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…