Sunday Sermon

Sermon # 1002
August 1, 2010
Deut. 30:11-14; Philippians 4:4-9
Dr. Ed Pettus

“The Prayer Shaped Life”

As everyone was leaving the sanctuary last Sunday, I had a few comments on the sermon, not unusual. But there were a few who asked for a follow up on prayer, the “what and how” of prayer. I take it that we agreed that we struggle with prayer, but what I did not offer was a way through the struggle. So this morning we are going to look at scripture and some of the ways people have prayed in the church’s tradition.
There really is not much “instruction” for prayer in the Bible. Last Sunday we probably heard the most well know Bible teaching for prayer when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus gives them, and us, the words for a particular prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus does teach about prayer in the gospels. My paraphrase to another lesson on prayer is “don’t be a jerk!” From Luke 18… “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’”

One rule about prayer: be humble.

In Matthew 6 we have a little different lead into the Lord’s prayer: “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (5-8).

Other rules about prayer: in secret and be sincere.

Most of what we learn about prayer from the Bible is by the prayers of the Bible. One of my favorites is from Ephesians: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-19).
Imagine if we took that prayer and offered it with the names inserted of all the people on our prayer list. That that person could be strengthened in his or her inner being, that Christ may dwell in our hearts, that we might know the love of Christ. If we prayed this prayer for one another it would absolutely transform the church and the world.

The early church also sets an example for us on being the church: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).
The devotion of the church was to teaching, fellowship, communion together and praying. When I look at churches today, there seems to be a great divide between then and now.
For me, if we want to know the “what and how” of prayer, look to the Psalms. Prayers of confession like Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love…” Prayers of praise like Psalm 146: “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!” Prayers of thanksgiving like Psalm 105: “O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.” Prayers of lament like Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Prayers of confidence like Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd.” Prayers of redemption like Psalm 32: “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Prayers of deliverance like Psalm 59: “Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; protect me from those who rise up against me.”
I am not saying that there is a prayer in the Psalms for every circumstance we face, but there is language to express the human condition. There is the appropriate basics of address to God. And there are expressions of waiting, silent waiting like Psalm 62: “For God alone my soul waits in silence.”
In the book Praying the Psalms, Dr. Walter Brueggemann takes our greatest collection of prayers and groups them in three basic categories: orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. Three conditions of the Psalms reflect the human condition. Some prayers, some Psalms are expressions of orientation, when everything in life is going rather well. All is in order and the only real concern is to keep up the obedience and love relationship with God. Psalm 1 is an example: You don’t hang out with the unrighteous, you meditate on the word of God, the good get good stuff and the wicked get bad stuff – just like it should be. But life does not always work out that great and sometimes the wicked get all the good stuff and the righteous get trampled on, like Psalm 88, one of the darkest Psalms of the collection. “my soul is full of trouble…like those who have no help…my eyes grow dim through sorrow.” And there is no resolution in Psalm 88; it ends with friends who shun me and companions who are in darkness. But other Psalms make it through the darkness and arrive at a greatly surprising reorientation, like Psalm 98: “Sing to the Lord a new song…” for God has done marvelous things.
These three categories reveal a larger theme for prayer…life, death, and resurrection. Life = orientation; death = disorientation; resurrection = reorientation. The movement of this prayer follows the movement of the great theme of the Bible. Life – death – resurrection. The Exodus theme: Free – Slaves – Delivered from bondage. It is the theme of the prodigal story…the brother was alive, then dead, and is alive again…kill the fatted calf for a party. Orientation – disorientation – reorientation. Basically this says that our prayers fit in a context. Sometimes we praise God when things are going well. Sometimes we lament over the trouble we see. Sometimes we petition, intercede, give thanks, confess, repent, bless, plead, and sometimes we do many of those things in one prayer. Sometimes we practice A-C-T-S, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. But sometimes we just praise, other times confess, and sometimes we might just sit and say to God: “I just want to be with you.”

How do we pray? There is no one way, no one answer to that question. We can enter into prayer while driving down the road or my laying prostrate in the sanctuary. One might not seem as sacred as the other but both seek to enter into God’s presence. We will be praying today, in the form of hymns, singing prayers; in the form of liturgy, reciting the Lord’s Prayer; in the form of listening, as we open worship to prepare our hearts; in reading scripture we are praying. We learn to pray mostly by praying. We start where we are, with whatever means and understanding we have because that is all we can do. There is no magic formula, no prayer more sacred than another. Some may be more moving to us, more eloquent, more passionate, but God hears them all.

We hear of people who say they heard God or God spoke to me, and we wonder: why don’t I hear God? How do we hear God in prayer? Let me suggest ways to listen for God.

Lectio Divina – spiritual reading, prayerful reading of the Bible…not looking for more information, not looking to teach or preach or gain data, but to enter the word for the purpose of engaging and being engaged by the word of God. The purpose is to read slowly, several times, for the sake of dwelling in the word and letting the word dwell in you. This is not the time to go into detail on how to do this, but there are lots of resources available. Come talk to me!

Journaling – recording our thoughts and hopes and dreams and what not in the form of prayer. Writing God a letter.

Silence – there is a way to quiet our self…let your thoughts run their course, do not try to stop them, but focus on the whisper, the still small voice.

Centering Prayer – focuses the mind on a single word or simple phrase. We sang the Hymn this morning: Holy, Holy, Holy. Centering prayer focuses on a single word or short phrase. Like silent prayer we let our thoughts run through our minds until we can come to a place in our prayer when we are focused on God alone. Sometimes we say quick prayers: “Lord, help me!” Centering prayer is a long exercise, 20 minutes to an hour or longer. It takes discipline and commitment.

Scripture Study – different from spiritual reading, study is to hone the mind, memorize, gather the data, get informed in text after text, one text at a time. If there is one discipline more elevated toward hearing God, this is it! The more texts we know the better we hear. The best spiritual hearing aide is knowing scripture.
Talk it over with someone who listens well, not just in listening to you, but who listens to God. A spiritual friend, someone you admire in the faith.

These are just a few of the ways we seek to hear God in prayer. Let me pause for a word of caution! We also need to take care in listening for God, because not everything is from God that we might think. We have seen much evil done by those who thought they had a word from God and led others to trust in that word only to lead them to destruction. Paul gives warning for instance in 2 Corinthians: “The devil can appear as an angel of light (11:14). We can have very strong feelings that something is from God, but as 1 John reminds us, we need to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Does what we hear contradict scripture? Does what we hear resonant with other believers, with the community of faith, including the tradition, the best thinkers in the faith? It is true that hindsight is 20/20. Many times what we believe God has spoken to us will be revealed later.
Singer and song writer Keith Green begins one song with these words: “Make my life a prayer to you…” Perhaps we can take those words to grow in prayer. Lord, make my life a prayer to you. Is this how we might pray without ceasing? Prayer is a life long journey of address to God, listening to God, seeking God, and response to God seeking us. Prayer is being patient when we feel like all we are doing is talking to the walls. Prayer is devotion to God, obedience to God, words and actions and outbursts and fits of praise, expressions of thanksgiving, and sometimes prayer is being at a loss for words. Prayer is a God-consciousness wherein we think of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit at those moments when we are not thinking of something else. “Lord, make my life a prayer to you.”
My word to you today is to pray. Pray where you are in your understanding of prayer. My word to you today is to seek out teachings on prayer. Learn lectio divina, spiritual reading; learn the prayer of examen where we look back on our day and see where God was in it. Learn as much as you can about the practice of prayer. My word for you today is to pray the scriptures and learn the scriptures so that your prayer life might be greatly enriched. My final word to you today is: do not loose heart, the Holy Spirit is praying for you. Hear this word from the book of Romans:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26-27).

That’s us! The saints. The Spirit is praying on our behalf.

There is much to learn about prayer and prayer will indeed shape our lives if we take the time to pray and devote our lives to prayer. Let us thank God in prayer for the gift of prayer. Amen.