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An Hour Too Much! - by Rev Gilbert Wong
Sermon
Texts: Isaiah 62:6-7; Matthew 26: 39-46
Introduction
“Anything not born of prayer is born of pride” says Joy Dawson. She echoes the biblical words of Zechariah 4:6: “This is the word of the Lord…: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit’”
Debilitating Confidence of Humanity
The rising confidence of humankind is unprecedented. Human planning has overtaken prayer. Strategic planning has overtaken the role of seeking God’s direction through prayer and fasting. Increasingly, the spiritual art of praying to God is being marginalized and man’s pride has soared by leaps and bounds. Christians are praying less and doing more perhaps there are much more exciting things of human doings and creativity than what God can do.
Yet this human creativity is given to us by God. We are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). And the gifts and talents that we have is a reflection of God’s creativity – and prayer is one sure way of acknowledging our thanks to him and hopefully our dedication in using those given gifts for his divine glory. Prayer is a disciplined way of remembering our human frailty in and keeping our human confidence in check.
We cannot pray because we are busy
One of the consequences of busyness is tiredness. And the more we do the more tired we get and as a result less likely to pray. In Matthew’s Gospel, there is an overnight prayer meeting! The three disciples were heavy-eyed and could not keep company with Jesus in his hour of need. Jesus recognizes the willingness of the disciples to pray. But he pinpointed that their body was too weak. In other words, having the intention to pray is not prayer. I think many of us have the intention to pray but many things have crowded out our prayer life. That is why one author says that Christians need “extreme challenge and strict discipline” in order to pray (24-7).
We cannot pray because we are lazy
Not only has busyness kept our prayer life high and dry but according to Eugene Peterson, we do not pray because we are lazy. Now, that is a serious charge. What he meant is that we need to plan a time to pray. When we do not plan, we are allowing other people and event to determine our day’s work. We are too busy for our own good.
So far we have talked about the negative side of things but what about the positive?
We can pray because it is our calling
Moses in Numbers 11:29 says “I wish that all the Lord’s people are prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” ‘Every Christian is potentially a prophet for the Spirit is generally given to the church…’ (John B. Payne). What Isaiah says in 62:6 of “watchmen”, he is probably referring to prophets. And Isaiah says that God has posted prophets on the walls of Jerusalem to pray unceasingly.
If we are prophets, we are to pray without resting and also gives God ‘no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth’ (Isaiah 62:7). Biblically, the ‘Jerusalem’ is used to substitute for the people of God. And if we are the prophets and the Jerusalem stands for our church, then we are posted here by God to intercede until people praise the church!!
More often than not, we are tempted or are already tempted to use the latest methods of management, technology to ‘attract’ people. Such methods have its place and use. But as Joy Dawson says it correctly that to do things by human strength alone is pride.
We can pray because we love God
Francis de Sales says “The devil alone is incapable of praying because he alone is unable to love.” In other words, if we are commanded to love God, we must be able to love God: if we are able to love God, we must be able to pray. (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, O.S.B).
And if we love God we love also all of his creation. We pray not only for ourselves and our loved ones but also the world which is God’s creation (Genesis 1:1). Some of the global issues are indeed overwhelming. And Paul reminds that we are not fighting flesh and blood but against spiritual forces in high places. And we can only resist and pull back the floodwaters of this age through intercession.
For start, we could be praying for some global issues:
When we pray things are done, if we do not pray we are done!!
Let us pray |
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Church of the Ascension, 13
Francis Thomas Drive, Singapore 359339 |