Sermon Tone Analysis

Same Old Same Old

 

/It is not the arithmetic of our prayers, how many they are: nor the rhetoric of our prayers, how eloquent they are; nor the geometry of our prayers, how long they be; nor the music of our prayers, how sweet our voice may be; nor the logic of our prayers, how argumentative they may be; nor the method of our prayers, how orderly they may be -- which God cares for.

Fervency of spirit is that which availeth much.

/

/ /

/   -- William Lee/

 

17th Century Nun's Prayer

 

Lord, thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older and will some day be old.

Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs.

Make me thoughtful but not moody; helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of widsom it seems a pity not to use it all, but Thou knowest Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.

Seal my

lips on my aches and pains.

They are increasing and love of rehearsing them is becoming  sweeter as the years go by.

I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of other's pains, but help me to endure them with patience.

I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a saint - some of them are so hard to live with

 --but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the Devil.

Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places and talents in unexpected people.

And, give me, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.

Amen.

Why Do Our Prayers Seem To Disintegrate Toward Meaningless Prattle?

 

1.

Talk about things that don’t matter.

Eye Contact with God – numbers in the elevators are there so that people don’t have to make eye contact.

Sometimes our worship aids can be there for the very same reason.

Rather than an aid they can become a deterrent – not the fault of the aid but a problem within our hearts.

The desire to avoid the vulnerability that comes when we lay ourselves bare before God with no pretense, excuse or self-justification.

Look at Psalm 88.

A Psalm for your encouragement.

The lady was sick in the hospital and wondering where in the world God was.

(Ill.)

Unless we learn to communicate to God directly, honestly and in openness then we will never find meaningful relationship with Him.

Many years ago I decided to do that very thing.

I was fed up with empty words and pharisaical phrases.

In my search for new meaning, I came across this brief description of prayer, which I set on my desk and carried in the front of my Bible for years.

I cannot locate the book from which it was taken, but I do know the author, a seventeenth- century Roman Catholic Frenchman named Francois Fenelon.

Although written centuries ago, it has an undeniable ring of relevance:

 

Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's 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 the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability.

Tell Him how self- love makes you unjust to others, 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.

 

n       Strengthening Your Grip, Charles Swindoll

 

 

2.

A sense of futility about our prayers.

There are times when we  really do not believe that it will make a difference if we pray.

The evidence is in our prayerlessness.

Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men?

For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it.

But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate.

He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers, or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries.

Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to cooperate in the execution of His will...  It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so.

They have not advised or changed God' s mind -- that is, His overall purpose.

But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.

... C. S. Lewis, The Efficacy of Prayer

 

What determines the power of a person's prayer?

Are there certain people who seem able to see results in their prayer lives more than others?

Why or why not?

What is your response to the following quote from "Praying With Power"?

 

"How does the prayer action of human beings relate to the sovereignty of God?

This is a key issue in understanding the difference between prayer in general and effective, fervent prayer.

When I was first moving deeply into my study and understanding of prayer some years ago, one of the statements that helped me most was a chapter title in Jck Hyford's book, Prayer is Invading the Impossible: If We Don't He Won't.

Jack Hayford did not say, ‘If we don't He can't'.

That would have been terrible theology.

God is sovereign and He can do anything He wants to do.

The sovereign God, however, apparently has chosen to order His creation in such a way that many of His actions are contingent on the prayers of His people.

It is as if God has a Plan A He will implement if believers pray.

If they do not, He has a Plan B.  Plan A is obviously better for all concerned than Plan B.  The choice, according to God's design is ours.

If we choose to pray and if we pray powerfully, more blessing will come and God's kingdom will be manifested here on earth in a more glorious way than if we choose not to.

I love the way one of the great scholars of prayer of our generation, Richard Foster puts it: "We are working with God to determine the future.

Certain things will happen in history if we pray rightly."

\\ The notion that we are theologically healthier if we do not expect our prayers to be answered is alive and well.

Nothing I am aware of contributes more to perpetuating rhetoric prayer.

I was programmed in this way of thinking in my own preparation for the ministry, but I doubt that any of my professors were quite that outspoken.

A recent study by Margaret Poloma and George Gallup Jr. found that although 88% of Americans pray to God in some way or other, less than half of them (42%) ask Him for material things they might need.

And only 15% regularly experience answers to specific prayer requests.

One of the reasons so few practice "petitionary prayer" may well be that the theology that we shouldn't expect answers when we pray.

Poloma and Gallup found that "many who ask do receive that for which they have prayed."

Their comment: "A modern and rational worldview may regard petitionary prayer as a form of magic, but it is a prayer form for which there are countless biblical examples."

I would add that a primary biblical example of praying for material things is the Lord's Prayer itself in which Jesus instructed us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matt.

6:11)

 

As I recall I was taught in seminary that the most important function of prayer was to change me and mold me.

God never changes.

He is sovereign and he will do what he intends to do whether I pray or not.

A saintly voice from yesteryear, that of R.A. Torrey, sounds as if it were speaking today.

Torrey laments that churches in his day were not praying.

Christians, he says, "believe in prayer as having a beneficial ‘reflex influence,' that is as benefitting the person who prays . . .

but as for prayer bringing anything to pass that would not have come to pass if we had not prayed, they do not believe in it, and many of them frankly say so."

Rhetoric prayer was common then as well.

We believe here that prayer changes things.

How about engaging in this active form of prayer this week as we concentrate on the city sector on the back?

The excerpt above is taken from Peter Wagner's book "Churches That Pray, pps.

41,42

 

 

3.

An underlying misconception that prayer is about our “getting” something other than the primary thing that God proposes to give which is himself and his wisdom.

He is the gift and the reward of prayer.

Even though we may give mental assent to this truth, a major source of disillusionment comes when we fail to receive from God.  Contentment is one of the great pre-requisites of blessing.

I received a little printed form the other day with a rather intriguing title:   How to Be Perfectly Miserable.