All month we have been looking at what it means to live a life that counts. If we are going maximize our impact in this world and in the process experience the fullness of life God has for us, then we need to manage well all the days God gives us, all the money God gives us and all the gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities God gives us. While the number of our days will be different for each of us, and the amount of money we are given to manage will be different, and the gifts, talents and skills God gives us are all different, there is one thing that is the same for each and every one of us. We were all created for relationship so we can not live a life that counts for God in this world until we are willing to make the most of all of our relationships.
Let’s start looking at our relationships by looking back to the creation story. Look at Genesis 2:18. It was not good for man to be alone because man was created in the image of God and God himself is relational. Think about how we talk about God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are 3 persons who are all interconnected in ongoing and eternal relationships with each another. Because God is relational, we also were created to be relationship, not just a relationship with God, but relationships with one another. So we make the greatest impact in this world and live up to our God given potential when we are willing to invest ourselves in strong, healthy and faithful relationships with others.
The most important relationships that we need to tend to and care for are the relationships we have with our family and the best teaching on how to make the most of those relationships comes from Ephesians 5. Look at Ephesians 5:22-33
This passage often makes people uncomfortable because of the first verse we heard, wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. The problem is that many people stop reading there and they come to the wrong conclusion about the role of women in marriage. To really understand what the relationship of a husband and wife is to be, we have to keep reading because while Paul does tells women to submit to their husbands it is only because he also commands husbands to love their wives as Christ has loved the church. Now let’s stop and think about how Christ has loved the church. Jesus loved the church so much that he was willing to sacrifice everything he had for her. Jesus loved us so much that he was willing to die on a cross so that we could be forgiven and given the gift of eternal life. Jesus didn’t think about what was best for himself, he thought about what was best for us and that’s the kind of love a husband is to have for his wife. It’s not a love that rules over a person demanding it’s own way, it’s a love that is willing to sacrifice everything including our own wants and needs for the sake of someone else. If this is the kind of love that exists in a marriage, if selfless and sacrificial love is what exists in a marriage, than submission to that love is not a burden it’s a joy. Don’t we all want to submit ourselves to someone who we know loves us unconditionally and completely and always will? Wouldn’t it be a joy to surrender ourselves to one who would always be there for us and care for us in a deep and abiding love.
What Paul is saying is that in the relationship between a husband and wife there needs to be mutual love and submission. A wife loves her husband so much she willing submits to him, but a husband loves his wife so much that he is willing to sacrifice everything, including his own wants and needs to care for her, he submits to her in love. When we hear that the divorce rate in the church is over 50%, we know that this is not the kind of love that exists in many marriages today but it needs to be. The problem is that if we don’t love selflessly and unconditionally in marriage, those aren’t the only relationship that will suffer.
When marriages break down, so does the family and so does the health and development of our children. Not only is there less time and energy to spend on raising our children, but when marriages break down our children don’t have the faithful role models they need to become good husbands and wives. For those who are married, after our relationship with God, the single most important relationship to nurture and develop is the relationship with your spouse because that relationship in some way or another touches every other relationships in your life. Many parents make the mistake of putting their children first and while caring for our children is important, the most important thing a child needs is a stable home and loving mothers and fathers and good role models for what it means to be husband and wife. So if you want your life to count, if you want your life to really make a difference, then invest yourself in building up the relationship you have with your husband or wife and then move on to the other relationships in life.
Paul not only calls for mutual love and respect in marriage but he also calls for it in our relationship with our children. Look at Ephesians 6:1-4. While Paul does call children to obey their parents, and honor their father and mother, he also calls on parents to not exasperate their children but instead to bring them up, or nourish them, in the training and instruction of the Lord. Just as we saw in the relationship between a husband and wife, so the relationship between parents and children is to be one of mutual love and respect. Yes, children are to faithfully follow the example and teaching of their parents, but parents are we setting the right example for our children to follow and are we teaching our children the right things by word and deed.
We exasperate, or frustrate, our children when we say one thing and then do something else. If you have ever had children you know that they are better than anyone at pointing out hypocrisy. Children remember everything that their parents say and then they hold their parents accountable to it. So parents need to make sure that their words and actions always line up. When my niece and nephew were young my sister and brother in law tried to teach them the importance of saying grace before a meal. When they went out to a restaurant one night, after the food arrived my sister and brother in law just started to eat, but their children looked at them and said, “Aren’t we supposed to pray first?” If we tell our children that prayer is important then we need to take the time ourselves to pray and we need to pray with our children so they can learn from us. That’s what it means to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. We can’t teach our children the importance of attending worship and Sunday School and then not attend worship and Sunday School ourselves. If we tell our children marriage takes love, forgiveness and hard work, then we need to model what that relationship of love, forgiveness and hard work is all about. Beyond the relationship with our spouses, the relationship we have with our children is vital. The biggest impact we will make in this world is the legacy we pass on to our children, so to live a life that counts means investing ourselves in our children and taking the time to nourish them in their lives and in their life of faith.
Our family relationships set the tone for all other relationships in life, but they are not the only relationships God calls us to manage well. When Jesus was told that his family was looking for him he looked at the people gathered around him and said this is my family. All those who seek to do the will of God are my brothers and sisters. In that single moment Jesus creates a new family and with those new relationships come new responsibilities to love and care for one another. As members of the body of Christ we are called repeatedly to care for one another. We are called to love and support those in the church as if they were our own biological family, and when we begin to take this seriously and reach out to care for those around us, we make a huge difference in their lives and in our own life as well.
Because so many families are divided by either divorce or distance, the extended family of the church is vital to our support and even our own survival. When my mom battle cancer a number of years ago I was away at seminary and both my sisters lived far away and had either full time jobs or were raising their children. The only way we had any peace of mind was knowing that my Mom was being well taken care of not just by my Dad, but the many friends my Mom had at her church. The church was her support during that time. The relationships she had developed through the years sustained her through months of chemo. When I had knee surgery a couple of years ago and was not going to be able to drive for 3 weeks there were dozens of people offering me rides and food and one gracious friend even came and cleaned my house. While it is not always easy to accept help – if we are willing to put away our pride and accept the help others offer, we will be blessed. We truly make a difference in someone else’s life when we reach out to care for them and God calls us to do this for our brothers and sisters in many ways.
A few weeks ago when we were looking at prayer we listed in the bulleting what some people call the “one another” passages. These are all passages found in the New Testament that teach us how God wants us to care for one another. We have listed them again on the insert in your bulletin because these are important for us to not just remember but to live out. If you notice, all of these passages come from the New Testament, which means these are the teachings God gives to the church and they show us how God wants us to care for our brothers and sister, our family in Christ. But there is something we need to understand here, if we want people to care for us in these ways we also must be willing to care for others. Too often people just sit back and expect others to take care for them but if we all just sit back and wait for someone else to take care for us, what happens? There is no one available to offer the help. We each have to be willing to do our part and help those around us in any way we can. When we love and serve others, relationships are established and strengthened so that when we need help there will be someone there to help us.
The last group of people God calls us to be in relationship with is the strangers around us and those in need. From the very beginning God has called his people to reach out and care for strangers. Throughout the Old Testament there is something called the law of hospitality that guided the people of God. This law called for God’s people to reach out and care for aliens and strangers in their land, and the reason they were to do this was because when God’s people wandered in foreign lands there were people who cared for them. One of the earliest examples of this kind of hospitality comes from Genesis 18. 3 strangers came to Abraham and when he saw him he not only greeted them but he gave them water to wash their feet, he had his wife Sarah bake them some bread, and then Abraham himself selected a choice calf and had it prepared for them to eat. Abraham went out of his way to welcome these men and he gave to them generously, and God continues to call on his people to give generously and even sacrificially to strangers.
Jesus said we are to invite the strangers in, but he then expands that out and says not only should we welcome the stranger but we should also feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit those who are sick and prison. Jesus doesn’t say we do this just for our brothers and sisters, we are to do this for anyone we see who is in need – even the very least in our society. We can’t ignore those in need around us or those in need around the world, because God has called us to be in relationship with them. One of the truths we need to remember is that when we reach out to help those in need our lives take on deeper meaning and greater value. We begin to feel more meaning and purpose in life when we help others. When we reach out to care for others, we are living a life that really counts.
To live a life that counts means we have to invest ourselves in meaningful and faithful relationships not just with those who are closest to us but those who might be far from us as well. So let us live a life that counts and love one another, family, friend and stranger, just as God has loved us.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
living a life that counts ~ our gifts
Read 1 Peter 4:7-11
This is one of my favorite times of the year and it has nothing to do with the longer warmer days of spring or even the spiritual focus of Lent and Easter, I love March Madness – NCAA basketball. Something happened to me when I went to Duke Divinity School, while I enjoyed college basketball before I moved to Durham, I fell in love with it my first year at Duke. I think they put something in the water there so that you will love basketball because everyone is a fan. Now part of the reason for that is geography, Duke, UNC, NC State and Wake Forest are all within 45 minutes of each other, so you have 4 major powerhouses in the ACC competing on a regular basis, and just about every year one of more of those teams is in the hunt for a national championship – so it’s an exciting place to be in March. More than the NCAA Tournament, what I loved was the ACC Tournament, because it was 3 days of non-stop basketball and every team in the area was playing. The weekend of the ACC Tournament, every store, business, office, school and home was tuned into the Tournament. You would walk through the mall and hear the game because every store had it on. It was infections and I got the disease. I love Duke Basketball.
The most amazing thing to see when you watch a basketball game is when a player is in the zone. You know what I’m talking about. It’s when an athlete is just on fire and everything they do works. I was at Duke when Duke played Kentucky in 1992 and if you know anything about basketball, you know that game is considered by everyone to be the best college basketball game of all time and in that game Christian Laettener was in the zone. He went 10 for 10 in field goals, 1 for 1 from three point range and a perfect 10 for 10 from the free throw line. Literally every shot he took went in the basket. Because Laettner was in that zone, when Duke was down by one point in overtime with 2.1 seconds left on the clock, there really was no question who Duke wanted to take last shot. Grant Hill made the perfect 75 foot inbound pass to Christian Laettner who dribbled the ball, turned around and shot. Because Laettner had been in the zone all game, there really wasn’t any question, nothing but net and Duke won the game 104-103 and this is THE shot. (show classic picture of Chrstian Laettner's shot!)
When an athlete is in the zone, their body, mind and spirit are all working together. They are efficient, precise and everything they do works. We’ve seen Tiger Woods play in the zone during the Masters and yes, Penn State seems to play in the zone every year that MSU comes to Happy Valley. But athletes aren’t the only ones who enter into that special zone, musicians, artists, scientists, teachers and even parents can find that place where everything just seems to come together perfectly. I hope you have experienced some of those moments in life because I truly believe that God wants us to live that kind of life every day. When we are using our God given gifts and abilities to their full potential and loving every minute of it, we are in the zone that God wants us to live in. When Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and life abundantly, I think the abundant life Jesus is talking is living in that zone where every day we are using God’s gift to make a difference.
Living a life that counts doesn’t just manage our days and our money well, it manages and uses our God given gifts and abilities to their full potential and that is what Peter is calling for in his letter to the church. If we go back to the beginning of 1 Peter we see that Peter is writing to Christians who are living throughout the entire region. Peter is writing to churches in Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithinyia which are all very pagan areas, which means there was not a lot of support for the Christians who were living there. It would become very easy for the followers of Jesus in these cities to just give up, so Peter calls the people to do more than just not give up, he calls them to make a difference, an eternal difference, by using the gifts, graces and abilities that God has given them.
Look at 4:10. Serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Now this verse tells us 2 important things. First it tells us that each and every one of us has been given a gift by God and it tells us that we have been given these gifts to serve others. God doesn’t give us gifts and abilities so we can make a lot of money and retire on easy street, God gives us gifts to serve one another and to advance God’s work in the world. So each and every one of us has been given gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities by God that we are to use to serve God and those around us and when we do this faithfully, we will find ourselves living in the zone and when we are in that zone, we are living a life that counts.
So how do we get into that zone? For an athlete to get in the zone they first have to identify their athletic gifts and abilities, and the same is true for us. We have to identify and focus on our God given gifts and ability. The bible lists several spiritual gifts that God has given to his people. In 1 Cor. 12 it says that some of these gifts include: wisdom, knowledge, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. In Ephesians 4:11 it lists the gifts of: evangelism, pastoring, teaching and leadership and in Romans 12 the list includes: exhortation (encouragement), giving and compassion. There are a variety of gifts that God has given to his people through the Holy Spirit and we need to discover which of these gifts God has given to us so we can use them to their full potential. Now you may be thinking that you don’t have any of these gifts, but you do. The Bible clearly says these gifts are given to the church and each and every person in the church has one of these gifts. 1 Cor. 12:4-7. Everyone has at least one of the spiritual gifts listed in the Bible and God is calling us to discover those gifts so we can use them because to advance his work in this world.
If we don’t know what gift God has given us or if we are unsure of which talents and abilities God wants us to use for his purpose and his kingdom, then we need to get focused and figure out what they are. Look at what Peter says in 4:7. To be focused means we first need to be clear minded. We need to answer these questions honestly and thoughtfully: What am I good at? In what areas have I found success? What am I passionate about? What moves me with joy or even with righteous anger? What experiences have I had that might give me a sense of how God wants to use me? We need to think clearly about these questions and answer them honestly. I always appreciate the people who come to me and say, Look, I taught children’s Sunday school once and it was awful – that is really not for me. That’s good to know.
A number of years ago a group from my church in Altoona went to a training seminar and I wanted someone to share what we learned in church that Sunday. I asked Jan if she would and she said, no really, I’m not very good at public speaking – you should find someone else. Now I didn’t know Jan very well and so I pushed her until she did it and when was done all said to her, Wow, you really aren’t very good at that are you? I will never ask you to do it again. She laughed and I know Jan was very grateful that I never again asked her to speak in public. Jan’s gift was not speaking in front of people but today she does plays the drums in the praise and worship band at her church. We need to be clear-minded when we think about how God has created us and what natural gifts and abilities God has given us. We are all different, but God is calling all of us to be involved in something and so it’s up to us to begin to figure those things out so God can use us for his purpose and glory.
Not only do we need to be clear minded, but we also need to be self controlled. Being self controlled means being focused on the one or two things that God wants us to do the most. We can’t do everything well. Here me on this, we simply do not have the time and energy to do everything well, so we need to focus on the few things God is calling us to do. If we try to do everything and be involved in all that’s going on, what’s going to happen is that we aren’t going to do anything well and eventually we will burn ourselves out completely and do nothing. Self control means finding those one or two things that we can channel all our time and energy on so we can make a maximum impact for God. If you aren’t sure what gifts and abilities God is calling you to use right now, get focused and begin to get focused through a time of prayer. Again look at 1 Peter 4:7
Not only do we need to discover the gifts God has given to us, we need to develop those gifts so we are using them to the best of our abilities. Christian Laettner didn’t just walk out onto the court in 1992 and start hitting shots that went into the bucket – every athlete spends countless hours practicing and working hard to develop the gifts and abilities God has given them and we need to do the same. Living a life that counts means we take the time to deepen and develop the gifts God has given us so that we can do our absolute best at all times. I appreciate that the choir / praise team meets during the week to practice and develop their gifts and abilities to enhance and lead us in worship. I’m thankful that Pete has gone to PS for training on food safety so we don’t all get sick when we have a turkey dinner, and we are all blessed that our leaders are willing to invest themselves in training each year. It’s foolish for us to think that we can serve God anywhere in the church without some training and hard work.
Look at 4:11. Whatever we do we need to give it our best because we are doing it for God. My hope and prayer is that every person who serves in the church, whether it’s passing out bulletins, singing in the choir or teaching Sunday School will not only take it seriously and give it all they have but also understand that we are doing it not for us or for others, but for God. Even something that seems so simple like passing out bulletins we need to take seriously and do it for the Lord. We need to think about what we are doing when we are passing out bulletins, because we aren’t just passing out a bulletin, we are welcoming people into the presence of God. We are the extension of God’s love and grace that welcomes strangers and family into the presence of God. We are inviting people to enter into God’s presence so their lives can be touched and transformed. It’s an awesome thing to welcome people and we need to take it seriously and give it our absolute best. Every job is important and so every job requires us to think about what we are doing and develop the gifts and abilities God has given us to do that job so we can truly do it for the Lord.
Living a life that counts doesn’t just mean serving God with excellence, it also means serving God with passion and urgency. Did you hear how Peter began this section? The end of all things is near. The early church lived with a sense of urgency because they honestly believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. Peter really thought the end of all things was near so he spoke and encouraged people with passion. He told them to use their gifts to serve God and one another and to make a difference in the world because the days were short. There was an urgency to Peter’s teaching and there was an urgency and passion to the teaching of Jesus. Jesus said many times that the kingdom of God is near and the passion of his message was picked up by the people. When we serve God it needs to be with a sense of passion and urgency because as we learned from Psalm 90, our time is short and we might not have another day to use that gift and make a difference. We can’t say, I’ll use my gifts later or when the kids are grown or when I retire because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. So don’t say, I’ll go on that mission trip next year – I’ll join the choir for the next cantata – I’ll help out in next year’s walk/run of faith – I’ll help out in the next VBS – do it today. We need to make the most of the opportunities God has given us today and use our gifts to their fullest.
If you aren’t feeling like you are living in the zone when it comes to living for God, loving God and serving God, then take the time to discover your spiritual gifts, develop those gifts until you feel confident in what you are doing and then use them to serve God and others with all you have.
This is one of my favorite times of the year and it has nothing to do with the longer warmer days of spring or even the spiritual focus of Lent and Easter, I love March Madness – NCAA basketball. Something happened to me when I went to Duke Divinity School, while I enjoyed college basketball before I moved to Durham, I fell in love with it my first year at Duke. I think they put something in the water there so that you will love basketball because everyone is a fan. Now part of the reason for that is geography, Duke, UNC, NC State and Wake Forest are all within 45 minutes of each other, so you have 4 major powerhouses in the ACC competing on a regular basis, and just about every year one of more of those teams is in the hunt for a national championship – so it’s an exciting place to be in March. More than the NCAA Tournament, what I loved was the ACC Tournament, because it was 3 days of non-stop basketball and every team in the area was playing. The weekend of the ACC Tournament, every store, business, office, school and home was tuned into the Tournament. You would walk through the mall and hear the game because every store had it on. It was infections and I got the disease. I love Duke Basketball.
The most amazing thing to see when you watch a basketball game is when a player is in the zone. You know what I’m talking about. It’s when an athlete is just on fire and everything they do works. I was at Duke when Duke played Kentucky in 1992 and if you know anything about basketball, you know that game is considered by everyone to be the best college basketball game of all time and in that game Christian Laettener was in the zone. He went 10 for 10 in field goals, 1 for 1 from three point range and a perfect 10 for 10 from the free throw line. Literally every shot he took went in the basket. Because Laettner was in that zone, when Duke was down by one point in overtime with 2.1 seconds left on the clock, there really was no question who Duke wanted to take last shot. Grant Hill made the perfect 75 foot inbound pass to Christian Laettner who dribbled the ball, turned around and shot. Because Laettner had been in the zone all game, there really wasn’t any question, nothing but net and Duke won the game 104-103 and this is THE shot. (show classic picture of Chrstian Laettner's shot!)
When an athlete is in the zone, their body, mind and spirit are all working together. They are efficient, precise and everything they do works. We’ve seen Tiger Woods play in the zone during the Masters and yes, Penn State seems to play in the zone every year that MSU comes to Happy Valley. But athletes aren’t the only ones who enter into that special zone, musicians, artists, scientists, teachers and even parents can find that place where everything just seems to come together perfectly. I hope you have experienced some of those moments in life because I truly believe that God wants us to live that kind of life every day. When we are using our God given gifts and abilities to their full potential and loving every minute of it, we are in the zone that God wants us to live in. When Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and life abundantly, I think the abundant life Jesus is talking is living in that zone where every day we are using God’s gift to make a difference.
Living a life that counts doesn’t just manage our days and our money well, it manages and uses our God given gifts and abilities to their full potential and that is what Peter is calling for in his letter to the church. If we go back to the beginning of 1 Peter we see that Peter is writing to Christians who are living throughout the entire region. Peter is writing to churches in Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithinyia which are all very pagan areas, which means there was not a lot of support for the Christians who were living there. It would become very easy for the followers of Jesus in these cities to just give up, so Peter calls the people to do more than just not give up, he calls them to make a difference, an eternal difference, by using the gifts, graces and abilities that God has given them.
Look at 4:10. Serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Now this verse tells us 2 important things. First it tells us that each and every one of us has been given a gift by God and it tells us that we have been given these gifts to serve others. God doesn’t give us gifts and abilities so we can make a lot of money and retire on easy street, God gives us gifts to serve one another and to advance God’s work in the world. So each and every one of us has been given gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities by God that we are to use to serve God and those around us and when we do this faithfully, we will find ourselves living in the zone and when we are in that zone, we are living a life that counts.
So how do we get into that zone? For an athlete to get in the zone they first have to identify their athletic gifts and abilities, and the same is true for us. We have to identify and focus on our God given gifts and ability. The bible lists several spiritual gifts that God has given to his people. In 1 Cor. 12 it says that some of these gifts include: wisdom, knowledge, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. In Ephesians 4:11 it lists the gifts of: evangelism, pastoring, teaching and leadership and in Romans 12 the list includes: exhortation (encouragement), giving and compassion. There are a variety of gifts that God has given to his people through the Holy Spirit and we need to discover which of these gifts God has given to us so we can use them to their full potential. Now you may be thinking that you don’t have any of these gifts, but you do. The Bible clearly says these gifts are given to the church and each and every person in the church has one of these gifts. 1 Cor. 12:4-7. Everyone has at least one of the spiritual gifts listed in the Bible and God is calling us to discover those gifts so we can use them because to advance his work in this world.
If we don’t know what gift God has given us or if we are unsure of which talents and abilities God wants us to use for his purpose and his kingdom, then we need to get focused and figure out what they are. Look at what Peter says in 4:7. To be focused means we first need to be clear minded. We need to answer these questions honestly and thoughtfully: What am I good at? In what areas have I found success? What am I passionate about? What moves me with joy or even with righteous anger? What experiences have I had that might give me a sense of how God wants to use me? We need to think clearly about these questions and answer them honestly. I always appreciate the people who come to me and say, Look, I taught children’s Sunday school once and it was awful – that is really not for me. That’s good to know.
A number of years ago a group from my church in Altoona went to a training seminar and I wanted someone to share what we learned in church that Sunday. I asked Jan if she would and she said, no really, I’m not very good at public speaking – you should find someone else. Now I didn’t know Jan very well and so I pushed her until she did it and when was done all said to her, Wow, you really aren’t very good at that are you? I will never ask you to do it again. She laughed and I know Jan was very grateful that I never again asked her to speak in public. Jan’s gift was not speaking in front of people but today she does plays the drums in the praise and worship band at her church. We need to be clear-minded when we think about how God has created us and what natural gifts and abilities God has given us. We are all different, but God is calling all of us to be involved in something and so it’s up to us to begin to figure those things out so God can use us for his purpose and glory.
Not only do we need to be clear minded, but we also need to be self controlled. Being self controlled means being focused on the one or two things that God wants us to do the most. We can’t do everything well. Here me on this, we simply do not have the time and energy to do everything well, so we need to focus on the few things God is calling us to do. If we try to do everything and be involved in all that’s going on, what’s going to happen is that we aren’t going to do anything well and eventually we will burn ourselves out completely and do nothing. Self control means finding those one or two things that we can channel all our time and energy on so we can make a maximum impact for God. If you aren’t sure what gifts and abilities God is calling you to use right now, get focused and begin to get focused through a time of prayer. Again look at 1 Peter 4:7
Not only do we need to discover the gifts God has given to us, we need to develop those gifts so we are using them to the best of our abilities. Christian Laettner didn’t just walk out onto the court in 1992 and start hitting shots that went into the bucket – every athlete spends countless hours practicing and working hard to develop the gifts and abilities God has given them and we need to do the same. Living a life that counts means we take the time to deepen and develop the gifts God has given us so that we can do our absolute best at all times. I appreciate that the choir / praise team meets during the week to practice and develop their gifts and abilities to enhance and lead us in worship. I’m thankful that Pete has gone to PS for training on food safety so we don’t all get sick when we have a turkey dinner, and we are all blessed that our leaders are willing to invest themselves in training each year. It’s foolish for us to think that we can serve God anywhere in the church without some training and hard work.
Look at 4:11. Whatever we do we need to give it our best because we are doing it for God. My hope and prayer is that every person who serves in the church, whether it’s passing out bulletins, singing in the choir or teaching Sunday School will not only take it seriously and give it all they have but also understand that we are doing it not for us or for others, but for God. Even something that seems so simple like passing out bulletins we need to take seriously and do it for the Lord. We need to think about what we are doing when we are passing out bulletins, because we aren’t just passing out a bulletin, we are welcoming people into the presence of God. We are the extension of God’s love and grace that welcomes strangers and family into the presence of God. We are inviting people to enter into God’s presence so their lives can be touched and transformed. It’s an awesome thing to welcome people and we need to take it seriously and give it our absolute best. Every job is important and so every job requires us to think about what we are doing and develop the gifts and abilities God has given us to do that job so we can truly do it for the Lord.
Living a life that counts doesn’t just mean serving God with excellence, it also means serving God with passion and urgency. Did you hear how Peter began this section? The end of all things is near. The early church lived with a sense of urgency because they honestly believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. Peter really thought the end of all things was near so he spoke and encouraged people with passion. He told them to use their gifts to serve God and one another and to make a difference in the world because the days were short. There was an urgency to Peter’s teaching and there was an urgency and passion to the teaching of Jesus. Jesus said many times that the kingdom of God is near and the passion of his message was picked up by the people. When we serve God it needs to be with a sense of passion and urgency because as we learned from Psalm 90, our time is short and we might not have another day to use that gift and make a difference. We can’t say, I’ll use my gifts later or when the kids are grown or when I retire because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. So don’t say, I’ll go on that mission trip next year – I’ll join the choir for the next cantata – I’ll help out in next year’s walk/run of faith – I’ll help out in the next VBS – do it today. We need to make the most of the opportunities God has given us today and use our gifts to their fullest.
If you aren’t feeling like you are living in the zone when it comes to living for God, loving God and serving God, then take the time to discover your spiritual gifts, develop those gifts until you feel confident in what you are doing and then use them to serve God and others with all you have.
living a life that counts ~ our money
Read Matthew 6:19-24
To live a life that counts we need to learn how to manage three things well. The first is our time. As we saw last week, life is short and so we need to make the most of each and every day God gives us. We need to spend time listening to God, loving our family and serving God as we love and serve the people around. The second thing we need to manage well is our money. Money management is clearly the #1 issue we face in the world today. Whether it is the mortgage crisis, the massive amount of personal debt we have accumulated as individuals or as a nation, or the declining stock market all that we read and hear about today is the global economic recession and the job and financial crisis that we face. In an effort to address the problem, in the last few months our government has passed three bills that will spend close 2 Trillion dollars to help the economy. I don’t know about you, but I can’t even comprehend how much a trillion dollars really is.
I read this week that if you laid $1 dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from the earth to the moon and back 200 times before you would use a trillion dollars. And if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born we would still not have spent a trillion dollars and we will be spending almost 2 trillion on the TARP bill, stimulus package and spending bills combined. It’s hard to figure out where that kind of money will come from or how we will ever pay off the debt that it will create, but that’s where we are today. We face economic problems that seem so overwhelming that it’s hard to know where to start or what to do, but here’s where we need to start, (pull out wallet) with our own wallets and our own money. While we may feel powerless when we think about the global economic recession, we are not powerless when it comes to our own personal finances, and since God has called us to be good stewards of all He has given us we need to learn how to manage our money well. Money management is not just a financial issue – it is a spiritual issue. Jesus talked more about money than any other subject and the bible is full of teachings on how we are to earn, spend, save and give money.
In Matt. 6 Jesus said do not store up treasures on earth where moth and rust can destroy – or where a days trading in the stock market can wipe it all out – but instead store up treasure in heaven. Now this does not mean we don’t work hard to earn money and it doesn’t mean we don’t save and invest and even spend our money wisely. What Jesus is saying is that money can not be our master. We can’t trust our money to solve all our problems and we can’t turn to our wealth to find life’s ultimate meaning and fulfillment. If the focus of our life is money – it will become our master and we will lose sight of God. And it doesn’t matter if we have a lot of money or a little bit of money, if the focus of our lives is money – we run the risk of losing sight of God.
Look at Proverbs 30:8b-9. What these verses show us is that money is neither good nor bad; it is when we focus on money that we run into problems. If we have a lot of money and focus on that we might begin to think that we have all we need & so we don’t need God. With too much money we run the risk of turning from God to trusting in ourselves or in the wealth we have accumulated. But there is also a danger when we have too little money. Proverbs 30 says if we don’t have enough to live on we might become so desperate that we would steal. Let’s broaden that out & see that having too little money could cause other problems as well. We might become bitter toward God or jealous and angry of others who have more. We might not trust God to meet our needs and once again take matters into our own hands. We might engage in unethical dealings & then justify our actions because we are poor. We might just give up our hands and allow someone else to just take care of us forever. Poverty can cause us to compromise our honesty and integrity as much as greed can, so there is a danger in having too much money and there is a danger in having too little, but the danger doesn’t come from the money, it comes from our attitude toward money. When our focus is on our money – we lose sight of God, so the first key to Godly money management is making sure that God is at the center of our lives.
One of the ways we keep God at the center of our lives when we look at our financial situation is to remember that it all belongs to God in the first place. This is really the first rule of Christian money management – it all belongs to God. In Psalm 50:10 it says the cattle on a thousand hillsides belong to God – but God also owns the hillsides. God owns it all and God simply gives each of us a portion of his creation to use according to his purpose. When we look at the money we have we can never forget that it is God who has provided us with this money because it is God who provides us with the knowledge, skill and opportunity to work. Look at Dtr. 8:18. God is the one who gives us the ability to produce wealth, therefore what we have really does not belong to us – it all belongs to God and we need to begin to see things from that perspective.
When we begin to think that the money in our wallets, bank accounts, pension fund or money market accounts belongs to us, then we have lost sight of God. What we need to do is retrain ourselves so that when we look at our money, when we pay our bills, when we balance our checkbook or make a budget we think of it all as God’s money which we are to use according to God’s principles and for God’s purpose. It’s a radical way to think of our money and our lives – but it’s the foundation to a biblical view of money and wealth and that foundation has to be in place before we can explore how God wants us to use our money.
So it all belongs to God, but what are we supposed to do with it? Instead of trying to focus on the details of personal money management – which will be different for each of us, let’s look at three basic financial and biblical principles which apply to all of us. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said that we when it comes to money we should gain all we can, save all we can and give all we can, so let’s look at these three financial principles.
From a biblical perspective, gaining all we can means being willing to work hard and be productive. If we go back to the story of creation we see that we were created in the image of God and the God of creation is a God who worked. And the work of creation was hard enough that after 6 days God needed to rest. So if we are in the image of God – part of what we were created for is to work. Working and being productive is part of who we are and so we need to take the talents, gifts, resources and opportunities God gives us and gain all we can. Proverbs warns against the dangers of being idle and the apostle Paul told the people of Thessalonica to work hard. Look at 2 Thess. 3:6-10. God calls us to work hard and gain what we can in this world, but let’s also be clear that we are not to do this at the expense of our health or our families. Gaining all we can is not a license to work too many hours and neglect our families and it does not mean that we destroy our health by not taking the time out for our physical, emotional and spiritual needs for rest and refreshment. Remember being created in the image of God means that need to time to rest. God even commands us to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Along with gaining all we can we are also called to save all we can. The personal saving rate for the US at the end of last year was just 1.3% or our income. The reality is that if you are out of work or struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month, it’s hard to find the money to save, so maybe to help us save all can we need to sit down and work out a budget. Making a budget is really just establishing a good financial plan for you and your family and you have probably heard the saying, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. So if you want to plan to save it’s important to begin by setting up a budget and when you do this talk to your family about it. Talk to your children about setting up a budget so they can begin to learn some good money management principles. Schools don’t teach children how to balance a checkbook, or how to live within a budget so it’s important to take the time to sit down and talk about financial issues as a family. What choices do families need to make in these hard economic times to not only get out of debt but begin to save.
Talking about a budget with your family raises another issue when it comes to our finances and money management. It’s important for couples and families to talk about money. I am amazed every time I read that the #1 cause of divorce is financial stress. I read this week that 54% of all divorces are related to financial issues. For healthy marriages, couples need to talk about their finances and be honest about their financial goals and how household money needs to be spent and saved. The more we avoid talking about money, the more money and the problems related to our finances can drive a wedge into our relationships. So saving all we can requires some planning, establishing a budget and then some open and honest discussion about how we spend our money.
The third financial principle John Wesley gave us was to give all we can. Proverbs 11:24-25 says:
We need to give all we can because God’s blessing comes when we give. When we give we are blessed. When we give to God, or when we give to others, we will be blessed. One of the clear biblical principles on giving is the tithe, or giving 10% of our income to God’s work in and through the church & God says when we tithe we will be blessed with more – it may not be more money, it may just be more peace and strength because we know we are honoring God with our lives and living a life that counts. So tithing is a good principle for us to consider, but it is just that, a principle. There is no law that says all Christians must tithe, it is just a clear solid practice that many people find is a good place to start. Notice I said a good place to start. While for many people tithing is the goal, when we look at how Jesus calls us to give we see that his teaching goes well beyond giving 10%.
Jesus looked at a rich man and said, give all you have to the poor and then come follow me. Jesus didn’t say tithe and then follow me, he said sell all you have and give it away. Jesus commended a poor woman who gave to the work of God all she had to live on. He didn’t say anything about the faithful people who gave their tithe – he elevated and celebrated the woman who gave sacrificially. And in the early church it says that the people shared all that they had with one another. They didn’t give their 10% and call it finished, they gave all they could & so while tithing is a solid principle for us to hold up – it really is just the starting gate - the call of God to give goes much deeper. We are called by God to give all we can to God and to the people of God and to the work of God around the world.
We forget sometimes that giving to God was the center of worship in the Old Testament. Worship for the people of God revolved around the sacrifice and the offerings people gave to God and so giving to God all we can is an act of worship that can’t be ignored or put off – it is central to our lives of worship. I hope that you get that sense every time we receive an offering in worship. I am always humbled by the fact that God calls us to give ourselves to him in this way. God wants us to give because God wants to use us as part of his working in this world. What an honor for us to be used by God in this way.
Because giving really is an act of worship, we will never give the way God calls us to give – sacrificially and completely – until we place God at the center of our lives because the trust it takes to give away our possessions, the trust it takes to tithe or give beyond the tithe is only possible if we first place God at the center or our hearts and lives and love and trust him alone. So it all comes back to the foundation and our understanding that all we have really belongs to God and we are simply called to use it according to God’s principles and for God’s purpose. Since God has entrusted us with a great deal of wealth, we will never live a life that really until we learn how to use our money according to the principles and plan of God. So let us gain all we can, save all we can and give all we can.
To live a life that counts we need to learn how to manage three things well. The first is our time. As we saw last week, life is short and so we need to make the most of each and every day God gives us. We need to spend time listening to God, loving our family and serving God as we love and serve the people around. The second thing we need to manage well is our money. Money management is clearly the #1 issue we face in the world today. Whether it is the mortgage crisis, the massive amount of personal debt we have accumulated as individuals or as a nation, or the declining stock market all that we read and hear about today is the global economic recession and the job and financial crisis that we face. In an effort to address the problem, in the last few months our government has passed three bills that will spend close 2 Trillion dollars to help the economy. I don’t know about you, but I can’t even comprehend how much a trillion dollars really is.
I read this week that if you laid $1 dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from the earth to the moon and back 200 times before you would use a trillion dollars. And if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born we would still not have spent a trillion dollars and we will be spending almost 2 trillion on the TARP bill, stimulus package and spending bills combined. It’s hard to figure out where that kind of money will come from or how we will ever pay off the debt that it will create, but that’s where we are today. We face economic problems that seem so overwhelming that it’s hard to know where to start or what to do, but here’s where we need to start, (pull out wallet) with our own wallets and our own money. While we may feel powerless when we think about the global economic recession, we are not powerless when it comes to our own personal finances, and since God has called us to be good stewards of all He has given us we need to learn how to manage our money well. Money management is not just a financial issue – it is a spiritual issue. Jesus talked more about money than any other subject and the bible is full of teachings on how we are to earn, spend, save and give money.
In Matt. 6 Jesus said do not store up treasures on earth where moth and rust can destroy – or where a days trading in the stock market can wipe it all out – but instead store up treasure in heaven. Now this does not mean we don’t work hard to earn money and it doesn’t mean we don’t save and invest and even spend our money wisely. What Jesus is saying is that money can not be our master. We can’t trust our money to solve all our problems and we can’t turn to our wealth to find life’s ultimate meaning and fulfillment. If the focus of our life is money – it will become our master and we will lose sight of God. And it doesn’t matter if we have a lot of money or a little bit of money, if the focus of our lives is money – we run the risk of losing sight of God.
Look at Proverbs 30:8b-9. What these verses show us is that money is neither good nor bad; it is when we focus on money that we run into problems. If we have a lot of money and focus on that we might begin to think that we have all we need & so we don’t need God. With too much money we run the risk of turning from God to trusting in ourselves or in the wealth we have accumulated. But there is also a danger when we have too little money. Proverbs 30 says if we don’t have enough to live on we might become so desperate that we would steal. Let’s broaden that out & see that having too little money could cause other problems as well. We might become bitter toward God or jealous and angry of others who have more. We might not trust God to meet our needs and once again take matters into our own hands. We might engage in unethical dealings & then justify our actions because we are poor. We might just give up our hands and allow someone else to just take care of us forever. Poverty can cause us to compromise our honesty and integrity as much as greed can, so there is a danger in having too much money and there is a danger in having too little, but the danger doesn’t come from the money, it comes from our attitude toward money. When our focus is on our money – we lose sight of God, so the first key to Godly money management is making sure that God is at the center of our lives.
One of the ways we keep God at the center of our lives when we look at our financial situation is to remember that it all belongs to God in the first place. This is really the first rule of Christian money management – it all belongs to God. In Psalm 50:10 it says the cattle on a thousand hillsides belong to God – but God also owns the hillsides. God owns it all and God simply gives each of us a portion of his creation to use according to his purpose. When we look at the money we have we can never forget that it is God who has provided us with this money because it is God who provides us with the knowledge, skill and opportunity to work. Look at Dtr. 8:18. God is the one who gives us the ability to produce wealth, therefore what we have really does not belong to us – it all belongs to God and we need to begin to see things from that perspective.
When we begin to think that the money in our wallets, bank accounts, pension fund or money market accounts belongs to us, then we have lost sight of God. What we need to do is retrain ourselves so that when we look at our money, when we pay our bills, when we balance our checkbook or make a budget we think of it all as God’s money which we are to use according to God’s principles and for God’s purpose. It’s a radical way to think of our money and our lives – but it’s the foundation to a biblical view of money and wealth and that foundation has to be in place before we can explore how God wants us to use our money.
So it all belongs to God, but what are we supposed to do with it? Instead of trying to focus on the details of personal money management – which will be different for each of us, let’s look at three basic financial and biblical principles which apply to all of us. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said that we when it comes to money we should gain all we can, save all we can and give all we can, so let’s look at these three financial principles.
From a biblical perspective, gaining all we can means being willing to work hard and be productive. If we go back to the story of creation we see that we were created in the image of God and the God of creation is a God who worked. And the work of creation was hard enough that after 6 days God needed to rest. So if we are in the image of God – part of what we were created for is to work. Working and being productive is part of who we are and so we need to take the talents, gifts, resources and opportunities God gives us and gain all we can. Proverbs warns against the dangers of being idle and the apostle Paul told the people of Thessalonica to work hard. Look at 2 Thess. 3:6-10. God calls us to work hard and gain what we can in this world, but let’s also be clear that we are not to do this at the expense of our health or our families. Gaining all we can is not a license to work too many hours and neglect our families and it does not mean that we destroy our health by not taking the time out for our physical, emotional and spiritual needs for rest and refreshment. Remember being created in the image of God means that need to time to rest. God even commands us to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Along with gaining all we can we are also called to save all we can. The personal saving rate for the US at the end of last year was just 1.3% or our income. The reality is that if you are out of work or struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month, it’s hard to find the money to save, so maybe to help us save all can we need to sit down and work out a budget. Making a budget is really just establishing a good financial plan for you and your family and you have probably heard the saying, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. So if you want to plan to save it’s important to begin by setting up a budget and when you do this talk to your family about it. Talk to your children about setting up a budget so they can begin to learn some good money management principles. Schools don’t teach children how to balance a checkbook, or how to live within a budget so it’s important to take the time to sit down and talk about financial issues as a family. What choices do families need to make in these hard economic times to not only get out of debt but begin to save.
Talking about a budget with your family raises another issue when it comes to our finances and money management. It’s important for couples and families to talk about money. I am amazed every time I read that the #1 cause of divorce is financial stress. I read this week that 54% of all divorces are related to financial issues. For healthy marriages, couples need to talk about their finances and be honest about their financial goals and how household money needs to be spent and saved. The more we avoid talking about money, the more money and the problems related to our finances can drive a wedge into our relationships. So saving all we can requires some planning, establishing a budget and then some open and honest discussion about how we spend our money.
The third financial principle John Wesley gave us was to give all we can. Proverbs 11:24-25 says:
We need to give all we can because God’s blessing comes when we give. When we give we are blessed. When we give to God, or when we give to others, we will be blessed. One of the clear biblical principles on giving is the tithe, or giving 10% of our income to God’s work in and through the church & God says when we tithe we will be blessed with more – it may not be more money, it may just be more peace and strength because we know we are honoring God with our lives and living a life that counts. So tithing is a good principle for us to consider, but it is just that, a principle. There is no law that says all Christians must tithe, it is just a clear solid practice that many people find is a good place to start. Notice I said a good place to start. While for many people tithing is the goal, when we look at how Jesus calls us to give we see that his teaching goes well beyond giving 10%.
Jesus looked at a rich man and said, give all you have to the poor and then come follow me. Jesus didn’t say tithe and then follow me, he said sell all you have and give it away. Jesus commended a poor woman who gave to the work of God all she had to live on. He didn’t say anything about the faithful people who gave their tithe – he elevated and celebrated the woman who gave sacrificially. And in the early church it says that the people shared all that they had with one another. They didn’t give their 10% and call it finished, they gave all they could & so while tithing is a solid principle for us to hold up – it really is just the starting gate - the call of God to give goes much deeper. We are called by God to give all we can to God and to the people of God and to the work of God around the world.
We forget sometimes that giving to God was the center of worship in the Old Testament. Worship for the people of God revolved around the sacrifice and the offerings people gave to God and so giving to God all we can is an act of worship that can’t be ignored or put off – it is central to our lives of worship. I hope that you get that sense every time we receive an offering in worship. I am always humbled by the fact that God calls us to give ourselves to him in this way. God wants us to give because God wants to use us as part of his working in this world. What an honor for us to be used by God in this way.
Because giving really is an act of worship, we will never give the way God calls us to give – sacrificially and completely – until we place God at the center of our lives because the trust it takes to give away our possessions, the trust it takes to tithe or give beyond the tithe is only possible if we first place God at the center or our hearts and lives and love and trust him alone. So it all comes back to the foundation and our understanding that all we have really belongs to God and we are simply called to use it according to God’s principles and for God’s purpose. Since God has entrusted us with a great deal of wealth, we will never live a life that really until we learn how to use our money according to the principles and plan of God. So let us gain all we can, save all we can and give all we can.
Living a life that counts ~ our time
Read Psalm 90
For more than 25 years my Dad worked at Yale New Haven Hospital and yet we lived in a town 45 minutes away, so he had a long commute both to and from work every day. To avoid the rush hour traffic on the highway in the morning, my Dad would leave the house around 5:30 and every morning my Mom would wake up and fix their breakfast, eat with him, and then stand at the door and wave as he drove off to work. My Mom did this every day that my Dad went to work and I didn’t think much of this as a kid, it was just normal in our family, but then one day, probably when I was a teenager and sleeping in was the thing to do, I asked myself why my Mom got up every morning to do this when she could have slept in for another hour or more before she had to be at work, and if my Dad really wanted breakfast he was perfectly capable of getting a bowl of cereal all by himself. When I asked my mom why she did this, she reminded me of the Stewart family.
The Stewarts lived up the street from us when I was in elementary school and Mr. Stewart also had a commute to work every day and he traveled the same section of I-95 that my Dad traveled. One day on his way home from work Mr. Stewart saw a woman with a flat tire on the side of the road. He stopped to help and while he was changing her tire, he was hit by a car and killed. In the days that followed Mrs. Stewart shared with my Mom how hard it was because she never got a chance to say good-bye. She never got up in the morning to see him off to work and so she never got the chance to say I love you one last time. It was right after the accident that my Mom started getting up in the morning to fix my Dad breakfast and then stand at the door to say good bye. My Mom was going to make sure that if anything like that ever happened to my Dad, she would have at least seen him that morning and said, I love you.
While she may not have known it, my Mom understood one of the basic principles of Psalm 90, life is short. Look at Psalm 90:4-5. Our lives are like new grass – it springs to life in the morning but is withered dry by evening. The length of our days is numbered and they pass quickly, so God calls us to make the most of them. God tells to number our days aright so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. God is calling us to make the most of our days and we begin to do this by taking some time to reflect on our life and our use of time because this will help us determine our priorities. On the Bible Study insert in the bulletin are some thought provoking and honestly, some painful questions for us to think about: What is it that eats up most of our time? Do we feel good about this?
What activity wastes our time? Can we change this? Maybe the question isn’t can we change it but are we willing to change this? If we really want to live a life that counts, if we want our days to make a difference in the lives of our family, friends and the community in which we live then we need to get our priorities straight. We need to sit down and ask ourselves what is it that God is calling us to do and to be right now. Where is God calling me to spend my time? How is God calling me to number and live out my days? This season of lent, these days leading up to Easter, is a good time to think about this because deepening and developing our faith will most likely require us to establish some new priorities.
What’s encouraging to think about is that even Jesus needed to take some time to evaluate his life and get his priorities straight. Look at Mark 1:35-39. Jesus got up early to go off by himself to pray because he needed to figure some things out. Since he entered into public ministry what had consumed his time was healing people and driving out evil spirits. If we look at V32 it says that the entire town of Capernaum had come to Jesus looking for healing and strength. They were camped out on the doorstep waiting for him. As news of Jesus spread - more and more people were coming to him looking for help and healing, and while helping people is a good and healing people is a worthy mission, Jesus questioned whether or not it was his mission. Jesus takes the time to go off and pray because he needed to get his priorities straight, he needed to figure out of healing people was going to his primary mission in life. Jesus knew his days were numbered, he knew his life and ministry in this world would be short, and so like the rest of us he needed to number his days aright and get his priorities straight. Was Jesus going to be a healer and miracle worker, or was he going to be an evangelist and share the good news of God’s power and love and salvation to others? Both missions are worthy causes, but what was God’s will? What was God’s purpose and plan for Jesus’ life?
Jesus doesn’t just show us that we need to get our priorities straight; he also shows us how to do this. In Mark 1:35 it says Jesus goes off to a solitary place to pray. The first thing we need to do if we want to get our priorities right is to spend some time alone with God. While worshipping together is important and studying God’s word in small groups is important, time alone with God is also important and yet for many of us it is this time that we crowd out of our schedules. Time alone with God is not driving to work with the radio off. Driving can’t be quality time with God because our focus and attention is divided; at least it should be because when we are driving our primary focus should be on the road. By going off to a quiet place to pray, what Jesus shows us is that we need quality time in silence, prayer and reflection where we can open ourselves up God with ears ready to hear God’s voice and eyes ready to see God’s hand moving in us and guiding us in life.
If quiet time with God is not part of your regular routine, I encourage you in this season of lent to start the practice. Get up a few minutes before the children do, find a quiet moment at night, or take some time during a lunch hour to just sit in a quiet place to think and pray. Reflect on your life and how you spend your time. Ask God to show his purpose and plan for you at this moment, for this day, or this week, or for this season of your life. Ask God to speak to you through his word, or through the silence that surrounds you. This disciple of silence and prayer is not easy in a world that is constantly filled with noise, but it is important because many times the way God speaks is through the still small voice that can only be heard in the silence of our hearts and lives.
There’s a great story in 1 Kings 19 about the prophet Elijah. He’s at a point in his life where he is trying to figure out what God is going to do with him and he was told to go stand on the mountain and wait for the Lord to pass by. In 1 Kings 19:11 it says…
God was in the still small voice – actually other translations say that Elijah heard the sound of sheer silence and God was in the silence. It was in the silence and through the gentle whisper that God spoke to Elijah and gave him direction for his life. Many times God wants to speak to us in those moments of silence when we quiet our lives enough to be able to hear whisper. Will we make the time for this kind of silence and prayer.
For many of us, living a life that counts will begin by getting our priorities right and we will only know what God wants us to do and how God wants us to order our days if we will be willing to take the time to listen. While hearing God’s voice is important, once we hear God’s voice, we also have to be willing to act. When Jesus comes back from his time of prayer he tells his disciples that he came to preach throughout the whole region, so they needed to move on. If God calls us to order our days differently, we need to make whatever changes are necessary, and we can’t put this off until tomorrow, remember Psalm 90 says, our days are short. We may not have another day to make the change.
When I graduated from college I knew I wanted to be involved in some kind of mission or full time ministry. While I thought that would be accomplished by working in Christian television, that never worked out and so I took a job as an assistant manager of a movie theater. For 3 years I worked at the theater and was quite successful. It was a good job and I had good friends. Life was good, but I had put away any thought of using my life for mission or ministry. I had become content, maybe even somewhat complacent because when I did think about serving God in some way, I told myself I could do that tomorrow. What I had forgotten was Psalm 90, our days are numbered and they pass quickly. What opened my eyes to this truth was my Grandmother’s surgery.
My Grandmother was the most active and vital 80 year old woman I have ever known. During the summer she would swim in the cold waters of Long Island Sound every day. She read voraciously, she served in her church and community faithfully and she just loved life. After a routine surgery my Grandmother had a stroke and she never again was able to walk or speak. In an instant her life was changed and I was confronted with the reality that we may not always have another day and so I needed to get my priorities straight. I had been hiding from God’s call long enough and it was now time to seize the day. Over the course of the next year I made plans to attend Seminary, which was what my Grandmother always wanted me to do, and that change in direction led to full time ministry in the local church. It took my grandmothers illness to wake me up to the reality that for all of us, life is short and we can’t put off until tomorrow what God is calling us to do today. If God is calling us to make some changes or move in some new directions or step out into some activities – today is the day to do it
If God is calling you to spend more time with you family and to guard and protect the time you spend with your spouse – then make the changes you need to do this. If God is calling you to deepen your relationship with him through more time in worship and prayer, if God is calling you to step out in ministry and serve the church or community, then make the changes you need to do this. If God is calling you to make some radical changes to your life or lifestyle so you can support the work of God here or around the world – make the necessary changes to do this, because there may not be another day. If God is calling you to forgive someone or reach out and say I love you to someone, then do it today, because there may not be another day to do it.
If we are willing to listen to God and act on his direction, we will be blessed. Turn back to Psalm 90 and look at how it ends. If we number our days and live them to the fullest, God will…
90:14 - Satisfy us with your love.
90:17 – may the favor of the lord rest upon us and may God establish the work of our hands.
When we are willing to prioritize our lives the way God calls us to and then do the things God calls us to do, we will be blessed, and the work of our hands will be blessed by God. And when the work of our hands is blessed – we are making a difference in the world around us – we’re living a life that counts.
For more than 25 years my Dad worked at Yale New Haven Hospital and yet we lived in a town 45 minutes away, so he had a long commute both to and from work every day. To avoid the rush hour traffic on the highway in the morning, my Dad would leave the house around 5:30 and every morning my Mom would wake up and fix their breakfast, eat with him, and then stand at the door and wave as he drove off to work. My Mom did this every day that my Dad went to work and I didn’t think much of this as a kid, it was just normal in our family, but then one day, probably when I was a teenager and sleeping in was the thing to do, I asked myself why my Mom got up every morning to do this when she could have slept in for another hour or more before she had to be at work, and if my Dad really wanted breakfast he was perfectly capable of getting a bowl of cereal all by himself. When I asked my mom why she did this, she reminded me of the Stewart family.
The Stewarts lived up the street from us when I was in elementary school and Mr. Stewart also had a commute to work every day and he traveled the same section of I-95 that my Dad traveled. One day on his way home from work Mr. Stewart saw a woman with a flat tire on the side of the road. He stopped to help and while he was changing her tire, he was hit by a car and killed. In the days that followed Mrs. Stewart shared with my Mom how hard it was because she never got a chance to say good-bye. She never got up in the morning to see him off to work and so she never got the chance to say I love you one last time. It was right after the accident that my Mom started getting up in the morning to fix my Dad breakfast and then stand at the door to say good bye. My Mom was going to make sure that if anything like that ever happened to my Dad, she would have at least seen him that morning and said, I love you.
While she may not have known it, my Mom understood one of the basic principles of Psalm 90, life is short. Look at Psalm 90:4-5. Our lives are like new grass – it springs to life in the morning but is withered dry by evening. The length of our days is numbered and they pass quickly, so God calls us to make the most of them. God tells to number our days aright so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. God is calling us to make the most of our days and we begin to do this by taking some time to reflect on our life and our use of time because this will help us determine our priorities. On the Bible Study insert in the bulletin are some thought provoking and honestly, some painful questions for us to think about: What is it that eats up most of our time? Do we feel good about this?
What activity wastes our time? Can we change this? Maybe the question isn’t can we change it but are we willing to change this? If we really want to live a life that counts, if we want our days to make a difference in the lives of our family, friends and the community in which we live then we need to get our priorities straight. We need to sit down and ask ourselves what is it that God is calling us to do and to be right now. Where is God calling me to spend my time? How is God calling me to number and live out my days? This season of lent, these days leading up to Easter, is a good time to think about this because deepening and developing our faith will most likely require us to establish some new priorities.
What’s encouraging to think about is that even Jesus needed to take some time to evaluate his life and get his priorities straight. Look at Mark 1:35-39. Jesus got up early to go off by himself to pray because he needed to figure some things out. Since he entered into public ministry what had consumed his time was healing people and driving out evil spirits. If we look at V32 it says that the entire town of Capernaum had come to Jesus looking for healing and strength. They were camped out on the doorstep waiting for him. As news of Jesus spread - more and more people were coming to him looking for help and healing, and while helping people is a good and healing people is a worthy mission, Jesus questioned whether or not it was his mission. Jesus takes the time to go off and pray because he needed to get his priorities straight, he needed to figure out of healing people was going to his primary mission in life. Jesus knew his days were numbered, he knew his life and ministry in this world would be short, and so like the rest of us he needed to number his days aright and get his priorities straight. Was Jesus going to be a healer and miracle worker, or was he going to be an evangelist and share the good news of God’s power and love and salvation to others? Both missions are worthy causes, but what was God’s will? What was God’s purpose and plan for Jesus’ life?
Jesus doesn’t just show us that we need to get our priorities straight; he also shows us how to do this. In Mark 1:35 it says Jesus goes off to a solitary place to pray. The first thing we need to do if we want to get our priorities right is to spend some time alone with God. While worshipping together is important and studying God’s word in small groups is important, time alone with God is also important and yet for many of us it is this time that we crowd out of our schedules. Time alone with God is not driving to work with the radio off. Driving can’t be quality time with God because our focus and attention is divided; at least it should be because when we are driving our primary focus should be on the road. By going off to a quiet place to pray, what Jesus shows us is that we need quality time in silence, prayer and reflection where we can open ourselves up God with ears ready to hear God’s voice and eyes ready to see God’s hand moving in us and guiding us in life.
If quiet time with God is not part of your regular routine, I encourage you in this season of lent to start the practice. Get up a few minutes before the children do, find a quiet moment at night, or take some time during a lunch hour to just sit in a quiet place to think and pray. Reflect on your life and how you spend your time. Ask God to show his purpose and plan for you at this moment, for this day, or this week, or for this season of your life. Ask God to speak to you through his word, or through the silence that surrounds you. This disciple of silence and prayer is not easy in a world that is constantly filled with noise, but it is important because many times the way God speaks is through the still small voice that can only be heard in the silence of our hearts and lives.
There’s a great story in 1 Kings 19 about the prophet Elijah. He’s at a point in his life where he is trying to figure out what God is going to do with him and he was told to go stand on the mountain and wait for the Lord to pass by. In 1 Kings 19:11 it says…
God was in the still small voice – actually other translations say that Elijah heard the sound of sheer silence and God was in the silence. It was in the silence and through the gentle whisper that God spoke to Elijah and gave him direction for his life. Many times God wants to speak to us in those moments of silence when we quiet our lives enough to be able to hear whisper. Will we make the time for this kind of silence and prayer.
For many of us, living a life that counts will begin by getting our priorities right and we will only know what God wants us to do and how God wants us to order our days if we will be willing to take the time to listen. While hearing God’s voice is important, once we hear God’s voice, we also have to be willing to act. When Jesus comes back from his time of prayer he tells his disciples that he came to preach throughout the whole region, so they needed to move on. If God calls us to order our days differently, we need to make whatever changes are necessary, and we can’t put this off until tomorrow, remember Psalm 90 says, our days are short. We may not have another day to make the change.
When I graduated from college I knew I wanted to be involved in some kind of mission or full time ministry. While I thought that would be accomplished by working in Christian television, that never worked out and so I took a job as an assistant manager of a movie theater. For 3 years I worked at the theater and was quite successful. It was a good job and I had good friends. Life was good, but I had put away any thought of using my life for mission or ministry. I had become content, maybe even somewhat complacent because when I did think about serving God in some way, I told myself I could do that tomorrow. What I had forgotten was Psalm 90, our days are numbered and they pass quickly. What opened my eyes to this truth was my Grandmother’s surgery.
My Grandmother was the most active and vital 80 year old woman I have ever known. During the summer she would swim in the cold waters of Long Island Sound every day. She read voraciously, she served in her church and community faithfully and she just loved life. After a routine surgery my Grandmother had a stroke and she never again was able to walk or speak. In an instant her life was changed and I was confronted with the reality that we may not always have another day and so I needed to get my priorities straight. I had been hiding from God’s call long enough and it was now time to seize the day. Over the course of the next year I made plans to attend Seminary, which was what my Grandmother always wanted me to do, and that change in direction led to full time ministry in the local church. It took my grandmothers illness to wake me up to the reality that for all of us, life is short and we can’t put off until tomorrow what God is calling us to do today. If God is calling us to make some changes or move in some new directions or step out into some activities – today is the day to do it
If God is calling you to spend more time with you family and to guard and protect the time you spend with your spouse – then make the changes you need to do this. If God is calling you to deepen your relationship with him through more time in worship and prayer, if God is calling you to step out in ministry and serve the church or community, then make the changes you need to do this. If God is calling you to make some radical changes to your life or lifestyle so you can support the work of God here or around the world – make the necessary changes to do this, because there may not be another day. If God is calling you to forgive someone or reach out and say I love you to someone, then do it today, because there may not be another day to do it.
If we are willing to listen to God and act on his direction, we will be blessed. Turn back to Psalm 90 and look at how it ends. If we number our days and live them to the fullest, God will…
90:14 - Satisfy us with your love.
90:17 – may the favor of the lord rest upon us and may God establish the work of our hands.
When we are willing to prioritize our lives the way God calls us to and then do the things God calls us to do, we will be blessed, and the work of our hands will be blessed by God. And when the work of our hands is blessed – we are making a difference in the world around us – we’re living a life that counts.
praying for illumination
Read Ephesians 1:17-23
Paul’s prayer for the people of Ephesus begins by echoing the prayer we heard last week from James. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. Last week we heard from James that if any of us lacks wisdom we should ask God and he will give it to us, and then we learned that one way God gives us wisdom is through revelation. God reveals himself and his will to us through times of prayer, through the scriptures and through the words of insight and understanding from others. But Paul goes on here and says, I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, and this is a prayer for illumination. Not only do we need to pray for ourselves and for others and for wisdom, we also need to pray for illumination, we need to pray that the eyes of our hearts might be opened so that we can begin to see what God sees.
To help us understand what all this means, let’s look at a story from the OT. In 2 Kings 6 we find the people of Israel fighting against the Arameans. Every time the Arameans set an ambush for Israel, Elisha the prophet tells the king of Israel about the coming attack and the people of Israel are able to avoid it. After a while the king of Aram is convinced there is a traitor among his leaders so he asks them, which one of you is on the side of the king of Israel, and they all answer him, No, it is none of us, my Lord, it is Elisha, the prophet, who is in Israel. He is telling the king the very words you speak, even the words you whisper in your bedroom. So the king of Aram sets out to capture Elisha and he sends a huge army with horses and chariots to surround the city of Dotham where Elisha is staying. The king of Aram sends the troops at night so they have the element of surprise and when Elisha’s servant wakes up in the morning he is surprised because everywhere he looks around the city he sees armed men on horses and in chariots. They are completely surrounded. There is no hope.
The servant runs to Elisha and says, look, we are surrounded. What are we going to do? And Elisha very calmly says, don’t be afraid, those who are with us are more than those are with them. Now the servant must have thought Elisha was either a little crazy, didn’t know his math, or maybe was still a little bleary eyed from sleep because there was certainly more troops surrounding the city then there were men within the city. The problem wasn’t math, the problem was that Elisha’s servant could not see what Elisha could see, so Elisha prays, God open the eyes of my servant so he may see and God opened his eyes and as the servant looked around the city beyond the horses and chariots of Aram, he saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire. The enemy was surrounded by the army of God and that was why Elisha was so calm and confident.
Elisha prayed for illumination because he knew it was important for his servant to be able to see the reality of God and that is what Paul is praying for us. Paul is asking God to open the eyes and the hearts of the people so they could see the love of God and the power of God at work within them and around them. For us to experience the fullness of our faith and live out our faith in ways that will change us and change the world around us, we need to see the reality of God. We need to see the power and the love of God at work in us and we need to see ourselves and our church the way God sees us. So with Paul, we need to pray for illumination and we need to ask God to open our eyes and the eyes of our heart so that we may see the hope to which he has called us, the riches of our glorious inheritance in the saints, and the incomparably great power for those of us who believe. When we look at this specific prayer, we see Paul asking God for three things, to help us see ourselves the way God sees us, for us to see the blessing we have in the church and then to see the power of God that is available for us today.
Let’s start by looking at seeing ourselves the way God sees us. I pray that you may know or see the hope to which God has called you. God has called each and every one of us. First and foremost, God calls us by name. God knows who we are. God is the one who created us and loves us and God does sees who we are in all our brokenness and sin, God sees us for who he created us to be. God sees the potential and the power that lies in each of us.
God has also called each of us for a purpose and God has given us a part in his plan for the world. If we turn to Ephesians 2:10 it says we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Think about it, from before the beginning of creation, God not only had us in mind, God had a clear purpose and plan for our lives. God has a mission and a ministry for each and every one of us today and we need to pray for illumination so that we can see that purpose and plan.
The New Testament makes clear that as members of the body of Christ we have each been given a spiritual gift that is to be used to build up the church and to reach out to the world. Look at Ephesians 4:11-13. God has given each of us gifts to be used as part of his purpose and if we are going to use them, we need to know what they are, so we need to pray for God to open our eyes so that we can see ourselves the way God does, as called and gifted men and women of faith who have a part in God’s plan for the world.
If you are searching for God’s purpose and plan but aren’t sure what it is or how God has uniquely gifted and called you, one way to find out is to start living out the things God has already made clear. Many times when we ask God to help us see the big picture - we forget that God will reveal that big picture to us as we walk with him one step at a time. If we will follow God in all the little areas of life and faith first – then God will be able to reveal to us the bigger plans he has for us. The question is, are we willing to follow God in all the little areas of life first? Are we willing to be faithful in the little things so that God can lead us to ever greater things?
There are so many things that God has already made clear to us. If you look at the notes page at the back of the bulletin you will see a list of things that God has made clear to us through his word and these are just some of the things that if we follow, God can reveal to us more of his purpose and plan for our lives.
God has called us to:
John 13:34 love one another
Romans 12:10 honor one another
Romans 15:7 welcome or receive one another
1 Corinthians 1:4 comfort one another
1 Corinthians 12:25 care for one another
Galatians 5:13 serve one another
Ephesians 4:32 be kind and forgive one another
Ephesians 5:21 submit to one another
Colossians 3:16 teach one another
1 Thessalonians 5:11 encourage one another
Hebrews 3:13 exhort one another
James 5:16 confess to and pray for one another
1 Peter 4:10 serve and minister to one another
1 John 1:7 have fellowship with one another
These are things that God has made perfectly clear to us and we have to be obedient in these things before God will reveal to us the more specific plans for our lives. We see this principle at work in the early church. If you look at Acts 11:25 it says that Barnabas and Saul were together in Antioch for an entire year with the church and what they did was live out all these things. They had fellowship with the people of God, they taught and were taught by the people of God, they encourage one another and we see that they served one another by taking an offering to the church in Jerusalem (11:29-30). They were hard at work living out all the things God had made clear to them and it was only after they had been faithful in all these things that they were then set aside for something larger.
It’s in Acts 13:2 that we find Barnabas and Paul set aside and then sent out by the church to do God’s work. This is the first missionary journey for Paul and it leads not only to the establishment of churches throughout the area, but the letters to these churches will be the word God uses to establish the church through all time. Most of the New Testament are letters that Paul sent to the churches he established on this missionary journey, but the journey only took place because Paul and Barnabas had been faithful in all the things God had first made clear to them. We begin to see God’s purpose and plan for our lives when we are willing to be faithful in the things God has already made clear.
God not only wants us to see who we really are, he also wants us to see the blessings we have when we are part of the church. Paul prays for illumination so that we may see the riches of our glorious inheritance in the saints. The good thing about this inheritance in the saints is that it is not something that awaits us in heaven; we can have the riches of this inheritance right here - right now because we are surrounded by the saints when we are part of the church. Stop and think about what we have when we are part of the body of Christ. We have people all around us who are right here to love us, honor us, welcome us, comfort us, care for us, serve us, forgive us, teach us, encourage us, minister to us, and most of all people to just be with, people to have fellowship with. There are riches that are ours when we are part of the church and when we see those riches we will work harder to stay connected to the people of God.
And then the last part of Paul’s prayer for illumination is that we would see the power of God at work in us and around us. Paul is pretty intense about our need to see God’s power– look at all the words he uses in his prayer: incomparably great power, working of God’s mighty strength which he exerted in Christ. Paul wants our eyes opened so that we can see the power of God and it’s not that he wants us to see the power of God that was at work in Jesus when he was raised him from the dead, Paul wants us to see that the power of God which raised Jesus from the dead is at work in you and me. Jesus said to his disciples that they would do even greater things than he did and it’s not because his disciples were extraordinary men, they were quite ordinary, but they would do even greater things than Jesus because the power of God was at work in them and it was working through them. The disciples changed their world. In the course of a generation, what started as a regional teaching among the Jewish people had become a powerful new religion that was taking on the powers of Rome. Great things were happening because of the power of God.
We need to see that the power of God that was at work in Jesus and the power of God that was at work in the disciples and the early church is still at work in us today and the power of God is here to open our eyes so that we might see who we really are in Christ Jesus and what riches and blessings we have because we are part of the church. The power of God that helped Jesus overcome Satan, death and the gates of hell is available to us today so that we can be victorious in any and all situations in life. If we go back to the Old Testament story of Elisha, the people of God found victory not because they outnumbered their enemy or because they were stronger than their enemy – it was because God was on their side. God is still on our side. The power of God is still on our side and it is still fighting for us. The victory might simply be finding stillness in the storms of our lives, or patience in the midst of persecution and problems, the victory might simply be seeing that the love of God is here to hold us and help us in times of need, but the victory is here if we will reach out and take hold of the power God supplies.
Paul said, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Greater is God who is in us and with us and for us, than all the forces at work against us. May God open our eyes and the eyes of our heart so that we may see this.
praying for wisdom
Today it is James who gives us instruction on prayer and what he tells us is that we need to pray for wisdom. Now wisdom here does not mean a collection of facts, James isn’t saying we need to ask God for knowledge and the ability to be smarter, the wisdom James is talking about is understanding; it’s understanding God, it’s understanding God’s ways and what is right and wrong. In the Old Testament we know it was King Solomon who asked God for wisdom but look at his prayer in 1 Kings 3:7-10. Solomon had been made king after David died and when God asks him what he wants, Solomon doesn’t ask for wealth, power or long life, he asks for wisdom, but the wisdom isn’t facts and figures, it’s not head knowledge, what Solomon wants is discernment; he wants to know right from wrong and how to lead God’s people. Solomon realized that as a leader he was going to need something to help him lead the people and so he asks God to give him a discerning heart, understanding and wisdom.
So our prayer for wisdom is really a prayer for discernment, or understanding and one of the things we see from both Solomon and James is that most of the time we pray for wisdom and understanding it’s because we are facing some kind of problem. The problem for Solomon was that he was now the king of Israel and there were a lot of issues he was going to face as the nation moved from David to him. The time of transition was going to bring many trials and Solomon had to figure out how to bring the people together and lead them in God’s way. If you think about it, most of the time we pray for wisdom or understanding it’s because we too are facing a problem. It’s when we don’t know what to do that we often turn to God and ask for help. Look at the larger context of James’ teaching. Right before he tells us to pray for wisdom he talks about facing trials. James 1:2-4. Now this in itself takes some wisdom. How can we consider it a joy when we go through difficult times?
Well, as James says, trials can be a good thing if we will allow them to strengthen us and build up our faith. The reality is that most growth and strength comes through times of trial. From a pure muscle stand point, we build up muscle in our bodies my tearing it down and then letting it build itself up again. We stretch and push our muscles because we know that it is only this process that will make them to grow and become stronger. It takes time and patience and endurance, but growth and strength only comes through times of trial and testing.
Now let me say that I do not believe God brings the trials and the problems into our lives just to cause us to grow, but when the trials and problems come they do become opportunities for us move forward with God and get stronger in our faith. The trials might be relational, financial, spiritual or physical – we don’t have to look very far to find problems in our lives today, the question is will we allow these trials to help us grow? Will we turn to God and pray for wisdom and understanding so we can learn more about God and about ourselves? The problems we face are opportunities for us to become mature and complete in our faith as James says, but only if we will turn to God and pray for wisdom.
If you are facing a trial today – if you are in the midst of a circumstance that is beyond your ability to understand and you just don’t know what to do, pray for wisdom. Pray for understanding. Cry out to God because as James say, God will give us wisdom generously and ungrudgingly. That’s the great thing about God, God wants to give us wisdom. It says God was pleased that Solomon asked for wisdom, James says God gives us wisdom without finding fault, without getting upset or frustrated. Isn’t it nice to think that every time we ask for help God doesn’t roll his eyes and say, again! I have to bail you out again? OK, I’ll do it one more time and then you are on your own. We don’t have to beg God to help us and God doesn’t give us reluctantly – he gives to us generously and joyfully.
When God gives us wisdom in times of trouble one of the things He helps us understand is the source of our trouble. Are we in trouble because we have been reluctant to follow God or just been flat out disobedient? Think about Jonah – when God called him to go to Ninevah, Jonah didn’t just say no – he ran in the other direction. Tarshish was not only in the opposite direction from Ninevah, it was as far away as you could go. Tarshish is modern day Spain so it was the end of the known earth at that point in time. So Jonah is disobedient and runs away from God & then the problems come. Literally the storms came and Jonah ended up being thrown into the sea. Many times the source of our trouble is our own rebellion and sin. When I was young my sister and I both forgot our house key so when we got home afterschool we had to climb in an open widow on the second floor of our house. When our parents asked if we had used the ladder that day because my Dad noticed that it wasn’t put back the way he had it, we both said no. When the truth finally came our, our trouble wasn’t from using the ladder, climbing in the widow, or forgetting our house key, the trouble was we lied. Many times the problems we face are because we have lied or cheated, or gotten ourselves in over our heads financially. We are often the source of our problems and while that is often painful to hear this, it’s good to know so that we can confess our sin and begin to turn away from it. Sometimes God’s wisdom shows us that the problem is us so we need to repent and begin to turn the problem around.
Another source of trouble in our lives can be Satan. The reality is that there is an accuser out there who seeks to destroy us. There are spiritual forces of darkness that are all around us and they are trying to bring division, despair, dissension and destruction. I had an interesting experience in Lewisburg a few years ago that made this very clear to me. A Bucknell student called me one day and told me that he and a friend had been downtown the night before and they wondered if any of the churches would be unlocked at night. He said they found one of the doors of our church open so went in. He said when the entered the sanctuary they felt a very strong presence of evil. He said that neither he nor his friend said anything at first, but they didn’t stay in the sanctuary or in the church very long and then on their way home they both mentioned that they felt that evil presence.
What this young man didn’t know was that at that very time our church was going through some pretty difficult situations. There were some very strong divisions in the church and some people were actively working to destroy what God was trying to do. Many Sunday’s worship could be pretty tense and so the next Sunday I went to church early and I prayed that the evil forces would be driven out. Jesus drove out demons and we are told that in his name and in the power of God we can drive out demons so I prayed that any evil forces that were seeking to bring division or destruction to God’s people would be driven out in Jesus name. Now I have to tell you that never saw anything dramatic happen when I prayed, but that Sunday worship was better. I prayed every Sunday after that and I have to say that things got significantly better in the life of the church and I believe that the turning point was prayer. There are spiritual forces of evil around us – the name Satan means accuser and the forces of evil accuse us constantly and they work to ruin us, and part of the wisdom and understanding God gives us is to recognize those forces and begin to rebuke them, or pray in Jesus name to overcome them.
Now many of the problems we face in life are simply because we live in a fallen and broken world. People get sick, accidents happen, jobs are lost and finances get tight not because of evil forces or our own sin, sometimes things just aren’t the way we want them to be, and sometimes things aren’t the way God wants them to be. During these times of crisis it is still important to pray for wisdom and understanding because if nothing else, prayer reminds us that God is still with us. Praying for wisdom when things are just out of our control helps reaffirm our faith and it reminds us that God is here to help us.
So we pray for wisdom during times of trial so we can understand the source of our problems and then begin to find the solution to the problem. If the problem is sin, we need to repent, if the problem is Satan we need to rebuke him and if the problem is simply the reality of living in a fallen and broken world, then we need to reaffirm our faith that God is with us.
Now the question that often comes up when we talk about praying for wisdom is how will God give us wisdom and understand?
First and foremost – God gives us wisdom through his word. Hebrews 4 says the word of God is living and active. The word of God still speaks to us today it can give understanding to relationships, it can give direction to our finances, it can even guide us when we have difficult decisions to make.
It was a year ago this Sunday that it was announced both here and in Lewisburg that I would be leaving St. Paul’s to come to Faith Church. This was not an easy decision for me to make and so in my own crisis of decision making, I asked God for wisdom and I specifically asked God to speak to me through his word. I just needed something clear and objective to speak to my situation. As I was wrestling with my decision God led me to a passage from Matthew that made his direction clear. The verse was Matthew 5:4 which says, Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. When I read that in the Message it said, you are blessed when you give up everything you hold most dear, because then you can hold on to the one most dear. God made it clear to me that what I wanted to hold on to was my life and ministry in Lewisburg, but that I would only be blessed if I was willing to let that go and hold on to God. God’s word is living and active and it can gives us wisdom and understanding and clear direction if we will read it with open minds and hearts and allow it to speak to our lives.
God can also use the words of others to bring us wisdom. God places all kinds of people in all our lives that can either help us understand God’s word, or maybe they just say something that makes perfect sense to us at a time when we needed some help. When I was in college I thought about transferring from MSU to USC to attend their film school. I thought I had it all worked out and was ready to go and I was talking on the phone one day to my Grandfather who listened to me and then said with profound wisdom, CA is too far away from your family and family is important. In my youth and arrogance, I kind of blew off his words, and I headed off in my own direction and made a few mistakes along the way. What’s been interesting is that through the years when I have had decisions to make about where I will live, I have come back to my Grandfather’s words. Family is important, being close to family is important. It’s not always possible, but if we can choose to be close to our family we might want to seriously take that into consideration.
What God made clear to me from that incident is that He sends people into our lives to teach us and give us wisdom. The one book of the Bible that we most often associate with wisdom is the book of proverbs. Look at the very beginning of the book. Proverbs 1:1-7. While God is the source of all wisdom, look at verse 8. Proverbs 1:8. We need to listen and heed the instruction of our parents and grandparents. I know when we are young it is tempting to think that we know it all, but we don’t and occasionally our parents have some helpful insight. Even as we get older we can find incredible wisdom from the generations who has gone before us. Even thinking about the financial crisis we face as a nation, there is a lot of wisdom to gain from those who have lived through the depression – hearing their stories can keep us from despair and help us make it through. Proverbs says over and over again that we are to listen to our parents, or to those who have gone before us.
There is one more way that God can give us wisdom and for this we are going to look at Proverbs 3:13. What Solomon is saying is that when we find wisdom we will find happiness. If we make a decision and have absolutely no peace about it, then maybe we still need to search for God’s wisdom, but if we are at peace – if we are happy – everything may not go smoothly and there still may be some trials, but if we are at peace, then we can have some assurance that we are walking in the wisdom of God. So when we pray for wisdom we can’t just sit back and expect God to impart understanding into our hearts and minds, we have to read his word, we have to listen to the wisdom of others and we need to act on God’s word and then see if we experience peace.
We need to say one more thing about praying for wisdom and that is that we have to pray with faith. Turn back to James 1:5-8.
When we pray for wisdom we have to pray with faith. It sounds like common sense, but I am amazed at how often we pray for something but then don’t act as if God has even heard us. You may have heard the story about the small town in the Midwest that a few years ago when the drought was pretty severe they decided to hold a rally and pray for rain. All the ministers showed up to pray, all the leaders of the churches showed up to pray, and all the community leaders showed up to pray and they prayed for God to bring them with rain, but they didn’t pray with faith. There was only one person there who prayed with faith that day, it was a little boy and the reason we know he prayed with faith was because he was the only one who brought an umbrella.
How often do we pray for wisdom and ask God to help us, but then turn around and act as if God didn’t even hear us. James tells us that we have to pray with faith, this means when we ask God to give us wisdom we have to go out and look for it and listen for it. If we ask God for wisdom during times of trouble we have to reflect on the source of the trouble and see if God is calling us to repent, or rebuke the evil one, or reaffirm our faith and trust in Him. And if we are going to pray for wisdom then we also might have to search for understanding and truth and be willing to read God’s word and listen to those around us. Praying for wisdom with faith means that when get up off our knees we are ready to search for God’s wisdom, we are ready to hear it and then act on in when we find it.
So our prayer for wisdom is really a prayer for discernment, or understanding and one of the things we see from both Solomon and James is that most of the time we pray for wisdom and understanding it’s because we are facing some kind of problem. The problem for Solomon was that he was now the king of Israel and there were a lot of issues he was going to face as the nation moved from David to him. The time of transition was going to bring many trials and Solomon had to figure out how to bring the people together and lead them in God’s way. If you think about it, most of the time we pray for wisdom or understanding it’s because we too are facing a problem. It’s when we don’t know what to do that we often turn to God and ask for help. Look at the larger context of James’ teaching. Right before he tells us to pray for wisdom he talks about facing trials. James 1:2-4. Now this in itself takes some wisdom. How can we consider it a joy when we go through difficult times?
Well, as James says, trials can be a good thing if we will allow them to strengthen us and build up our faith. The reality is that most growth and strength comes through times of trial. From a pure muscle stand point, we build up muscle in our bodies my tearing it down and then letting it build itself up again. We stretch and push our muscles because we know that it is only this process that will make them to grow and become stronger. It takes time and patience and endurance, but growth and strength only comes through times of trial and testing.
Now let me say that I do not believe God brings the trials and the problems into our lives just to cause us to grow, but when the trials and problems come they do become opportunities for us move forward with God and get stronger in our faith. The trials might be relational, financial, spiritual or physical – we don’t have to look very far to find problems in our lives today, the question is will we allow these trials to help us grow? Will we turn to God and pray for wisdom and understanding so we can learn more about God and about ourselves? The problems we face are opportunities for us to become mature and complete in our faith as James says, but only if we will turn to God and pray for wisdom.
If you are facing a trial today – if you are in the midst of a circumstance that is beyond your ability to understand and you just don’t know what to do, pray for wisdom. Pray for understanding. Cry out to God because as James say, God will give us wisdom generously and ungrudgingly. That’s the great thing about God, God wants to give us wisdom. It says God was pleased that Solomon asked for wisdom, James says God gives us wisdom without finding fault, without getting upset or frustrated. Isn’t it nice to think that every time we ask for help God doesn’t roll his eyes and say, again! I have to bail you out again? OK, I’ll do it one more time and then you are on your own. We don’t have to beg God to help us and God doesn’t give us reluctantly – he gives to us generously and joyfully.
When God gives us wisdom in times of trouble one of the things He helps us understand is the source of our trouble. Are we in trouble because we have been reluctant to follow God or just been flat out disobedient? Think about Jonah – when God called him to go to Ninevah, Jonah didn’t just say no – he ran in the other direction. Tarshish was not only in the opposite direction from Ninevah, it was as far away as you could go. Tarshish is modern day Spain so it was the end of the known earth at that point in time. So Jonah is disobedient and runs away from God & then the problems come. Literally the storms came and Jonah ended up being thrown into the sea. Many times the source of our trouble is our own rebellion and sin. When I was young my sister and I both forgot our house key so when we got home afterschool we had to climb in an open widow on the second floor of our house. When our parents asked if we had used the ladder that day because my Dad noticed that it wasn’t put back the way he had it, we both said no. When the truth finally came our, our trouble wasn’t from using the ladder, climbing in the widow, or forgetting our house key, the trouble was we lied. Many times the problems we face are because we have lied or cheated, or gotten ourselves in over our heads financially. We are often the source of our problems and while that is often painful to hear this, it’s good to know so that we can confess our sin and begin to turn away from it. Sometimes God’s wisdom shows us that the problem is us so we need to repent and begin to turn the problem around.
Another source of trouble in our lives can be Satan. The reality is that there is an accuser out there who seeks to destroy us. There are spiritual forces of darkness that are all around us and they are trying to bring division, despair, dissension and destruction. I had an interesting experience in Lewisburg a few years ago that made this very clear to me. A Bucknell student called me one day and told me that he and a friend had been downtown the night before and they wondered if any of the churches would be unlocked at night. He said they found one of the doors of our church open so went in. He said when the entered the sanctuary they felt a very strong presence of evil. He said that neither he nor his friend said anything at first, but they didn’t stay in the sanctuary or in the church very long and then on their way home they both mentioned that they felt that evil presence.
What this young man didn’t know was that at that very time our church was going through some pretty difficult situations. There were some very strong divisions in the church and some people were actively working to destroy what God was trying to do. Many Sunday’s worship could be pretty tense and so the next Sunday I went to church early and I prayed that the evil forces would be driven out. Jesus drove out demons and we are told that in his name and in the power of God we can drive out demons so I prayed that any evil forces that were seeking to bring division or destruction to God’s people would be driven out in Jesus name. Now I have to tell you that never saw anything dramatic happen when I prayed, but that Sunday worship was better. I prayed every Sunday after that and I have to say that things got significantly better in the life of the church and I believe that the turning point was prayer. There are spiritual forces of evil around us – the name Satan means accuser and the forces of evil accuse us constantly and they work to ruin us, and part of the wisdom and understanding God gives us is to recognize those forces and begin to rebuke them, or pray in Jesus name to overcome them.
Now many of the problems we face in life are simply because we live in a fallen and broken world. People get sick, accidents happen, jobs are lost and finances get tight not because of evil forces or our own sin, sometimes things just aren’t the way we want them to be, and sometimes things aren’t the way God wants them to be. During these times of crisis it is still important to pray for wisdom and understanding because if nothing else, prayer reminds us that God is still with us. Praying for wisdom when things are just out of our control helps reaffirm our faith and it reminds us that God is here to help us.
So we pray for wisdom during times of trial so we can understand the source of our problems and then begin to find the solution to the problem. If the problem is sin, we need to repent, if the problem is Satan we need to rebuke him and if the problem is simply the reality of living in a fallen and broken world, then we need to reaffirm our faith that God is with us.
Now the question that often comes up when we talk about praying for wisdom is how will God give us wisdom and understand?
First and foremost – God gives us wisdom through his word. Hebrews 4 says the word of God is living and active. The word of God still speaks to us today it can give understanding to relationships, it can give direction to our finances, it can even guide us when we have difficult decisions to make.
It was a year ago this Sunday that it was announced both here and in Lewisburg that I would be leaving St. Paul’s to come to Faith Church. This was not an easy decision for me to make and so in my own crisis of decision making, I asked God for wisdom and I specifically asked God to speak to me through his word. I just needed something clear and objective to speak to my situation. As I was wrestling with my decision God led me to a passage from Matthew that made his direction clear. The verse was Matthew 5:4 which says, Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. When I read that in the Message it said, you are blessed when you give up everything you hold most dear, because then you can hold on to the one most dear. God made it clear to me that what I wanted to hold on to was my life and ministry in Lewisburg, but that I would only be blessed if I was willing to let that go and hold on to God. God’s word is living and active and it can gives us wisdom and understanding and clear direction if we will read it with open minds and hearts and allow it to speak to our lives.
God can also use the words of others to bring us wisdom. God places all kinds of people in all our lives that can either help us understand God’s word, or maybe they just say something that makes perfect sense to us at a time when we needed some help. When I was in college I thought about transferring from MSU to USC to attend their film school. I thought I had it all worked out and was ready to go and I was talking on the phone one day to my Grandfather who listened to me and then said with profound wisdom, CA is too far away from your family and family is important. In my youth and arrogance, I kind of blew off his words, and I headed off in my own direction and made a few mistakes along the way. What’s been interesting is that through the years when I have had decisions to make about where I will live, I have come back to my Grandfather’s words. Family is important, being close to family is important. It’s not always possible, but if we can choose to be close to our family we might want to seriously take that into consideration.
What God made clear to me from that incident is that He sends people into our lives to teach us and give us wisdom. The one book of the Bible that we most often associate with wisdom is the book of proverbs. Look at the very beginning of the book. Proverbs 1:1-7. While God is the source of all wisdom, look at verse 8. Proverbs 1:8. We need to listen and heed the instruction of our parents and grandparents. I know when we are young it is tempting to think that we know it all, but we don’t and occasionally our parents have some helpful insight. Even as we get older we can find incredible wisdom from the generations who has gone before us. Even thinking about the financial crisis we face as a nation, there is a lot of wisdom to gain from those who have lived through the depression – hearing their stories can keep us from despair and help us make it through. Proverbs says over and over again that we are to listen to our parents, or to those who have gone before us.
There is one more way that God can give us wisdom and for this we are going to look at Proverbs 3:13. What Solomon is saying is that when we find wisdom we will find happiness. If we make a decision and have absolutely no peace about it, then maybe we still need to search for God’s wisdom, but if we are at peace – if we are happy – everything may not go smoothly and there still may be some trials, but if we are at peace, then we can have some assurance that we are walking in the wisdom of God. So when we pray for wisdom we can’t just sit back and expect God to impart understanding into our hearts and minds, we have to read his word, we have to listen to the wisdom of others and we need to act on God’s word and then see if we experience peace.
We need to say one more thing about praying for wisdom and that is that we have to pray with faith. Turn back to James 1:5-8.
When we pray for wisdom we have to pray with faith. It sounds like common sense, but I am amazed at how often we pray for something but then don’t act as if God has even heard us. You may have heard the story about the small town in the Midwest that a few years ago when the drought was pretty severe they decided to hold a rally and pray for rain. All the ministers showed up to pray, all the leaders of the churches showed up to pray, and all the community leaders showed up to pray and they prayed for God to bring them with rain, but they didn’t pray with faith. There was only one person there who prayed with faith that day, it was a little boy and the reason we know he prayed with faith was because he was the only one who brought an umbrella.
How often do we pray for wisdom and ask God to help us, but then turn around and act as if God didn’t even hear us. James tells us that we have to pray with faith, this means when we ask God to give us wisdom we have to go out and look for it and listen for it. If we ask God for wisdom during times of trouble we have to reflect on the source of the trouble and see if God is calling us to repent, or rebuke the evil one, or reaffirm our faith and trust in Him. And if we are going to pray for wisdom then we also might have to search for understanding and truth and be willing to read God’s word and listen to those around us. Praying for wisdom with faith means that when get up off our knees we are ready to search for God’s wisdom, we are ready to hear it and then act on in when we find it.
praying for others
Last week we began a study on prayer and from Psalm 20 we learned that when we pray for ourselves, one of the things we are to pray for is deliverance. In our times of need we are to cry out to God for help and then we need to trust that God will be there to help us. One of the great things about crying out to God is that whether or not God answers us immediately or the response is what we would it to be, the cry for help reminds us that God is always there. If nothing else, when we cry out to God for deliverance we are strengthened by the thought that we are not alone.
We also learned from Psalm 20 that w are to pray for the desires of our heart as long as those desires honor God, honor ourselves and those around us. I think God heard the desires of many people’s hearts last Sunday in the final 2 ½ minutes of the super bowl, at least God heard those wearing black and gold. But God does want us to share with him the desires of our heart and the reason God wants us to share those with him and the reason God works to bless us is because God loves us, and as a loving heavenly father God wants to provide and care for us. So when we pray for ourselves we need to pray for deliverance in times of need and we need to ask God for the desires of our heart.
Today I want us to reflect on how we are to pray for others and to do that I want us to look at the very first teaching Jesus gives us on prayer. I have to admit, that I did not realize that this was the first public teaching that Jesus gave on prayer until someone pointed that out, but it is. It’s the first time the word prayer is used in the gospel of Matthew and if we believe that the sermon on the mount was one of the very first public teachings in Jesus ministry, then this would be Jesus first teaching on prayer. Look with me at Matthew 5:43-48
I don’t know about you, but I was surprised to find out that the first instruction that Jesus gives us on prayer is not the example of the Lord’s prayer or how we are to pray with faith, the first teaching on prayer is a call for us to pray for our enemies, and it’s really not a general enemy Jesus is talking about, it’s those who persecute us. The word persecutes literally means those who chase after us or press forward against us seeking to do us harm. So it’s not just those who are somehow against us that we are to pray for, it’s those who are pursuing us and intentionally trying to hurt us. So as we look at what it means for us to pray for others, we have to start where Jesus starts and think about praying for those who persecute us. Now you might be saying to yourself, yes, but Jesus doesn’t tell us how to pray for them, so we can simply pray for them to be destroyed right? As tempting as that might be, we have to take this teaching of Jesus and put it in its larger context. Look back to what Jesus says in Matthew 5:44, I tell you, love you enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So the prayers we offer up for our enemies have to be offered up in the context of love, not hate. We can’t ask God to curse our enemies or destroy those who persecute us – we have to pray for God to love them and to bless them.
But let’s be clear, asking God to bless our enemies does not mean we ask God to make all their evil plans and all the evil intent of their hearts succeed. Asking God to bless our enemies may be asking God to open their eyes so they could see the love and grace of God which might help them see the evil of their ways and the harm they are causing. When we pray for those who persecute us, we start by asking God to soften their hearts and lives so they might know his love. When any of us begin to understand and experience the love of God, we also begin to see the harm we are causing to others and so God’s grace and love helps us begin to turn away from those hurtful ways. This process of turning is called repentance. When we ask God to bless our enemies part of what we are saying is that we want God’s love and grace to lead them to a place of repentance. We want our enemies to know God’s love so they can experience and live a new life.
Praying for our enemies is not only important for their life and their spiritual well being, it’s also important for ours because praying for our enemies won’t just change them, it will change us. Something amazing happens when we start praying for those who persecute us. When we pray for the well being of others we begin to see them in a different way. When we pray for others we begin to see them as children of God who are loved by God and so over time our attitude and actions towards them changes. As we pray for our enemies, we are set free from any anger, bitterness and hatred that might be building up in us. In short, when we pray for our enemies – we begin a process of forgiving them.
I encourage you to try this, if there is someone that you are really struggling with at the moment, a coworker who is making your life miserable, a friend you have had a falling out with, maybe even a spouse or an ex spouse who has said or done some pretty hurtful things, like Jesus, I invite you to pray for them. Pray for those who persecute you, daily lift them these people up to God and ask God to bless them and see if your own heart and attitude towards them begins to change. I think what happens is that when we pray for others our heart is also softened and we realize how God’s grace and love have forgiven and delivered us and so it’s easier to offer that love and grace and forgiveness to others.
This is not an easy thing to do, all of our natural instinct tells us to fight back and retaliate against those who are pursuing us and seeking to hurt us, but Jesus clearly calls us to another way of life, and Jesus shows us what this life and what this prayer looks like. Turn with me to Luke 23:34. Jesus has been betrayed by one of his own disciples, he has been deserted by the rest of his disciples, the religious leaders have turned against him and now Rome has agreed to execute him and Jesus has done nothing wrong. Clearly Jesus is being persecuted. People are out to get him. They intentionally want to harm him, in fact they have been plotting and planning this. After Jesus has been nailed to the cross the taunting and the persecution doesn’t stop. Not only have the pursued Jesus to the cross, even hanging on the cross people are coming by to mock him and yet from the cross Jesus prays, Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. From the cross Jesus looks down and literally he sees the people who are directly persecuting him, and while he could have been filled with righteous anger and rage and lashed out at his enemies– he didn’t, he prayed for those who persecuted him and he prayed for God to forgive them. He’s asking God to bless them with grace and love. That’s the standard. That’s the example of what it means to pray for those who persecute us, are we willing to ask God to bless those who pursue us and we are willing to forgive those who are seeking our downfall or destruction.
As we think about praying for others, it’s not just our enemies we are to pray for, there is another group that the Bible clearly says we are to lift up in prayer. Turn and look at 1 Timothy 2:1.
Here we are told to offer up requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings for our kings and all those in authority. Now when we hear this we think of our president and congress and state and local leaders. We might even think of other world leaders, but when the people Paul is writing to hear this, the kings and all those in authority at that point in time were their enemies. Remember that at the time Paul is writing Christians were being persecuted. Literally Christians were being thrown to the lions or burned at the stake. There were horrible persecutions which took place under the Roman emperors where hundreds of people were killed because of their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. So while we read this as a call to pray for our elected leaders, this was actually another call by God for His people to pray for those who persecute us.
No matter what we might think of our elected officials today, they are not seeking to put us to death, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still pray for them. We are called to pray for our leaders and it’s important for us to do this because our leaders today are making some serious and important decisions that will affect us all. Even thinking about the stimulus package that the congress is debating right now – we need to pray for our leaders that they have wisdom and guidance. To not pass the bill might do more damage to our economy, but to pass the bill is going to increase the debt and leave a huge problem for our children and grandchildren – so what do we do? All I can say is that I am glad I am not making those decisions today, but am I willing to pray for the leaders who are?
As we think about praying for our national, state and local leaders, here are 3 ways we can pray for them
#1 we need to pray that God will rescue them. We need to pray for the spiritual well being of our leaders. We need to pray that our leaders are guided by a deep and abiding faith and trust in God. So we can pray for God to rescue them, to save them and deliver them
#2 we need to pray that God would give them revelation. We need to ask God to speak clearly to our leaders so that they would have divine wisdom and guidance in what they are doing. Whether they are believers or not doesn’t matter, we can ask God to speak clearly to our leaders and when we face serious economic, social and international issues, we need our leaders to be led by the wisdom of God. So we need pray that God would reveal his truth to them.
#3 we need to pray that our leaders would be refreshed. With the weighty and difficult decisions we ask our leaders to make today, we need them at their best and so we need to bless them with prayers for their rest and refreshment.
So when we stop to pray for our leaders, from President Obama, to our own representative Kerry Benninghoff, we need to pray that God would rescue them from any trouble and deepen their faith. We need to pray that God would reveal to them his wisdom and discernment and that God would keep the relatable and refreshed.
Now let me also say that these four prayers are also important for all of our spiritual leaders as well. While Paul’s letter to Timothy talks about political leaders, many other times Paul asks people to pray for him and for all those who are in positions of authority and leadership in the life of the church. As a spiritual leader, let me say that I hope that you are praying these 4 things for me. I need your prayers and the leaders of the Faith Church need your prayers and the leaders in the UMC need your prayers and so I invite you to pray for us. As a leader I still need God to rescue me and deliver me. I still God to deepen and develop my personal faith. I don’t have it all together at times, I am still a sinner and need God’s love and grace to bring me to places of repentance. I still need revelation and God to speak to me clearly and I need God to help bring me rest and refreshment so that I can be at my best and hear God’s word and see God’s visions. So I need your prayers and the all the leaders of faith church need your prayers. Sunday School teachers need your prayers, worship leaders need your prayers, those who serve in mission and ministry need your prayers, those who make decisions for the church in the areas of finance and building and staffing need your prayers and we all need people to be praying for our own personal faith, we need to be rescued, we need God’s revelation and we need periods of rest and refreshment so we can be at our best when we serve God and give direction to the church.
I want to close to day with prayers for the leaders of the church…
We also learned from Psalm 20 that w are to pray for the desires of our heart as long as those desires honor God, honor ourselves and those around us. I think God heard the desires of many people’s hearts last Sunday in the final 2 ½ minutes of the super bowl, at least God heard those wearing black and gold. But God does want us to share with him the desires of our heart and the reason God wants us to share those with him and the reason God works to bless us is because God loves us, and as a loving heavenly father God wants to provide and care for us. So when we pray for ourselves we need to pray for deliverance in times of need and we need to ask God for the desires of our heart.
Today I want us to reflect on how we are to pray for others and to do that I want us to look at the very first teaching Jesus gives us on prayer. I have to admit, that I did not realize that this was the first public teaching that Jesus gave on prayer until someone pointed that out, but it is. It’s the first time the word prayer is used in the gospel of Matthew and if we believe that the sermon on the mount was one of the very first public teachings in Jesus ministry, then this would be Jesus first teaching on prayer. Look with me at Matthew 5:43-48
I don’t know about you, but I was surprised to find out that the first instruction that Jesus gives us on prayer is not the example of the Lord’s prayer or how we are to pray with faith, the first teaching on prayer is a call for us to pray for our enemies, and it’s really not a general enemy Jesus is talking about, it’s those who persecute us. The word persecutes literally means those who chase after us or press forward against us seeking to do us harm. So it’s not just those who are somehow against us that we are to pray for, it’s those who are pursuing us and intentionally trying to hurt us. So as we look at what it means for us to pray for others, we have to start where Jesus starts and think about praying for those who persecute us. Now you might be saying to yourself, yes, but Jesus doesn’t tell us how to pray for them, so we can simply pray for them to be destroyed right? As tempting as that might be, we have to take this teaching of Jesus and put it in its larger context. Look back to what Jesus says in Matthew 5:44, I tell you, love you enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So the prayers we offer up for our enemies have to be offered up in the context of love, not hate. We can’t ask God to curse our enemies or destroy those who persecute us – we have to pray for God to love them and to bless them.
But let’s be clear, asking God to bless our enemies does not mean we ask God to make all their evil plans and all the evil intent of their hearts succeed. Asking God to bless our enemies may be asking God to open their eyes so they could see the love and grace of God which might help them see the evil of their ways and the harm they are causing. When we pray for those who persecute us, we start by asking God to soften their hearts and lives so they might know his love. When any of us begin to understand and experience the love of God, we also begin to see the harm we are causing to others and so God’s grace and love helps us begin to turn away from those hurtful ways. This process of turning is called repentance. When we ask God to bless our enemies part of what we are saying is that we want God’s love and grace to lead them to a place of repentance. We want our enemies to know God’s love so they can experience and live a new life.
Praying for our enemies is not only important for their life and their spiritual well being, it’s also important for ours because praying for our enemies won’t just change them, it will change us. Something amazing happens when we start praying for those who persecute us. When we pray for the well being of others we begin to see them in a different way. When we pray for others we begin to see them as children of God who are loved by God and so over time our attitude and actions towards them changes. As we pray for our enemies, we are set free from any anger, bitterness and hatred that might be building up in us. In short, when we pray for our enemies – we begin a process of forgiving them.
I encourage you to try this, if there is someone that you are really struggling with at the moment, a coworker who is making your life miserable, a friend you have had a falling out with, maybe even a spouse or an ex spouse who has said or done some pretty hurtful things, like Jesus, I invite you to pray for them. Pray for those who persecute you, daily lift them these people up to God and ask God to bless them and see if your own heart and attitude towards them begins to change. I think what happens is that when we pray for others our heart is also softened and we realize how God’s grace and love have forgiven and delivered us and so it’s easier to offer that love and grace and forgiveness to others.
This is not an easy thing to do, all of our natural instinct tells us to fight back and retaliate against those who are pursuing us and seeking to hurt us, but Jesus clearly calls us to another way of life, and Jesus shows us what this life and what this prayer looks like. Turn with me to Luke 23:34. Jesus has been betrayed by one of his own disciples, he has been deserted by the rest of his disciples, the religious leaders have turned against him and now Rome has agreed to execute him and Jesus has done nothing wrong. Clearly Jesus is being persecuted. People are out to get him. They intentionally want to harm him, in fact they have been plotting and planning this. After Jesus has been nailed to the cross the taunting and the persecution doesn’t stop. Not only have the pursued Jesus to the cross, even hanging on the cross people are coming by to mock him and yet from the cross Jesus prays, Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. From the cross Jesus looks down and literally he sees the people who are directly persecuting him, and while he could have been filled with righteous anger and rage and lashed out at his enemies– he didn’t, he prayed for those who persecuted him and he prayed for God to forgive them. He’s asking God to bless them with grace and love. That’s the standard. That’s the example of what it means to pray for those who persecute us, are we willing to ask God to bless those who pursue us and we are willing to forgive those who are seeking our downfall or destruction.
As we think about praying for others, it’s not just our enemies we are to pray for, there is another group that the Bible clearly says we are to lift up in prayer. Turn and look at 1 Timothy 2:1.
Here we are told to offer up requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings for our kings and all those in authority. Now when we hear this we think of our president and congress and state and local leaders. We might even think of other world leaders, but when the people Paul is writing to hear this, the kings and all those in authority at that point in time were their enemies. Remember that at the time Paul is writing Christians were being persecuted. Literally Christians were being thrown to the lions or burned at the stake. There were horrible persecutions which took place under the Roman emperors where hundreds of people were killed because of their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. So while we read this as a call to pray for our elected leaders, this was actually another call by God for His people to pray for those who persecute us.
No matter what we might think of our elected officials today, they are not seeking to put us to death, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still pray for them. We are called to pray for our leaders and it’s important for us to do this because our leaders today are making some serious and important decisions that will affect us all. Even thinking about the stimulus package that the congress is debating right now – we need to pray for our leaders that they have wisdom and guidance. To not pass the bill might do more damage to our economy, but to pass the bill is going to increase the debt and leave a huge problem for our children and grandchildren – so what do we do? All I can say is that I am glad I am not making those decisions today, but am I willing to pray for the leaders who are?
As we think about praying for our national, state and local leaders, here are 3 ways we can pray for them
#1 we need to pray that God will rescue them. We need to pray for the spiritual well being of our leaders. We need to pray that our leaders are guided by a deep and abiding faith and trust in God. So we can pray for God to rescue them, to save them and deliver them
#2 we need to pray that God would give them revelation. We need to ask God to speak clearly to our leaders so that they would have divine wisdom and guidance in what they are doing. Whether they are believers or not doesn’t matter, we can ask God to speak clearly to our leaders and when we face serious economic, social and international issues, we need our leaders to be led by the wisdom of God. So we need pray that God would reveal his truth to them.
#3 we need to pray that our leaders would be refreshed. With the weighty and difficult decisions we ask our leaders to make today, we need them at their best and so we need to bless them with prayers for their rest and refreshment.
So when we stop to pray for our leaders, from President Obama, to our own representative Kerry Benninghoff, we need to pray that God would rescue them from any trouble and deepen their faith. We need to pray that God would reveal to them his wisdom and discernment and that God would keep the relatable and refreshed.
Now let me also say that these four prayers are also important for all of our spiritual leaders as well. While Paul’s letter to Timothy talks about political leaders, many other times Paul asks people to pray for him and for all those who are in positions of authority and leadership in the life of the church. As a spiritual leader, let me say that I hope that you are praying these 4 things for me. I need your prayers and the leaders of the Faith Church need your prayers and the leaders in the UMC need your prayers and so I invite you to pray for us. As a leader I still need God to rescue me and deliver me. I still God to deepen and develop my personal faith. I don’t have it all together at times, I am still a sinner and need God’s love and grace to bring me to places of repentance. I still need revelation and God to speak to me clearly and I need God to help bring me rest and refreshment so that I can be at my best and hear God’s word and see God’s visions. So I need your prayers and the all the leaders of faith church need your prayers. Sunday School teachers need your prayers, worship leaders need your prayers, those who serve in mission and ministry need your prayers, those who make decisions for the church in the areas of finance and building and staffing need your prayers and we all need people to be praying for our own personal faith, we need to be rescued, we need God’s revelation and we need periods of rest and refreshment so we can be at our best when we serve God and give direction to the church.
I want to close to day with prayers for the leaders of the church…
praying for ourselves
For the next several weeks we are going to focus on prayers and petitions that we find in scripture. There is no doubt that prayer needs to be the foundation of our spiritual life. Even Jesus built his life and ministry on prayer and so it is important for us to not only pray, but to know how to pray and what to pray for. Today we are going to reflect on what it means to pray for ourselves. I was asked by a college student in Lewisburg if there was something wrong with asking people to pray for him because in all the time he had spent in our church he had never heard anyone ask people to pray for themselves, and I have to admit he was right. In most churches and small groups I have been a part of we don’t really ask people to pray for us. Maybe we feel like it’s selfish, or maybe it’s an issue of pride, whatever it is, we can’t be afraid to pray for ourselves and ask others to pray for us and Psalm 20 gives us two clear requests or petitions we are to make for ourselves and the first one is a prayer for deliverance, look at Psalm 20:1
May the Lord answer you when you are in distress
The NRSV say, may the lord answer you in the day of trouble. Now is there anyone here besides me who knows something about a day of trouble? Anyone ever experience some distress? The truth is we have all experienced some kind of trouble in life. It might be a health issue, maybe it’s a financial crisis, maybe it’s a family or relationship problem, maybe it’s just a spiritual issue of feeling lost and confused –we have all had a day of trouble, maybe we have even had a couple days, maybe your day of trouble is today. The question is what do we do during these days? Psalm 20 makes it clear that when we are distress, we are to cry out to God. In fact, Psalm 20:1 assumes that in our distress or trouble that we have already cried to God. May the Lord answer you when you are in distress assumes we have already asked God for help.
So one of the prayers we are to make for ourselves is a prayer for deliverance and it doesn’t matter what the distress or the problem is, whenever we are in need, we are to cry out to God.
Turn with me to Psalm 107:4-5.
The people here are wandering in the desert. They are unsure of where to go or what to do. They are hungry and thirsty and all that they really know is that they are looking for something. They want something that will satisfy them deeply, but they don’t know where to turn and they don’t know how to get what they need. Have you ever experienced this kind of distress? Have you ever been unsure where to turn but you just know you need something more in your life? Have you ever experienced a spiritual hunger and thirst but you didn’t know where to go to find fulfillment?
Sometimes we think this kind of wandering is only a problem for young people, but the truth is we all face moments when life seems to be empty and we want more. In his book Half-time, Bob Buford says that many people spend the first half of their life searching for success, but success often leaves us feeling hungry and thirsty – we aren’t completely satisfied, so we spend the second half of our life searching for significance. This search for significance is really just wanting something more, something that will last and satisfy us deeply. The question is what do we do if when we feel like we want or need more in life? Where do we turn when we are feeling lost or confused? Look at Psalm 107:6 – the people here cried out to God & God delivered them. When the people turned to God for help, God led them to a place where they could settle down and experience a fuller and more abundant life. God led them to a place where they could find not only food and water, but safety and security and satisfaction. When they cried out to God – God delivered them and God provided for them.
Now look at Psalm 107:10 – 11. The people here are experiencing darkness and bondage. They are feeling trapped they can’t break free from their prison. Have you experienced this kind of distress? It might be the bondage of an addiction, or the prison of despair. It might be something as simple as patterns of thought and behavior that we know are wrong, but we can’t find the strength to break free from. The apostle Paul said it so clearly when he said, the good I want to do, I don’t do, but the evil I don’t want to do, that I keep doing. We all know that feeling and it is a form of bondage and darkness. We become slaves to wrong thinking, bad attitudes, hurtful actions and it becomes so much a part of our lives that as hard as we try, we can’t set ourselves free. If this is the day of trouble we are experiencing, what can we do? Look at Psalm 107:13. The people cried out to God and God delivered them. God brought them out of the darkness and broke away their chains. God set them free. When we cry out to God in the midst of our bondage, God will deliver us.
Now look at Psalm 107:17. The people here are in distress because of their own stupidity or their own sin. Their foolish and rebellious ways have gotten them trouble. Now is there anyone here beside me who can identify with this? How often is it that our own problems get us into trouble? We say or do something before we think and we end up hurting someone we love. Our pride, our greed, our ego get us in trouble and we know it’s our own fault and we know that our day of distress is totally our own doing. Now surely these are the kind of problems we have to fix ourselves right? Wrong – look at Psalm 107:19.
The people cried out to God and God saved them from their distress. In other words God saved them from themselves, from the problems they created and the sins of their own heart and life. And I love how God did it – God sent forth his word and healed them. What is this word? Well, the word of God we read over and over in the OT is a word of love and grace and forgiveness that God offers continuously. The word of God in the NT is Jesus himself, the word made flesh, and what did Jesus come to do but offer us grace & forgiveness. So when we cry out to God in them midst of our sin – God delivers us. God forgives us and God heals us.
Finally, look at Psalm 107:23. These people are experiencing storms which cause them to be terrified. Their courage is melted away. They are at their wits end. Ever experience a storm in life that leaves you terrified and hopeless? Maybe it’s the storm of a disease, the storm of a divorce, or depression, or doubt. There are so many storms that batter us daily & these storms work to undermine our faith and trust at the very moment we need faith and trust the most. In that day of trouble – what will we do? Look at Psalm 107:28. God delivered them and God calmed the storm.
Can we see the pattern here? When the people are in distress they cry out to God, God hears them and God delivers them. We can’t be afraid to cry out to God in times of distress and in our own day of trouble because I believe God is waiting to deliver us. I believe this because this has been my own personal experience of God. During college I had my own day of trouble and like most of us it was a combination of all that we see in Psalm 107. I was searching for something more but didn’t know where to go so I turned to all the wrong things in life. I was filled with pride and sin and made some very poor choices and this all brought on some pretty intense storms. When I couldn’t get any lower and really felt like I was in a hopeless situation, I finally cried out to God because I had no where else to turn, & from the pit of my despair, God heard my cry and God delivered me. I have always believed that the words of Psalm 18 have reflected this time of my life, in fact, I first came across this psalm just a few months after God delivered me from my own storm of doubt and despair. Again, from this psalm we hear this amazing truth that when we cry out to God – God not only hears us but God delivers us. Psalm 18:18:4-6, 16-19.
So Psalm 20 shows us that one of the prayers that we need to lift up on our own behalf is a prayer for deliverance. If you haven’t experienced a day of trouble – you will someday and in that day we need to be able to cry out to God and ask God for help. So what does this kind of prayer sound like? How do we pray when we are in serious trouble? How about this - HELP. All we really need to do is sincerely say, God help me & God is there to respond to our need. When we cry out for help, God will deliver us. The deliverance may not be immediate, and the way God will deliver us may not always make sense and God’s deliverance doesn’t mean we still won’t have to work through the problems in our lives, but when we cry to God for help – God is there and God is there to help.
While we don’t have a lot of time, I want us to quickly look at the other prayer Psalm 20 says we are to make for ourselves. Psalm 20:4. Does it really say that? That God will grant us the desire of our hearts and that he will make all our plans succeed? Yes, it does, but it’s doesn’t just say that here - it also says this in Psalm 145:18-19, the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him and hears their cry and saves them. And then Proverbs 10:24 it says, the desires of the righteous will be granted. The question is do we believe this? Do we really believe that God wants to grant the desires of our heart? Jesus said that God is like a good father who knows how to give good gifts to his children. God is our loving father who I believe wants to gives us good and perfect gifts and God wants to grant to us the desires of our heart if those desires honor God, ourselves and others.
You see, we have to be careful here because this verse doesn’t mean God is going to give us everything we want. God is not going to fulfill all the selfish desires of our heart. God isn’t going to bless us with obscene amounts of wealth and power just because we want it – in Psalm 145 it said we need to call on God in truth and Proverbs 10 said the desires of the righteous will be granted, so our desires have to honor God and be in line with God’s will and if they are, then God calls us to share these desires with him. Sometimes I think we don’t share our desires with God because we don’t believe that God wants to provide for us, or we don’t believe that God can. Either way, if we don’t ask, we may never receive. Sometimes I wonder how many blessings and how many opportunities we miss because we simply don’t ask God.
Now just one other word as we think about praying for ourselves. We need to notice that in Psalm 20 the context for the prayers for deliverance and the desires of our heart is a ongoing life of praise and trust and thanksgiving. Look at 20:3 –
As we look for deliverance we need to be living a life of thanksgiving, offering our sacrifices and offerings to God.
Look at 20:5 – our request for God to grant the desires or our heart needs to come from a heart that is shouting out songs of joy and lifting up the name of the Lord.
And then look at 20:7 – the prayers we offer to God need to be offered in faith and trust that God will hear and provide. Do we trust that God loves us and that God cares enough about us to deliver us and help us and bless us?
As we pray for God’s deliverance and for the desires of our heart, let us make sure those prayers are coming forth from a heart and life filled with thanksgiving and praise, and let us offer our prayers to God in faith and trust.
May the Lord answer you when you are in distress
The NRSV say, may the lord answer you in the day of trouble. Now is there anyone here besides me who knows something about a day of trouble? Anyone ever experience some distress? The truth is we have all experienced some kind of trouble in life. It might be a health issue, maybe it’s a financial crisis, maybe it’s a family or relationship problem, maybe it’s just a spiritual issue of feeling lost and confused –we have all had a day of trouble, maybe we have even had a couple days, maybe your day of trouble is today. The question is what do we do during these days? Psalm 20 makes it clear that when we are distress, we are to cry out to God. In fact, Psalm 20:1 assumes that in our distress or trouble that we have already cried to God. May the Lord answer you when you are in distress assumes we have already asked God for help.
So one of the prayers we are to make for ourselves is a prayer for deliverance and it doesn’t matter what the distress or the problem is, whenever we are in need, we are to cry out to God.
Turn with me to Psalm 107:4-5.
The people here are wandering in the desert. They are unsure of where to go or what to do. They are hungry and thirsty and all that they really know is that they are looking for something. They want something that will satisfy them deeply, but they don’t know where to turn and they don’t know how to get what they need. Have you ever experienced this kind of distress? Have you ever been unsure where to turn but you just know you need something more in your life? Have you ever experienced a spiritual hunger and thirst but you didn’t know where to go to find fulfillment?
Sometimes we think this kind of wandering is only a problem for young people, but the truth is we all face moments when life seems to be empty and we want more. In his book Half-time, Bob Buford says that many people spend the first half of their life searching for success, but success often leaves us feeling hungry and thirsty – we aren’t completely satisfied, so we spend the second half of our life searching for significance. This search for significance is really just wanting something more, something that will last and satisfy us deeply. The question is what do we do if when we feel like we want or need more in life? Where do we turn when we are feeling lost or confused? Look at Psalm 107:6 – the people here cried out to God & God delivered them. When the people turned to God for help, God led them to a place where they could settle down and experience a fuller and more abundant life. God led them to a place where they could find not only food and water, but safety and security and satisfaction. When they cried out to God – God delivered them and God provided for them.
Now look at Psalm 107:10 – 11. The people here are experiencing darkness and bondage. They are feeling trapped they can’t break free from their prison. Have you experienced this kind of distress? It might be the bondage of an addiction, or the prison of despair. It might be something as simple as patterns of thought and behavior that we know are wrong, but we can’t find the strength to break free from. The apostle Paul said it so clearly when he said, the good I want to do, I don’t do, but the evil I don’t want to do, that I keep doing. We all know that feeling and it is a form of bondage and darkness. We become slaves to wrong thinking, bad attitudes, hurtful actions and it becomes so much a part of our lives that as hard as we try, we can’t set ourselves free. If this is the day of trouble we are experiencing, what can we do? Look at Psalm 107:13. The people cried out to God and God delivered them. God brought them out of the darkness and broke away their chains. God set them free. When we cry out to God in the midst of our bondage, God will deliver us.
Now look at Psalm 107:17. The people here are in distress because of their own stupidity or their own sin. Their foolish and rebellious ways have gotten them trouble. Now is there anyone here beside me who can identify with this? How often is it that our own problems get us into trouble? We say or do something before we think and we end up hurting someone we love. Our pride, our greed, our ego get us in trouble and we know it’s our own fault and we know that our day of distress is totally our own doing. Now surely these are the kind of problems we have to fix ourselves right? Wrong – look at Psalm 107:19.
The people cried out to God and God saved them from their distress. In other words God saved them from themselves, from the problems they created and the sins of their own heart and life. And I love how God did it – God sent forth his word and healed them. What is this word? Well, the word of God we read over and over in the OT is a word of love and grace and forgiveness that God offers continuously. The word of God in the NT is Jesus himself, the word made flesh, and what did Jesus come to do but offer us grace & forgiveness. So when we cry out to God in them midst of our sin – God delivers us. God forgives us and God heals us.
Finally, look at Psalm 107:23. These people are experiencing storms which cause them to be terrified. Their courage is melted away. They are at their wits end. Ever experience a storm in life that leaves you terrified and hopeless? Maybe it’s the storm of a disease, the storm of a divorce, or depression, or doubt. There are so many storms that batter us daily & these storms work to undermine our faith and trust at the very moment we need faith and trust the most. In that day of trouble – what will we do? Look at Psalm 107:28. God delivered them and God calmed the storm.
Can we see the pattern here? When the people are in distress they cry out to God, God hears them and God delivers them. We can’t be afraid to cry out to God in times of distress and in our own day of trouble because I believe God is waiting to deliver us. I believe this because this has been my own personal experience of God. During college I had my own day of trouble and like most of us it was a combination of all that we see in Psalm 107. I was searching for something more but didn’t know where to go so I turned to all the wrong things in life. I was filled with pride and sin and made some very poor choices and this all brought on some pretty intense storms. When I couldn’t get any lower and really felt like I was in a hopeless situation, I finally cried out to God because I had no where else to turn, & from the pit of my despair, God heard my cry and God delivered me. I have always believed that the words of Psalm 18 have reflected this time of my life, in fact, I first came across this psalm just a few months after God delivered me from my own storm of doubt and despair. Again, from this psalm we hear this amazing truth that when we cry out to God – God not only hears us but God delivers us. Psalm 18:18:4-6, 16-19.
So Psalm 20 shows us that one of the prayers that we need to lift up on our own behalf is a prayer for deliverance. If you haven’t experienced a day of trouble – you will someday and in that day we need to be able to cry out to God and ask God for help. So what does this kind of prayer sound like? How do we pray when we are in serious trouble? How about this - HELP. All we really need to do is sincerely say, God help me & God is there to respond to our need. When we cry out for help, God will deliver us. The deliverance may not be immediate, and the way God will deliver us may not always make sense and God’s deliverance doesn’t mean we still won’t have to work through the problems in our lives, but when we cry to God for help – God is there and God is there to help.
While we don’t have a lot of time, I want us to quickly look at the other prayer Psalm 20 says we are to make for ourselves. Psalm 20:4. Does it really say that? That God will grant us the desire of our hearts and that he will make all our plans succeed? Yes, it does, but it’s doesn’t just say that here - it also says this in Psalm 145:18-19, the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him and hears their cry and saves them. And then Proverbs 10:24 it says, the desires of the righteous will be granted. The question is do we believe this? Do we really believe that God wants to grant the desires of our heart? Jesus said that God is like a good father who knows how to give good gifts to his children. God is our loving father who I believe wants to gives us good and perfect gifts and God wants to grant to us the desires of our heart if those desires honor God, ourselves and others.
You see, we have to be careful here because this verse doesn’t mean God is going to give us everything we want. God is not going to fulfill all the selfish desires of our heart. God isn’t going to bless us with obscene amounts of wealth and power just because we want it – in Psalm 145 it said we need to call on God in truth and Proverbs 10 said the desires of the righteous will be granted, so our desires have to honor God and be in line with God’s will and if they are, then God calls us to share these desires with him. Sometimes I think we don’t share our desires with God because we don’t believe that God wants to provide for us, or we don’t believe that God can. Either way, if we don’t ask, we may never receive. Sometimes I wonder how many blessings and how many opportunities we miss because we simply don’t ask God.
Now just one other word as we think about praying for ourselves. We need to notice that in Psalm 20 the context for the prayers for deliverance and the desires of our heart is a ongoing life of praise and trust and thanksgiving. Look at 20:3 –
As we look for deliverance we need to be living a life of thanksgiving, offering our sacrifices and offerings to God.
Look at 20:5 – our request for God to grant the desires or our heart needs to come from a heart that is shouting out songs of joy and lifting up the name of the Lord.
And then look at 20:7 – the prayers we offer to God need to be offered in faith and trust that God will hear and provide. Do we trust that God loves us and that God cares enough about us to deliver us and help us and bless us?
As we pray for God’s deliverance and for the desires of our heart, let us make sure those prayers are coming forth from a heart and life filled with thanksgiving and praise, and let us offer our prayers to God in faith and trust.
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