Sermon Tone Analysis

Some facts on prayer--

Reference to the conference:

As I was praying about what our next sermon series should be—I had the chance along with a few of us on staff to go to Mishawaka, IN, and go to St. Mark’s Church, a missionary church.

Our denomination was hosting a prayer conference...

As I was praying and thinking about life, ministry, and church, and particularly thinking about sermon preparation and what we should tackle—I sensed that God was impressing me—that we should talk about something--(duh - at a prayer conferences…)

for several reasons:

1. It’s Christmas season.

Because pretty soon, we will be in December and Christmas season—I know some of you are already in Christmas season, you put up your tree in July.

(Good for you.)

but Christmas can be a season of all kinds of things—from lots of joy and excitement, tradition and nostalgia, to disappointment and grief, to just feeling busy-ness.

and one of the things that we need reminded of is prayer.

that we have the opportunity to communicate with and listen to the God of the universe.

another reason:

2. I also know that several of you are struggling…and one of the things that you and I can always do is pray.

You don’t need a Ph D to pray.

You don’t need to be a pastor—to pray.

we get to pray! and commune with God.

3. another reason to pray...

In some ways this sermon series could be considered part of our one another series—the Bible mentions that we are to pray for one another.

sometimes you and I lament that fact that we are not seeing the change we want perhaps in our world, nation, community, family, church—God says—are you praying?

“Hey I can do something about that?”

I have noticed in the church—particularly now in the Covid season—we had have someone in the hospital with Covid almost every week there for a while.

and sometimes some of our people have been really sick, and so sometimes as long as the family is ok with it—we will try to get the whole church praying.

We have a private Facebook page called FMCBerne Prayer.

(if you want to be a part of it, let us know), and we will post to please pray for so and so.

They are very sick.

And it’s amazing some of the results we have seen—when the whole church gets praying for a specific request, it is remarkable.

We have seen recently how it’s like people who have been very sick turn a corner.

And it’s not like prayer is magic—but we have a God who loves it when we pray to Him.

4. but perhaps most importantly - but prayer also is vitally important to having a relationship with God.

It’s part of how we know God

how we communicate with and to God

how we LISTEN to God

how we ENJOY God.

If your relationship with God feels disconnected, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is “are you praying?” (and reading your Bible) the Bible is how we know and view God accurately—and prayer is a response to that.

One of the biggest books of the Bible—Psalms—is all about prayer.

and so these next few weeks in November—right before Christmas season—we are going to focus on prayer.

this series is called Prayer Awakening...

because I want to awaken our prayer lives.

we can be awfully sleepy...

and I also know we can feel awfully guilty about prayer…b/c we all know that we should pray more

but I hope this can stir and awaken us to pray.

I want to begin the same way our prayer conference began by looking at an OT Prayer—one we don’t often think about from Numbers.

So Please turn to Numbers 6:22.

or our ushers passed this out as you came in.

remember this is the OT.

This is before Jesus Christ came in the flesh.

and the Israelites have been saved out of Egypt, miraculously, but have not entered the Promised Land Yet.

This is part of that old covenant system—of animal sacrifices, of a tabernacle or temple, of priests and high priests.

In the middle of all of that --

That’s it.

Let’s read it again.

God gave Aaron (Moses’s brother) and the priests—specific words to bless the Israelites.

or to pray over the people.

This blessing is not just a saying;

it’s not a magical formula.

It is a prayer.

Let’s examine that prayer.

but just looking at some definitions of each word or phrase.

Some definitions:

Bless (vs.

24): (from the Lord bless you)

what does the word blessing mean?

we use that word all the time.

when someone sneezes—bless you.

when life is going well—I am blessed.

#blessed.

My cat went to the bathroom in the litter box, I am so blessed.

but blessing here means “favor” or “benefit.”

it is to experience the favor of God. the benefit of God.

so when you pray for the Lord to bless someone—when—they would experience God’s incredible favor.

favor.

the God of the universe.

we will talk more in a bit.

but there is something powerful that happens when we experience favor from someone we esteem or look up to.

If you get a good grade from a teacher or professor, or a well done from a coach or boss—it can mean lots.

if you go to a professional baseball game and go to the fence as they warm up with a ball, hoping to get an autograph and you get the autograph it means the world.

how much more so God.

or if you go to NBA basketball games, some of the players after the game, will take their sweaty headbands and sweaty wristbands and shoot them up into the audience—and if you get one you—consider yourself favored!

how much more so God...

Keep (vs.

24): (from the Lord keep you)

means to protect; to guard.

it’s recognizing that God is all - powerful and that He has the ability to do it.

a lot of us pray this way already—for safety, protection, traveling, but in some ways we can be very spoiled because we are used to for the most part being kept safe, when we drive, fly, modern technology.

we have modern medicine.

but the older you get, the more you realize despite all our technology—that God is the source of all protection.

that every breath we take, every beat of our heart is depending on the living God.

all of us are sustained only by God’s hand right now.

Make His Face Shine on you(vs.

25):

this is the idea that God is smiling at you.

He is pleased with you.

this is a pretty remarkable idea, especially in the OT.

b/c the OT said — God said this to Moses—after Moses asked to see the glory of God in the OT.

because of sin—we can’t come into the presence of God.

God’s presence is serious.

especially the idea of his face.

so even Moses, one of the greatest prophets caught a glimpse of the glory of God but he was not allowed to see God’s face and live.

and that glory was transformative.

so for God to give this prayer of blessing through Aaron to the people—to average people like you and me…is remarkable, especially in the OT.