from Paul recently? We did - a couple of weeks ago, I talked about praying for the church and referenced Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church found in Eph 1:17-18

Ephesians 1:17–18 ESV

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

You may even recall that I summarized what Paul prayed this way: that we would know God. Because the more we know God for who He is, then the more we can come to know who we are in Him and with that knowledge, live into the person God has called us to be.

Know God, know ourselves, pursue his will. Therefore, since God is love, then we are to be full of love, abounding in it - which will result in discernment of his will for us.

The first point: give thanks for your church family.

The second point: when we pray for our church, pray for an increase in love.

Both of these lead to the third point - the desired outcome:

Philippians 1:10–11 ESV

so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

One of my commentaries on Philippians explains this third point this way:

Galatians, Philippians, Colossians: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (A Prayer of Petition)

This is that their lives may be filled with righteousness, the righteousness that consists of ethical fruits such as [love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal. 5:22–23). This ethical harvest comes through Christ and brings honor and glory to God (1:11).

When the church is filled with love, knowledge and discernment increases, which enables the church to know and approve what is excellent - taking what we see and hear and determining how it lines up with God’s Word, so that we may move forward with right hearts and right actions. This righteousness will be evident when the fruits of the Spirit are present. Where there is love, peace, kindness, self-control - we know we are on the right path. Where there is hate, slander, division, permissiveness - we know we have strayed off the path and need to course correct.

So now we have three prayer points as we pray for our church.

Give thanks for your church family

pray for an increase of love

pray for the fruit of righteousness to be present.

Grace - these are three good starting prayer points for us to follow as we begin this process of imagining our future with the purpose of bringing God glory.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us.

Amen.