Prayer

Good morning and welcome to another week of church here at the Bridge. I am so glad that we can be gathered together this morning. We continue on in our sermon series on Spiritual disciplines. This morning we will be talking about prayer.

When do we Pray

The thing about prayer is that all too often we only pray when we absolutely need to. I had several images an stories that came to mind when we started thinking of prayer. The first i want to share is form recent memory. September 12th, 2001 was a day that found many people returned to prayer. We were shaken as a country because of the tragedy we had witnessed the day before. It is amazing to me how that day we were bonded together people returned to church people saw value in prayer.

The other story that came to my mind is one i must confess i have been trouble finding the full story. I can not remember for the life of me who this story was about but the story is too great to share. There was a great theologian/preacher (couldn’t remember) who was crossing the ocean. The ship had caught fire and the people were scrambling to put out the fire. The Bucket brigade had been formed to put out this fire as quickly as possible so that the ship wouldn’t be lost. Someone on the boat approached the preacher and asked if they should go pray for God to save them from the fire. The Preacher looks at them as he is passing the bucket and says you go pray, i am going to pass the buckets while i Pray.

It is a challenging moment to think that one of the most common reasons that people will pray is because of crisis. Yet, this is not what we are commanded to do as followers of God. Prayer is much more than just for moments of crisis.

Beating a Dead horse

I have a confession I feel like that this sermon is beating a dead horse. I have spoken about prayer a lot over the last couple years. It creeps up in my sermons often. It always seems to come back to this idea. I came to this realization when i was looking at the passages of scriptures commonly associated with Prayer. I was like preached on that, preached on that one, oh i preached on that one. In fact i was so worried about this idea the illustrations i just provided i was worried i had used them and that they had been heard recently. I went back and searched my past messages to double check. After awhile of checking i decided that it wasn’t the best use of my time.

I thought more about this idea of is this sermon necessary. I felt defeated and like i should just move on to another topic. I became consumed with the idea of doubt about the importance of this message. It was in that moment i realized that i was about to lose a battle to Satan if i wasn’t careful. You see there is nothing that Satan would want more than to stop us from talking about Prayer.

Prayer no matter how often we talk about it is one of the most powerful things that we can do in our faith. In fact i have a short prayer that i want us to pray together and if you would please be praying for me. It is a passage of scripture and I think it is one that we can turn into our prayer this morning as we approach this idea of prayer. Let’s read the passage together first and then let us pray it.

Colossians 4:2–4 NIV

2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.

If we were to turn this passage into a prayer it might be something like this.

Lord,

Help us to devote ourselves to prayer. Remind us to be watchful for you and thankful for all that you do for us.

Lord open the door for your message to speak loudly right now.

Lord help our Pastor and all those who proclaim the mystery of Christ to share boldly.

Help them to speak clearly and not to be bound by the chains of this world but to trust in you.

Amen

Now it isn’t quite the same prayer but it is inspired by those scriptures.

Prayer is Powerful

Prayer is a powerful tool. Prayer is simply the act of communicating with God. Now that may appear to be a very gross simplification of the idea of prayer but for me it really is that simple. It is from this simple premise that we open ourselves to the vast world that is prayer. We open the door to so much more and was to pray and how we can pray.

That is the beauty the power that is found in prayer is that it is both incredibly simple and incredibly complex.

I want you to think about this for a moment. Prayer is the means that we talk to the creator of all things. Really take a moment and think about that. God wants us to talk to him about what is going on in our lives.

Dustin’s Challenge

A little over a week ago Dustin sent me a message that i absolutely loved. Sometimes you have to follow through on challenges that are given to you by people. See Dustin sent me this message “$100 if you start prayer this Sunday like this”, attached to that message was a video from the internet. It was of someone Praying but they were praying a prayer to God that was a Little different.

They took the First couple of lines of lyrics from the song Basket Case by Green day.

Dustin this is for you.

God,

Do you have the time to listen to listen to me whine

About nothing and everything all at once?

I am looking forward to my payout later.

Simple Prayer

Now i know this may seem like it is the most random collection of thoughts and approaches but I promise there is a point. One of the great challenge that i have been faced with when it comes to Spiritual disciplines is the importance of starting. Sometimes the best thing we can do when it comes to the spiritual disciplines is simply start. When it comes to prayer the best way to start is simple prayer. Talk to God about what is going on in your life. Yes, this will at times be a lot of what feels like whining and complaining.

The problem is that some people think that God doesn’t want to be troubled by these types of things. I mean come on we don’t want to listen to people complain or have hard times, why would God want to.

The truth is the only way we trouble God is by not coming at all.

Prayers doesn’t have to be complicated remmber its about talking with God.

Doubt me let’s look at some scriptures.

Colossians 4:2 NIV

2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 NIV

17 pray continually,

Matthew 6:5–13 NIV

5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

Luke 18:1 NIV

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

This last one is an interesting one. Jesus knew that we would need reminded why would should never give up on prayer and seeking God with the things on our heart.

Luke 18:1–8 NIV

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ 4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Persistent Prayer

Like the women badgering the judge we are called to this idea of persistent prayer. This passage helps us see that when we don’t give up and we are active we can affect the world around us. It is through our commitment to prayer that we can change the world around us. We can seek God and find that he is active on our behalf. Now this doesn’t mean that we will always get exactly what we want but when we are in a state of persistent and continual prayer we can be confident that God will work in us and through us.

Scratching the Surface

Like the other spiritual disciplines this morning is just a scratch on the surface. We can’t begin to unpack all that can be done with prayer in one morning. The most important thing is that we must remember that we need to start. God wants to hear from us. He wants us to engage him. He wants us to walk boldly and confidently to his throne in prayer and seek him and talk to him. It is at this point that we open ourselves to an amazing work and see how God can work and move in our lives. The key though is to start praying.

Let’s Pray