Prayer
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What is Prayer?
What is Prayer?
1 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed:
2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly;
3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.
4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,
7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
12 By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.
13 She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.
14 Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.
So what comes to mind when you hear the word prayer?
As we begin this morning, I want to remind you about John Bunyans quote on what prayer is:
According to John Bunyan,
“Prayer is sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.
You need to keep this definition in your minds as we progress through our text this morning. Lord willing, I want to take the next couple weeks and focus on prayer. As believers we have two primary weapons against our enemy. What are they? The Bible and Prayer. Remember John Bunyan’s focus on prayer? He said:
“Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan.” ~John Bunyan
This morning we are going to look at the first part of Bunyan’s quote.
The first part is:
Prayer is a shield to the soul.
So what does that mean?
Let’s begin with the question “Why do you need a shield for your soul?” Let’s read our text. 1 peter 5 beginning in verse 6
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,
7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Well? Why do you need a shield?
Because you have a real enemy! For most of my life if you would have asked me do you have any enemies? I would have answered no! As a believer I am called to do my best to live at peace with everyone. Not to mention, by nature I am a people pleaser, I by nature want to keep the peace. But how many people here wake up each morning with the realization that they have a real enemy? But not only do you need to realize that every day you wake up with this enemy, do you realize he has a plan? Scripture is very clear on what his desire is for you, your family, your friends, your coworkers, and your neighbors. What us his plan? Verse 8 of 1 peter! DO you remember what his plan is?
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
You wake up every morning with a real enemy and your enemy’s desire is to find someone to devour. Then we saw in Ephesians 6:16
16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;
And what is Satan’s root weapon, what are his flaming darts? Lies right? God gives us the truth about all of life in His word. (Hold up Bible) If you are unsure about anything in life, the answer is here and what does the world have to offer? Lies. Look around the lies are every where.
One that has really been braking my heart lately is the lies people believe about marriage.
How many marriages and families are destroyed because people believe the lies of Satan. They think that they deserve to be happy. God doesn’t want them to be unhappy so they forsake the husband or wife of their youth and leave and try to find happiness in someone else. What does scripture say? Look at Proverbs 5 with me.
18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.
What are you called to do with the spouse of your youth? Are you called to love them as long as they are making you happy? No what were you call to?
Rejoice in the wife of your youth! I know what translation says delight yourself in the wife of your youth and verse 19 be intoxicated ALWAYS! in her love.
Why does God command us to delight ourselves in the spouse of our youth and why does he command us to be intoxicated with their love? Because He knows the lies of the enemy! He knows that it is two sinners entering into a covenant that without His help and His wisdom we will default to selfishness and we will forsake the spouse of our youth and we will look for happiness in someone else and God knows this will bring pain and suffering. Your Heavenly Father loves you and wants the best for you. He is trying to keep us from self inflicted pain and suffering. He promises that when we believe and follow Him we will endure pain and suffering but He isn’t talking about self-inflicted pain and suffering. You must know the truth of His Word and be obedient to His word to avoid self inflected pain and suffering.
Early on in my pastoral training my mentor told me one of the hardest things in ministry is seeing people in your congregation violating scripture and inflicting all kinds of pain and suffering on themselves and others that you know is unnecessary because they are clearly violating scripture BUT you can’t make decisions for people. I am sure we have all seen people in our lives make the wrong decisions and it’s hard to watch. You can pray and offer Godly council but they have to make their own decisions and it’s hard to watch someone you love shipwreck their lives living in clear violation of scripture. I know it is extremely difficult as a parent. So our heavenly Father wants to give you wisdom to make every decision, He wants you to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering. He warns in the text that even if you are obedient you will suffer look at verse 9 of our text:
9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
The suffering here that Peter is talking about is suffering form the world remember what Jesus promised in John 15?
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
Do you see the difference between the two kinds of suffering? Our passage in 1 Peter says that if you follow the Lord there will be suffering because the world hated Jesus therefore if you follow Him you will suffer. But what God wants you to avoid is self-inflicted suffering because you are ignoring wisdom and embracing folly. Or a better way to put it in the context of our passage this morning you are allowing Satan to devour you and how is he doing that? Because you are putting down your shield of faith, and if you remember from two weeks ago, prayer and faith go hand and hand. Remember first that if you pray in faith and it is the will of God He will move mountains and the second truth is you have to have faith to pray.
So back to our example of marriage. Listen to Malachi on marriage.
13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
So the world says “You have a right to be happy regardless of how many people you hurt to get it. What does scripture say?
14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
Do you remember what a covenant is?
Covenant (בְּרִית, berith; διαθήκη, diathēkē). A sacred kinship bond between two parties, ratified by swearing an oath.
Hahn, S. (2016). Covenant. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, L. Wentz, E. Ritzema, & W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press.
Marriage is not a business contract with a buyout clause. It is a covenant till death do you part. You are making a promise before God that you would rather be cut in half like the animals in the covenant than to not live up to your part of the contract.
Truth is another person will not make you happy or complete you.
Marriage is just one example where we see our enemy having success with his flaming darts of lies and we all need to be in prayer, and holding fast with our shield of faith to extinguish the enemy’s lies. That is how prayer is a shield to our soul. And the key, is in verses 6 & 7 of our text.
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,
7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Humble yourself, how do you do that?
I heard a quote by Rick Warren and I think he is right
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is think of yourself less.
“Whatever God can do, faith can do; and whatever faith can do, prayer can do when it is offered in faith. An invitation to prayer is, therefore, an invitation to omnipotence, for prayer engages the Omnipotent God and brings Him into our human affairs. Nothing is impossible to the Christian who prays in faith, just as nothing is impossible with God. This generation has yet to prove all that prayer can do for believing men and women.” A.W. Tozer
