Praying is Trusting

I was blessed to provide this message today at the Community of Hope.

Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings,

    ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name;

    worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;

    the God of glory thunders,

    the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful;

    the voice of the Lord is majestic.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;

    the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,

    Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord strikes

    with flashes of lightning.

The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;

    the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord twists the oaks

    and strips the forests bare.

And in His temple all cry, “Glory!”

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;

    the Lord is enthroned as King forever.

The Lord gives strength to His people;

    the Lord blesses His people with peace. (Psalm 29, NIV)

Hello, Community of Hope!  I hope the first week of 2022 went well for you but, in reality, I know that it had its challenges for many of us. And, you know what, next week will have its challenges, and so will the weeks after that. And that is why we gather here at church – to bring us the hope, the encouragement, and the inspiration we need to get us through the days ahead.

As I mentioned last Sunday, the focus of Sidney First United Methodist Church in 2022 will be prayer. So, you’re going to hear us talking a lot about prayer here at Community of Hope as well. 

Prayer is kind of a funny thing though.  If you’re like me, some days it’s easier to pray than others.  Some days, I am just too tired to think let alone to pray so I just sit, alone with God in my thoughts, striving to feel His comfort and His love around me.  And, really, that is a kind of a prayer the way I look at it.

You see, what could little old me possibly have to say to the Creator of the Universe at that time when I am too exhausted, too worn out, to even string thoughts together? Instead, I just want to sit quietly and hope to hear from Him, to feel Him.

I read the other day that there are 650 prayers in the Bible. That got me curious so I researched it a bit. The vast majority of those prayers are, you guessed it, in the Old Testament. But, if you look at a prayer, as defined in the dictionary, as being “a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God,” there are plenty of prayers in the New Testament, too.

In John 6:32-33, Jesus is talking to a crowd that has gathered to hear Him speak and He says this – “Very trulyI tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

And, it’s interesting, the people responded with what can be called a prayer.  They said, “Sir, always give us this bread.”  Isn’t that beautiful?  Those times when I am just too tired, too worn out emotionally and physically to even string words together, and I just sit in silence, I think that God knows that is what I am saying – God, please just give me your Bread of Life. How I want that, how I need that.

There are people who have studied each of those 650 prayers from the Bible.  One of my favorite authors, Philip Yancey, wrote a book on prayer that I dearly love and I will be teaching some from it this year. To write this book, he studied those 650 prayers. That book is titled Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? And in this book, Philip is very honest by describing how he, one of the great Christian theologians and leaders of our time, has struggled with praying.  So, if, like me, you feel like you struggle, well, we’re in good company because Philip Yancey is right there with us.. The book sort of describes his journey to understanding and feeling the value and importance of prayer.

To a large degree, prayer is a great deal about trust. I mean, whether you’re praying in Thanksgiving, or praying for someone else, or praying for yourself, prayer is inherently you saying, “God, I trust you. There’s so much in this world, in this life that I don’t understand but first and foremost I recognize and thank you for the good things – the blessings in my life, and I trust You to work out Your best in all the other stuff in my life and in the lives of those I love. Thy will be done.”

Prayer is submitting to God’s omniscience – his all-knowingness -- and his omnipresence – the fact that God is everywhere all at once. Prayer is submitting to God being in control, not us. And prayer is recognizing that, as Romans 8:28 tells us, “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

So, a few weeks ago, we celebrated Christmas, right? The birth of Jesus Christ, God’s son. The birth of our Savior, the one who would bear our sins.  The coming to earth of part of the Holy Trinity. Jesus, of course, taught us specifically how to pray. Both the gospels of Matthew and Luke capture Jesus telling His followers that, when they pray, this is how they should pray. 

Our father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen.

If you notice, he starts out by telling us to pray to God – “Our Father,” Jesus says.  So, we pray to God but we do it through Jesus. That is why we often end prayers with “In Jesus name we pray.” Jesus makes it possible for us to approach God because His blood covered our sins.  So, we have the purity to talk to God. God sees us as his forgiven and beloved child, because of Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins.

Before Jesus, of course, the Jews would go through all these painstaking purification rituals, they’d make sacrifices of unblemished animals, and they adhered to 613 commandments – all in attempt to reestablish their lost purity – their separation from God.  But Jesus changed all that.  Through His atoning blood, He gave us the ability to approach God and be heard by God. 

Since we just came off of Christmas and since we’re talking about how Jesus’s life and death make it possible for us to approach God directly in our prayers, I want to look a bit at who Jesus was and, to do that, we’re going to walk through the first chapter of the book of John. John is one of four books of the New Testament that we call the Gospels, meaning that they tell the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

John sort of stands apart from the other gospels though. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called “synoptic” gospels. They kind of follow a similar pattern of walking us through the life of Jesus. These three books are almost like historical narratives.

But John stands apart. And think about it a bit. A few weeks ago I taught from another book written by John, I John. And at that time I explained that John was the one apostle whom Jesus called “His beloved.”  John even referred to himself as the “one whom Jesus loved.” So, there was a special kinship between the two of them. I don’t know about you but if I was one of the 12 hanging out with Jesus and He called me the one He loved, I’d be like, “yeah, sweet!” Especially when we know that Jesus loved everyone – that was at the crux of His ministry – so when He calls out one specifically to mention His love for him, that’s something to take note of.

So, rather than be a historical narrative or re-telling, the book of John is much more personal. It’s more about who Jesus WAS than just about the travels of His life. Think of it this way, if you go to a funeral and someone who maybe worked casually with the deceased stands up and talks about them, you will likely just get a retelling of their life. But, if their best friend stands up and talks, you’re going to get a much more personal story, right? That’s the book of John – John talking about his best friend.

So, I want to look at the first chapter of John, verses 1 – 18. Instead of starting by telling us about the birth of the baby Jesus in the manger, John tells us who Jesus was. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Okay, so let’s unpack this a bit. John is calling Jesus the Word. In this case, the Word is referring to a Greek word, Logos. And Logos in Greek means many things but the best way I know to describe it here is that it is referring to a distinguishable characteristic – an essence if you will. John is saying that Jesus was here at the beginning – that sort of means always, doesn’t it? And that Jesus was both with God and He was God – so you have two parts of the Trinity, right? Greek philosophers said that logos put the world in order – made sense out of chaos. Jewish rabbis talked about the Word of God, often just calling it the Word and referring to God as the Word. So, John is starting here by saying, you have heard about the Word, let me tell you who that is. Let’s move on.)  

He was with God in the beginning. (Again, Jesus always existed. He was this essence if you will and He was God and He was with God.) Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. (So, we have Jesus the Creator, right there with God in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”)  In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (So, what you have here is that the Holy Trinity is all that is good – all that is light. Without it, we have nothing but darkness.)

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. (So, this can be a wee bit tricky. The John that John is talking about here is not himself.  The John being discussed here is John the Baptist – a cousin of Jesus’s and a messenger of God who came and started his ministry before Jesus started his. John the Baptist came in order to proclaim who Jesus was. John came to baptize people as public repentance for the forgiveness of their sins but he told everyone to watch for the greater one who would come after him, Jesus Christ.)

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.(This is saying then that all light – all goodness – comes from God. Again, without God, the world knows only darkness and struggle.) He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him,the world did not recognize Him. (The world had fallen so far when Jesus came into it that it could not even recognize its own Creator and ultimate Light.) He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. (This harkens back to Isaiah 53 says that Jesus would be despised and rejected by men, eventually condemned to the cross.)  Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God -- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (This of course refers to our re-birth or being born again when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That moment when we say, “Okay, God, I need You. I need new Life.  I need new Bread. Every word, every thought, every action, I am now turning over to you.  Guide me, direct me, lead me.”)

The Word (again, The Holy Trinity, who has always been and who brings order to chaos) became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (God became personal and knowable when He came to earth as the Son.)

(John (the baptist) testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.) (This is John the Baptist saying even though you knew me before you knew Jesus, Jesus has always been, and He is much more than I am. ) Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (Again, no more of the 613 laws or all the sacrifices and Jewish purification rules – Jesus replaced that all.) No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known.

There at the end, it wraps it up – Jesus came to make God known to us so that, even though we cannot see God, we might have a relationship directly with Him.

And, how do we have that relationship with God?  By seeking Him through His Word – the Bible – and by praying.

As we embark on 2022, a year in which we are going to talk a number of times about prayer and encourage us all to go deeper in prayer, I want to share something that Philip Yancey, of whom I spoke earlier, says about prayer. These are his words, not mine, but just listen and then grasp the imagery he provides.

“I used to view prayer as a kind of transaction in which I waved my arms desperately in an attempt to get God’s attention. Now I view prayer as two things: inviting myself into God’s life and inviting God into my life. I know what God wants done in the world by looking at Jesus, who brings mercy and grace and justice and compassion. What part should I play as a partner of God’s activity on earth? Prayer connects me with God so that I “tune in” to what God wants accomplished through me.

Then, I invite God into my life, asking that I start viewing the world around me not through my selfish eyes, but rather through God’s eyes. Again, I get the best clue into how God views that world through the life of Jesus. How did Jesus treat people, and how do I? It will take a lot of prayer to close that gap!

I like to pray with the image of a mountain stream. It starts high up, where I ask for a God’s-eye-view of the world, a kind of vision correction so that I begin to see the world more as God does. The stream starts small, and I pray for those who are close to me: my loved ones, close friends, people I think about every day. The stream keeps expanding, and I spread my prayer wider to encompass neighbors, missionaries, acquaintances. Finally, it ends in a reservoir, and I reflect on Jesus’ command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”  

My friends, for those of you who have accepted this rebirth – this new life that is available only through Jesus – and I pray that you have -- are you realizing the true power of talking to God? Are you praying that you might see more of Him in your life and in the world? 

Are you consumed by worries, by darkness, by strife, or are you rejoicing that you can talk to the Creator of the universe any time, that He loves you, that you’re working into His plan, and that, above all, you know the best is yet to come? Prayer can be an incredible way for us to move our spirits from dead to alive. Not worrying but instead knowing that God has it all worked out, and that we can rejoice just being in His presence. 

I think, too, back to what I mentioned earlier – those times when I am too exhausted to even put words together … just resting in the presence of my Savior … that may be much more than “just enough”.  You see, that is the comfort that God promises us. Like the people said to Jesus, Sir, always gives us this Bread – the Bread of Life.

May you enjoy God’s blessings this week and may you seek and receive His Bread – the only sustenance we really need – the Bread of Life.