So over the next few weeks, I want to do just that with you. We will search the scriptures together for our core values. The first value we’re going to consider is prayer. Prayer. Then, in following weeks, we will look at the Bible, Worship, Discipleship, Community, Mercy, Mission, and the Means of Grace. But today, our subject is prayer.
I’m going to read our passage one more time, then we’ll pray. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18:
Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, thank you that you
have not kept your will hidden from us. Thank you that you show it to us
clearly in your word. I pray that you would help us to understand
prayer today and also please move us to pray. Thank you Father. In
Jesus’ name, amen.
Today, it’s my intent to give an exposition of 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. Then we will look at a few key ways that we can devote ourselves to growing in prayer.
1. Rejoice Always
Rejoice always. We’re talking about prayer today. But the very first two words in our passage show us something about the ground, or the foundation of our prayer. The kind of prayer that we’re talking about today is prayer that flows out of a solid confidence in God—a solid joy that comes from God. Rejoice always. Paul the Apostle is writing here to exhort us. He wants us to do something. He wants us to be joyful. This tells us something about what should be the tone, or the undercurrent in our prayers.
The word rejoice means to be cheerful or to be calmly happy. To be cheerful or calmly happy. It indicates a great deal of joy. It’s a joy that is deeply rooted.
This is not talking about a surface-level, superficial happiness. It’s not just putting on a smile. It’s the kind of joy that the Magi experienced when they saw the star that directed them to Jesus—Matt 2:10 “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.” Generations of officials in Babylon had interpreted the old Hebrew prophecies that dated back to the time of Daniel. They expected the birth of a King in Jerusalem, and all of a sudden they were able to see with their own eyes the star that would lead them there.
It’s the kind of joy that Jesus teaches us to cultivate in the Sermon on the Mount. He tells us to rejoice even when we face persecution and suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ. Why? “For your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:12). This is like the kid who is getting bullied on the playground, but he has a smile on his face because he knows his big brother is right around the corner. The bully thinks he’s winning, but he doesn’t even know. The joy we’re talking about is like that, only bigger.
The next word is always. We are to rejoice always. When you first read that, it seems like a tall order. It seems like it’s too much for us. Have you ever tried to sustain for a long time a feeling of happiness? It’s hard to do. Sometimes when you experience an emotional high, it can be accompanied by an emotional low. You know the experience when you go on vacation with family or with friends. Say, you have a week off of work and you travel—you go skiing or to the beach or to Disney World or something. You may have a lot of fun that week, but something always starts to happen around Thursday or Friday. You start to think about the vacation drawing to an end.
Maybe you’re managing a project at work and it’s going really well for you. You’re happy that the project is going well, but you begin to wonder what you’re missing. What’s about to happen that will spoil it.
Rejoice always. That’s the difference between joy and happiness. Being happy in the sense we most often think about it depends on our circumstances. If good or fortunate things happen to us we’re happy. If someone says something kind to us we smile. If somebody gives us a gift we smile. When something goes wrong, though, we’re not happy about that. Hurtful words make us sad. We mourn when we lose something or someone.
But joy is different, especially as Christians. I looked up the definition of joy in Webster’s and it was surprisingly mild. “The emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” Sounds an awful lot like happiness. The definition continues: “a source or cause of delight.” Here’s how joy is different than happiness. Joy is grounded in something deeper than circumstances.
For believers, our joy is grounded in something much deeper than our circumstances. Our joy is grounded in the person and character of God himself. Lamentations 3:22 says “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.”
Even more than that, through Jesus Christ, we are united with God personally. Paul tells us in Romans 6: 3-5, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Through Jesus Christ, everyone who humbles themselves, repents of their sin, and joins themselves to Christ, receive all the benefits of his work. What are those benefits? We’re adopted into God’s family. Our sins are totally and completely washed away—they’ve been paid for on the cross. We are promised a resurrection like Jesus’s resurrection. We are promised new life that begins when we are united to Christ and then never ends.
As if that wasn’t enough, Jesus Christ and God the Father have given us the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 5:22, Paul teaches us that “The fruit of the Spirit is” What? Do you know them? “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Our joy is grounded in the character of God himself. Our joy is guaranteed to us when we are united to Jesus Christ. And joy is a fruit of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
So what if you’re not experiencing that kind of joy right now? What do you do? The answer is really the same, whether you’re a Christian or whether you’re not a Christian. David knew this feeling very deeply, and David was, as the Bible tells us, a man after God’s own heart. In Psalm 38, David writes, “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath! … There is no health in my bones because of my sin. 4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me…. For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. 8 I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.”
But David knows the solution. Just a few verses down he says this: “I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin…. Do not forsake me, O Lord! O my God, be not far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!” He does it again in Psalm 51 “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
If you don’t know this kind of Joy, your prayers will be feeble and short and they will feel like they bounce off the ceiling and go nowhere. That’s one reason Peter encourages us to pursue holiness. In 1 Peter 3:7, he tells husbands to honor their wives. Why? “So that your prayers may not be hindered.” In 1 Peter 4:7, he tells us to be self-controlled and sober-minded. Why? “For the sake of your prayers.”
If you are not experiencing the joy of your salvation, or if you never had it in the first place, what you are experiencing is shame and guilt. David described that as a burning away in his bones. The solution is to do just what David did. Humble yourself before God. Confess your sins to him. Cry out to Jesus Christ for help. He will give you new life. He will restore to you this joy. Today is the day for that. Now is the time for that. We can never be sure that we will have more time. Turn to Jesus today.
Rejoice always. This is the foundation of true worship. This is the fountain of Biblical prayer. Joy in God. Rejoice always.
2. Pray without ceasing
The next phrase is pray without ceasing. Pray ceaselessly. The word pray just means bring prayers or bring requests or bring worship to God.I’ve said it here before—prayer is pretty much a universal human experience. Everybody prays. People from other religions offer prayers to their gods. Even non-religious people will pray when their circumstances are frightening enough or dire enough. Everyone know how to pray. Prayer can be very eloquent, or it can be as simple as “God help me!”
One of the simplest and most beautiful prayers in the Bible is “God have mercy on me.” David prayed it in Psalm 51. A blind beggar on the road to Jericho in Mark 10 humbled himself and cried out “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” People were telling him to be quiet and let Jesus pass, but he prayed it all the more fervently. “Jesus have mercy on me!” In Luke 18, Jesus tells the story of a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee (a religious leader) cried out loud a long eloquent prayer thanking God for his own superiority. The tax collector just humbly bowed down and prayed “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus said this was the one who went home justified before God.
What makes a Christian prayer? Jesus taught us that too in Matthew 6. “Our Father in heaven.” Christian prayer begins by addressing the true God, the LORD, the creator of heaven and earth. “Hallowed be your name.” The first movement of prayer is worship and praise to God. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Christian prayer longs to see the God on the throne. We pray that God will come back quickly. We long to see his rule perfectly worked out here the same way it is in heaven. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Christian prayer recognizes God as our highest good, and recognizes that he is the ultimate source of everything we need. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Christian prayer seeks mercy for ourselves and for others. “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Christian prayer recognizes that the only way to withstand the broken and sinful system of the world, the flesh, and the devil, is to find a greater hope and a greater satisfaction in God through Jesus Christ. Even though we do pursue holiness, we don’t pursue holiness by trusting in our own moral ability. We pursue holiness, by praying for and cultivating a love for God that drowns any lesser craving for anything that we see in the world.
The second word is ceaselessly or without ceasing. This just means that we are to be persistent in prayer. We are to pray without intermission. It means to be constant.
What it doesn’t mean is that we have to bow our heads and close our eyes and fold our hands and stay that way. There are certainly times of prayer where we change our posture and intentionally say a prayer to God. But what Paul is talking about in this section of our passage is that even after we say amen, we don’t cut off the line of communication we have with God.
If you’ve been in Sunday school recently, we’ve been learning about the life and ministry of Daniel in the Bible. He was a servant of the crown in Babylon and Persia during the reigns of four different kings. Even though he served pagan kings in a kingdom far from home, he was always faithful to God. His faithfulness to God even brought persecution his way. Daniels enemies in the court of Darius the Persian tried to attack him by outlawing prayer to anyone but the king during a space of thirty days. They did this because they knew Daniel made a habit of praying to the LORD three times a day. Even in the face of the new law, Daniel still prayed and God protected him, even though he was thrown overnight into a den of lions.
My point for telling that story is that Daniel made a regular habit of praying three times a day. We can learn from him, I think, about sanctifying our day with specific times of prayer—maybe in the morning, at noon and in the evening. This is not a hard and fast rule. But if we bookend our day with intentional prayer like this, how much more likely will we be during the day to bring a prayer to God whenever a person comes to mind. Would we be more likely to pray for opportunities to share our faith? Would we be more likely to pray for God to bless and protect Mok See and See Mo when we think of them? Would we be more likely to call to God for help when we’re anxious? I think we would.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a preacher in England during the last century said this about prayer, and I agree with him. “Always respond to every impulse to pray. The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this always obey such an impulse.”
In this way we pray without ceasing.
3. In everything give thanks
I will move a little more quickly through the next two phrases in our passage, because we’ve already talked about some of the ideas here. Our next phrase is “In everything, give thanks,” or “Give thanks in all circumstances.”The word here give thanks means to be thankful or to feel thankful or to say thank you. As I was looking at other passages that use the word give thanks, I was struck by what a simple but profound expression it is to give thanks. In many cases, the word is used to mean saying grace at a meal. Matthew 15:36: “he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.”
When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, he gave thanks: “And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it[b] until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves.” (Luke 22)
Paul is always giving thanks for his fellow Christians. 1Corinthians 1:4 “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,” Colossians 1:3 “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.” 1Thessalonians 1:2 “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers.”
In Romans, Paul even teaches us that failure to give thanks is a part of the reason that people who fail to humble themselves and repent of their sins will get stuck and fall deeper and deeper into their sin. Romans 1:21 “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Give thanks in all circumstances. The second phrase is in all circumstances. It’s easy to give thanks in good circumstances. But it gets much more difficult to see things to be thankful for when our circumstances get difficult. But like we talked about a moment ago, if we know that despite our hard circumstances we still have God, and if we know that God is glorified in us when we take joy in him, and when we know that God is sovereign over all our circumstances and works them together for our good and for our sanctification (Romans 8:28), then we have a lot to be thankful for even when times are hard. Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 1. He was telling the Corinthian church about his affliction, the difficulties he experienced in Asia. He called on the church in Corinth to pray. Why? “So that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”
When you know the all-good, all-powerful, all-satisfying character of the God you’re praying to, then all circumstances, sometimes especially the difficult ones, will provide a seed-bed out of which you can grow much thankfulness. Give thanks in all circumstances.
4. For this is the will of God in Jesus Christ for you
The last phrase is for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ for you. We discussed a moment ago that this is all true for us because of Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus Christ that we can be united to God. It is Jesus Christ who is right now praying for us to the Father in heaven (that’s from Hebrews 7:25).What I want to focus on is this phrase for this is the will of God for you. How often have you tried to search for God’s will for your life? The phrase the will of God is pretty common in the New Testament but I think I can sum them up with two phrases from 1 Thessalonians. The first is 1Th 4:3 “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” The second is in our passage: “Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
If I can summarize these two in my own words here, I would interpret those to mean that it is God’s will for you—that is, this is what God wants you to do is this: repent of your sins and follow after Jesus. Put on Jesus Christ. Grow in Jesus Christ. Learn that God, through Jesus Christ is the greatest good and the greatest joy we can ever experience. He is unparalleled. In fact, it is the essence of sin to love anything or want anything more than God.
This is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. You can be certain of this.
Seven Steps to Strengthen Prayer
With that in mind, then I want to look at ways you can cultivate a faithful prayer life. The other day, I came across an article at Desiring God entitled “Seven Steps to Strengthen Prayer” written by Bonnie McKernan. I thought her seven points were very practical and very helpful.
1. Set prayer apart
When you walk through an ordinary day, sometimes if you don’t really think about it, you can start to feel like your day is completely packed. You wake up, wolf down a piece of toast and a hot drink. You go to work. You get just a half-hour at lunch. You’re off at 5pm but then you spend a little time with family or friends and before you know it, it’s time to do it all again tomorrow. You might have intended to pray, but with the concerns of the day, you just don’t get the time.Martin Luther is quoted as saying “I have so much to do today that I'm going to need to spend three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done.” You may or may not be able to spend a full three hours in prayer at the beginning of your day, but do you hear what he’s saying?
Prayer is really one of the most important things you will do all day. So make sure to devote your best times to it. Pray in the morning. Or if it’s a more alert time for you, set aside time in the evening. Make sure to give your best time to prayer. Set aside the time and train yourself to protect it. Set prayer apart.
2. Learn to withdraw
This is a habit that we can learn directly from Jesus. In Luke 4:42, “When it was day, he departed and went pinto a desolate place.” Luke 5:16 “But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” Luke 22:41 “He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed.” Learn to withdraw.3. Have a posture of prayer
The Bible emphasizes the posture of your heart in prayer over the posture of your body. So there is no right posture for prayer. But if you search the Bible you can find a variety of postures people used for prayer.- Standing (Genesis 24:12-14) 12 And he said, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. 13 Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. 14 Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.”
- Lifting the hands (1 Timothy 2:8) 8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;
- Sitting (Judges 20:26) 26 Then all the people of Israel, the whole army, went up and came to Bethel and wept. They sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.
- Kneeling (Mark 1:40) 40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”
- Looking upward (John 17:1) When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
- Bowing down (Exodus 34:8) 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
- Placing the head between the knees (1 Kings 18:42) And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees.
- Pounding on the breast (Luke 18:13) 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
- Facing the temple (Daniel 6:10) 10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
4. Pray scripture
There is really no better way to enrich your prayer life than to use the prayer book—that
is to use the Bible. Don Whitney, one of my professors at Southern
Seminary in Kentucky put it this way: “The entire Bible is a prayer
book. We can pray not only the prayers of Paul in Ephesians, we can pray
everything in the Book of Ephesians.” He describes his method.
So I started praying each day through
one of the passages in my daily Bible reading. Soon I was reading in the
Psalms and found it easy to make the words of the psalmist my own
prayers.
For example, I read, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God!” (Ps 36:7), and spoke King David’s exact words as my own prayer, immediately adding other thoughts prompted by David’s exclamation.
After I’d said all that came to mind from verse 7, I read verse 8: “They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them to drink of the river of your delights.”
“Yes, Lord!”, I prayed, “Let me feast on the abundance of your house; let me drink of the river of your delights. Feed my soul with your goodness. Satisfy my thirsty heart with your delights. Let me be immersed in the vast, deep, incomparable river of knowing you.”
I simply spoke to the Lord those things prompted verse-by-verse in my reading of the psalm. If a verse didn’t suggest anything to pray, I would go to the next verse. On and on through the psalm, praying as prompted by the things I read, I continued until I ran out of time.
Using this method, he discovered he was able to stay focused better when
he prayed. He was now able to pray without repeating the same old
things again and again. He also found that prayer began to be more of a
conversation with God—God speaking through the Bible, and Dr. Whitney
responding in prayer. And I can also attest that this method is very
fruitful. Pray scripture.For example, I read, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God!” (Ps 36:7), and spoke King David’s exact words as my own prayer, immediately adding other thoughts prompted by David’s exclamation.
After I’d said all that came to mind from verse 7, I read verse 8: “They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them to drink of the river of your delights.”
“Yes, Lord!”, I prayed, “Let me feast on the abundance of your house; let me drink of the river of your delights. Feed my soul with your goodness. Satisfy my thirsty heart with your delights. Let me be immersed in the vast, deep, incomparable river of knowing you.”
I simply spoke to the Lord those things prompted verse-by-verse in my reading of the psalm. If a verse didn’t suggest anything to pray, I would go to the next verse. On and on through the psalm, praying as prompted by the things I read, I continued until I ran out of time.
5. Pray fervently
I have to confess that sometimes when I pray, it can feel a little routine. If I am not careful, I can sit down at my desk, open up my prayer list, and start praying half-heartedly. Maybe I’m also thinking about what to have for breakfast, or maybe I’m distracted by planning for the day. Either way, sometimes at the end, it occurs to me that I’ve prayed through my list without really concentrating.Let me encourage you to pray like you mean it. Pray like you need it. Because you do. Life is full of challenges. In our spiritual lives, we need Jesus in order to get by. Life is a war. Ephesians 6 says “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Romans 8 says, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Colossians 3 says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
The scriptures call us to make war on worldliness, the flesh, and the devil. Where are we going to get the power to do that? We pray fervently. See, this is what’s at stake. O that we would pray as though our lives depended on it. Because they do. If we are going to put to death the works of the flesh, and if we are to wrestle against principalities, then we will need God’s help. God will bless you when you pray fervently—not only through answers, but in the prayer itself. Pray fervently.
6. Pray specifically
If you never pray specifically, you will never see God answer prayers. He will answer them, of course. God doesn’t need us to say the right words in order to intervene in a situation, or save someone, or give someone a gift. But if the only prayers you ever pray are general prayers—“Lord, be with David today”—He will answer that prayer, but how will you know?Be assured that in Jesus Christ, you are adopted as Sons of God. That means his attitude toward you is an attitude of love, of generosity. He desires that you will long for and ask for the very things he longs for and works out—the salvation of specific people, help for specific people, meals provided for specific people, wisdom provided in specific ways, you pray to repent from specific sins.
If you pray for these things in specifics, you will see God at work. You will see him answer prayers in ways you don’t expect, and in ways that are too specific to be coincidental.
Here’s a story from an International Mission Board worker in London:
“Lately I've been learning to pray more
specific things that are completely beyond my reach. So, as I was about
to get on the tube to make a long journey home, I prayed for what seemed
to be impossible in London where people don't make eye contact, much
less start a conversation with a stranger: I prayed someone would start a
conversation with me as I read, The Reason for God, by Tim Keller. Two
stops later, a man sat down a couple seats away from me and leaned over
to read the cover of my book. Soon, he tapped me on the shoulder and
asked what my book was about.
“A little stunned, I looked up and was about to explain when he said, 'I used to go to Tim Keller's church.' We chatted about Christianity for the next 45 minutes and, as he was about to get off the train, he told me that he had prayed right before getting on the tube. He had asked God for more Christian community and that God would do the impossible: allow someone to speak to him on the tube. Stunned once more, I told him what I had prayed for and we both stood in awe of what our great God had just done: the seemingly impossible.”
And when you pray specifically, God will help you apply specific
scriptures to your life to help you walk in faith and to help you repent
of your sins, and to help you love your neighbor well.“A little stunned, I looked up and was about to explain when he said, 'I used to go to Tim Keller's church.' We chatted about Christianity for the next 45 minutes and, as he was about to get off the train, he told me that he had prayed right before getting on the tube. He had asked God for more Christian community and that God would do the impossible: allow someone to speak to him on the tube. Stunned once more, I told him what I had prayed for and we both stood in awe of what our great God had just done: the seemingly impossible.”
Pray specifically.
7. Pray for and with others
I think it’s pretty simple to understand why we pray for others. Romans 12:5 says that “We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” In John 13, Jesus says “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” When Jesus summarizes the Old Testament Law, he says it this way in Mark 12:
“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel:
The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind
and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than
these.”
These passages assume that we know how we love ourselves. We take care
of ourselves. We eat food. We exercise. We go to the doctor when we’re
sick. We take care of ourselves. These passages assume that we know how
God takes care of us. He provides our food. He gives us places to
exercise. He provides doctors. Even more, he gives us the opportunity,
even a command to cast our cares on him. In the same way we love
ourselves, and in the same way God has loved us, we are to love one
another.If we are to love our brothers and sisters in church as God has loved us and as we love ourselves, and if we are all members of Jesus Christ’s family, then it stands that we should be just as eager to pray for each other as we are to pray for ourselves.
The next question though is why do we pray with others? Listen as I read 2 Cor 1:8:
8 We do not want you to be uninformed,
brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province
of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure,
so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received
the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on
ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from
such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set
our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your
prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor
granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
Did you catch what it said in the last sentence? We pray with others, because when God
answers our prayers that we’ve prayed with other believers, then
everyone will be able to praise and thank God for his answers to prayer.
We want many to come together to pray so that when God answers, many
will be moved to praise him.Let me tell you, if you have not been attending prayer meeting, you’re missing a powerful time. This week in prayer meeting we experienced a time where we were very clearly engaging with the Holy Spirit as we read a psalm and responded in prayer.
When we pray with and for each other, then God uses his answers to our prayers to glorify himself and to help us all enjoy him together.
Pray with and for others.
Conclusion
George Mueller was a pastor who lived in the 1800s. He was known for his powerful prayer life. Once while on his way to speak in Quebec for an engagement. He informed the captain that he needed to be in Quebec by Saturday afternoon. As the captain related the story, he said “’It is impossible. Do you know how dense this fog is?’” “No, Mueller replied, ’my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of life. I have never broken an engagement in 57 years, and I don’t intend to break this one; let us go down into the chart room and pray.’ He knelt down and he prayed one of the simplest prayers I had ever heard. When he had finished I started to pray, but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to pray. Mueller said, ‘Since you do not believe He will answer, there is no need for you to pray about it. Get up, Captain, and open the door and you will find that the fog has gone.’ “The fog indeed was gone, and George Mueller kept his engagement.” [1]___________
[1] Jeff Strite in “The Power of Persistent Prayer” on www.sermoncentral.com.
Date: Sunday, January 15, 2017 Speaker: Rev. Chuck Anderson Series: Core Values Title: Prayer and the Glory of God Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
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