Pray continually, Paul commands in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Pray without ceasing. Pray all the time.
Be constant in prayer. (he says in Romans 12:12.) Keep on praying.
Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. (Ephesians 6:18 commands us.) Pray hard and long.
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (says Colossians 4:2) Pray diligently.
But what does all this mean? How can we really “pray without ceasing”? Last week we thought about the wonderful promise Jesus made which we find right at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Jesus is with us always, at all times and in all places. One way we can acknowledge the presence of God in every moment of our lives is by learning to pray without ceasing.
As we begin the year with a Week of Prayer and Fasting, I want to introduce you this morning to five brilliant practical suggestions to help us on the way to praying without ceasing.

1 Praying using set prayers
Most of us need to rediscover the great value of praying using set prayers. We belong to a spiritual tradition which values extemporary prayer. We value the freedom we have to come to God just as we are and pray whenever we want using whatever words come to mind at the time. Such prayer is like a conversation we could have with a loving parent or a dear friend, a conversation with God. It is spontaneous and free.
But remember, the vast majority of Christians through the centuries, and the Jews before them, did not generally pray the way we do. Many still today do not. Other traditions very happily use set prayers – prayers written by other people, prayers often passed down through generations. They often use the prayers found in Scripture in the Psalms, or the Lord’s Prayer.
Most Christians are very happy to use hymns and songs and choruses which other people have written. We don’t feel we need to make up a brand new song every time we praise and worship God. The precise advantage of using words somebody else has written is that we can devote ourselves to thinking about the meaning of what we are singing, instead of having to use most of our concentration on thinking of the right things to say.
And the same can be true of our prayers. Sometimes using words which another believer has written can help us to express our deepest feelings better than we are able to do ourselves. It is good sometimes to be able to focus purely on God instead of having to search for the best words. It is a good thing to add our voices sometimes to the voices of countless saints in many places over many generations by using the very same prayers they used. And praying the same words as other believers have also prayed helps deliver us from that temptation of individualism which is gripping this generation. It does our soul good to admit sometimes that there are other Christians who have expressed themselves in prayer better than we ever can. So we humble ourselves and borrow their words to make their prayer our own.
If we were going to meet the Queen or the Prime Minister, or any important person, we would give some thought in advance to what we would say. We might well follow conventional forms of greeting and address, rather than just make it all up on the spot. How much more should we prepare ourselves to meet with Almighty God, and use words which acknowledge the glory and majesty of God. Set prayers can deliver us from a dangerous over-familiarity with the all-powerful all-knowing omnipresent Creator and Ruler of the Universe.
All Christians can benefit from liturgy and sacrament and written prayers as well as intimacy and informality and spontaneous prayers. So as a first step to praying without ceasing, begin to explore the Psalms. Use an Anglican prayer book, or one of the many books of prayers you can find in Christian bookshops online. In recent years many people have found prayers in the Celtic Tradition and from the Northumbria Community very helpful. Then, when you don’t much feel like praying, or you don’t know what to pray, use prayers written by another person, quite probably somebody who knew more about prayer than any of us ever will. Take their prayer and make it your own personal prayer. The little guide for this Week of Prayer and Fasting includes a set prayer for each day, and I have made other booklets of set prayers available too. Try using set prayers this week.
2 – Practising the Presence of God.
This idea is especially associated with a 17th century monk Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. I have circulated the short book with that title attributed to him and you could begin by reading it this week. By Practising the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence means what Richard Foster in his book on prayer called “praying the ordinary”. Simply acknowledging that God is involved in EVERY aspect of our daily lives. Remembering the truth that WHEREVER we are is Holy Ground! We need to learn to see God in the ordinary experiences of life and to turn the ordinary experiences of life into prayer.
We need to recognise the sanctity of the ordinary. In His great acts of creation and incarnation, God has intertwined the spiritual and the material, wedded the sacred and the secular, sanctified the common and the ordinary. We shouldn’t look to find God in the spectacular and the heroic but in the daily and the ordinary. So our jobs are not a hindrance to prayer but an opportunity for prayer. We can sometimes pray while we work. We should always pray about our work and for our work. But we can also pray through our work. Our work can become prayer – prayer in action. We can present our work to God as a prayer offering to Him.
Colossians 3: 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
1 Corinthians 10:31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Whatever the task, we can choose to do it in God’s strength and for God’s glory. All work is holy work. Our homes are just as holy as our church. All places are sacred places! We just need to learn to pray the ordinary.
By “Practising the Presence of God” Brother Lawrence meant making every part of our everyday lives a subject for prayer and engaging in continuous conversation with God in prayer, whatever we are doing. Here are some of Brother Lawrence’s inspiring words, to inspire you to read the book
“We should strive for `a habitual sense of God’s presence’ – `to be always with God.’ To be with God, there is no need to be in church. We make a chapel of our heart, to which we can from time to time withdraw to have gentle, humble, loving communion with Him. Everyone is able to have these familiar conversations with God. Some more, some less – He knows our capabilities. Let us make a start. Perhaps He only waits for us to make one whole-hearted resolve.
Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions. He is always near you and with you; leave him not alone. You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you; why, then, must God be neglected?
Our biggest mistake is to think that a time of prayer is different from any other time. It is all one. The time of business does not differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees.
We can do little things for God: I turn the cake that is frying on the pan, for love of him; and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. When I can do nothing else, it is enough to have picked up a straw for the love of God. People look for ways of learning how to love God. … Is it not a shorter and more direct way to do everything for the love of God, to make use of all the tasks one’s lot in life demands to show him that love, and to maintain his presence within by the communion of our heart with his? There is nothing complicated about it. One has only to turn to it honestly and simply.
The depths of our spirituality does not depend upon changing the things we do, but in doing for God what we ordinarily do for ourselves.
A little lifting of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, one act of inward worship, are prayers which however short are acceptable to God.
You need not cry very loud. He is nearer to us than we think.”
Be encouraged by these words of Brother Lawrence and try Practising the Presence of God this week.
3 Use “Breath Prayers”
“Breath prayers” are short simple prayers which we can say in a single breath. Whenever we want to bring God to mind during the day and acknowledge His presence with us, we breathe this prayer. Whenever we want to dedicate a particular activity to God, we breathe this prayer. Whenever we want to ask for God’s grace and help and draw God into a particular situation, we breathe this prayer. It is a form of prayer which helps bring God into every part of our lives as we use it many many times through the day.
One breath prayer has been used by Christians for centuries. “Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” I discovered this pattern of prayer almost 20 years ago during my Sabbatical time in Uganda and used it many times each day. First thing in the morning. Last thing at night. When you move from one activity to another. As you go to greet someone. “Jesus, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner.”
There are many other excellent breath prayers. You might like the first line of the prayer of St. Francis, “Lord, Make me a channel of your peace.” You might like to use “Abba Father, let me yours and yours alone.” Or God might lead you to a different “breath prayer” that is personal to you. Learn to pray without ceasing by using a breath prayer. I strongly recommend you to try it this week!
4. Read books on prayer.
It should be obvious that one way of learning how to pray better is to read about other believers’ experiences of prayer. I have shared links to a number of excellent books about prayer and all I want to do this morning is encourage you to choose one of them and make time this week to read it!
5. Set times for prayer.
I have often quoted from John Dalrymple.
“The truth is that we only learn to pray all the time everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere.”
If we want to go deeper into prayer and learn what it means to “pray without ceasing”, we must begin by making our regular times of prayer a priority. Setting apart time and space for solitude and silence. Working hard at meeting with God day by day and even hour by hour. A holy life is a succession of holy moments. We have to work very hard at our holy moments! I repeat, “we only learn to pray all the time everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere.”
With our digital watches and smartphones we can set ourselves alarms to remind ourselves of anything we want to. Not just to tell us it is time to wake up but time for lunch, or time for a meeting, or time to load the dishwasher. For this week you might like to set yourself one or two alarms at particular times of day. And when the alarm sounds, take that as a call to prayer. The alarm will remind you that God and your relationship with God are more important than anything else you are doing at that time.
Use set prayers. Practise the Presence of God. Use Breath Prayers. Read books on prayer. Set yourself times to pray. Try some of these this week. Let’s set out this week to learn more how to pray without ceasing.

Fasting – Showing God We Care
“In general we must hold that whenever any religious controversy arises, which either a council or ecclesiastical tribunal behooves to decide; whenever a minister is to be chosen; whenever, in short any matter of difficulty and great importance is under consideration: on the other hand, when manifestations of the divine anger appear, as pestilence, war, and famine, the sacred and salutary custom of all ages has been for pastors to exhort the people to public fasting and extraordinary prayer.” (John Calvin, Institutes, IV, 12, 14)

What is fasting?
Fasting is deliberately abstaining from food for religious purposes. It is NOT merely dieting. A ‘normal’ fast involves not eating foods, but continuing to drink water. An ‘absolute’ fast means neither eating nor drinking, but this is very rare in the Bible.

For some Christians fasting means replacing normal meals with lighter foods or much smaller portions. For others it means missing meals altogether. Many spend the time which would have been used for preparing and eating the meal in prayer instead. Others continue with their usual activities and take the pangs of hunger as prompts to prayer. Unless medical conditions (e.g. diabetes) prevent such abstinence, doctors generally agree that missing occasional meals can actually be beneficial to health.

Why fast?
Because our Lord Jesus Christ did! So also did Moses, David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, Anna, Paul and many more. Committed Jews in Jesus’ time fasted twice a week and at the end of the First Century this was the common pattern in the Church too.

Fasting has always been a part of Roman Catholic spirituality. Among great Protestants Luther and Calvin fasted. Wesley urged Methodists to fast every Wednesday and Friday, and wouldn’t ordain anyone to Ministry who didn’t fast twice a week!

Fasting has also played a part in national spirituality. On February 6th 1756 the King proclaimed a day of solemn prayer and fasting for the whole nation! In USA on April 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer:
“We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self- sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.” – a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer:

Many Christians in many denominations today testify to the great value of fasting. It has special value in helping us to hear God’s voice and discover His will, in the area of spiritual warfare, and as an element of intercessory prayer.

Fasting in the Old Testament
Fasting was primarily a spontaneous rather than an organised expression of strong feeling and emotion. It was a way of saying to God, ‘I really care about this; I really mean business about this,’ in various situations. Some examples include,

fasting in preparation to meet with God or to consult God:

Judges 20:26 Then the Israelites, all the people, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the LORD. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the LORD. 27 And the Israelites enquired of the LORD.

fasting to show sincere repentance:

1 Sam 7:5 Then Samuel said, “Assemble all Israel at Mizpah and I will intercede with the LORD for you.” 6 When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD.”

Jonah 3:6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. …. 10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

fasting as a mark of humility:

fasting on the Day of Atonement – some Christians still fast before taking Communion.

Fasting accompanying prayer, especially intercession:

Nehemiah 1:4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

2 Sam 12:15 After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. 16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. 17 The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them. (But when the child died David stopped fasting and ) 21 His servants asked him, “Why are you acting in this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!” 22 He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, `Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.’

Fasting in preparation to meet with God or to consult God, fasting to show sincere repentance,
fasting as a mark of humility, fasting accompanying prayer, especially intercession. In all of these the practice of fasting is a Biblical way of saying to God “I really mean business about this.” It is a simple act of sacrifice which shows God we really do care.

Fasting in the New Testament
Some people wrongly suggest that fasting is a part of Old Testament Law which does not apply to us as Christian. Quite the reverse. In the New Testament it was simply assumed that both Jews and Christians would fast. Jesus Himself fasted in the desert. One of the temptations was to break His fast.

In the Sermon on the Mount after the section on the Lord’s prayer and on giving to the poor, Jesus teaches about fasting in parallel. Jesus clearly implies that all three will be a regular part of the life of a disciple: prayer, giving, fasting. Note that Jesus says ‘WHEN you fast’, not ‘IF you fast’!
When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:16-18)

Jesus’s disciples did not fast while He was with them, but Jesus specifically taught them that one day, when He is not with them (i.e. NOW) his followers WILL fast
Matthew 9:14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

The early church often did fast, especially when they were praying about important matters.
Acts 13:1 ¶ In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Seeking guidance AND commissioning – we see the same again for example in Acts 14:23

The benefits of fasting
Fasting in the Bible is not a commandment required for salvation by all Christians. However, it seems to be assumed that all disciples WILL fast from time to time as a helpful spiritual practice. Jesus teaches us that fasting will always be directed towards God and not to impress other people. Richard Foster comments in Celebration of Discipline:

“Fasting must forever center on God. It must be God-initiated and God-ordained…Fasting reminds us that we are sustained by ‘every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ (Matthew 4:4) … Therefore, in experiences of fasting we are not so much abstaining from food as we are feasting on the word of God. Fasting is feasting!”

Fasting, like praying and giving, is a legitimate spiritual discipline to be practiced in private between a Christian and the Lord. How often we practice it is not prescribed, because that too is between the believer and Christ. When we desire to seek God’s face more than we want dinner, that will be the proper time to fast. Spending time in Prayer and Fasting will be a sacrificial physical and bodily expression of our commitment to worshipping and witnessing together. It will focus our thinking and praying, as well as offering an opportunity for those who do not already practise fasting to discover the value of this helpful spiritual discipline.
Normally fasting involves not eating but still drinking water. It is not helpful to have a large meal as the last meal before the fast, or to over-eat to make up afterwards. For those unaccustomed to hunger, frequently sipping water or fruit juice can be very helpful. As part of our Days of Prayer and Fasting you may care to join in one of the following:

Day-time fasting
From breakfast to tea-time, missing out lunch and snacks during that day and only drinking water.

A 24 hour fast
From tea-time to tea-time, missing or reducing the size of breakfast and lunch on that day .

A 36 hour fast
from tea-time to breakfast, missing or reducing the size of all meals on one day.

Jim Packer wrote, “In Scripture we see several purposes for fasting. It’s a way of sharing that we depend on God alone and draw all our strength and resources from him; it’s a way of focusing totally on him when seeking his guidance and help, and of showing that you really are in earnest in your quest; it’s also, at times, an expression of sorrow and deep repentance, something that a person or community will do in order to acknowledge failure before God and seek his mercy.

We tend to think of fasting as going without food. But we can fast from anything. If we love music and decide to miss a concert in order to spend time with God, that is fasting. It is helpful to think of the parallel of human friendship. When friends need to be together, they will cancel all other activities in order to make that possible. There’s nothing magical about fasting. It’s just one way of telling God that your priority at that moment is to be alone with him, sorting out whatever is necessary, and you have canceled the meal, party, concert, or whatever else you had planned to do in order to fulfill that priority.”

TEN DAYS OF PRAYER AND FASTING

We invite everyone to join with us in Days of Prayer and Fasting from 4th to 13th of January. After praying individually during the day you are invited to gather for prayer as follows.

Monday 4th Prayer at church from 6 pm to 7 pm
Tuesday 5th Draw Near to God prayer meeting from 8 pm to 9 pm at church
Wednesday 6th Prayer at church from 7 pm to 8 pm
Thursday 7th Pray at home or in 2s and 3s
Friday 8th Prayer at church from 6 pm to 7 pm
Saturday 9th Pray at home or in 2s and 3s
Sunday 10th Prayer after the morning service from 12.15 pm
Monday 11th Pray at home remembering the Deacons’ Meeting this evening
Tuesday 12th Draw Near to God prayer meeting from 8 pm to 9 pm at church
Wednesday 13th Pray at church from 6 pm to 7 pm.

We will be praying for our church activities and especially our outreach and evangelism.
We will be praying for our town and for our world in all its different needs.
We will be praying asking God to speak to us, to guide and encourage and inspire us all.
God will meet with us, as we seek Him with all our heart!

Rebekah led us through our evening service today with this message on The Problem of Unanswered Prayer

1. INTRODUCTION

God loves to answer prayer. He answers to bring Glory to his Name – it would not be in his character not to answer.

It has often been said that God always answers prayer, but his answers can either be “Yes”, “No” or “Later”.

“Answered” prayers
There are numerous examples of God answering prayers in the bible, and in our own experiences today. The Lord regularly gives us what we ask for: forgiveness, healing, peace, our daily bread and many other blessings, both big and small. Let’s remember to thank God for these answers and not to take them for granted.

“Unanswered” prayers
“Unanswered” prayers fall into two categories. They are either prayers for which God has given the answer “no”, or they are prayers for which we do not yet know God’s answer. However, there are times when God just seems to ignore our prayers. And I’m not talking here about the sorts of prayers like “please Lord, don’t let it rain at the church picnic”. I’m talking about prayers that we’ve prayed with tears, day and night for very long periods of time – prayers which deeply affect those close to us and those around us for many years to come. Prayers that we are sure would bring glory to God’s name if he answered them, and sure that they would not bring glory if he did not answer them! (And yet the answer still seems to be no). This has happened to me, I expect it has happened to others too. Christians can find these times very perplexing. We struggle to reconcile our experiences with the wonderful promises that Jesus made in the New Testament, e.g. Ask and it will be given to you (Luke 11: 9).

What, then, is going on, and how do we respond to these difficulties? Firstly, let’s recognise that these problems are not unique to us, but occurred many times in the bible too. Secondly, let’s learn from the examples of those given in scripture how we should respond when God appears to be deaf to our prayers.

2. BIBLICAL PRECEDENTS
My first example of God not answering prayer is that of King David. You will remember that David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then arranged for her husband to be killed in the battle so he could take Bathsheba as his wife. To punish David, God had told him, through the prophet Nathan, that their son would die.

Reading 1 2 Sam 12:15-18
After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground but he refused and he would not eat any food with them. On the seventh day the child died.”

David’s prayers were real, fervent and genuine. God sometimes does change his mind about punishing people when they repent, like the people of Nineveh in Jonah 3: 7-10. And, if it were true that God does not answer the prayers of people who have sinned, then there wouldn’t be any hope for any of us when we pray!

My second example is that of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

Reading 2 Mark 14:33-42.
Jesus took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”
Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping, “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.
Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.
Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Notice that Jesus prayed, “Everything is possible for you.” Peter reminded us a few weeks ago that God is Almighty and can do anything he chooses. His almighty power is only constrained by his character and his purposes.
But in the Garden of Gethsemane, we have Jesus, God the Son, praying with desperate tears and overwhelming sorrow, and not receiving what he asked for. Jesus, himself, knew what it was like to have his prayers unanswered! He really did not want to go through with this, and he asked that the cup would pass. The Father’s will was not absolutely clear to him yet. Was there any other way that people could be saved? And the answer was NO!

There are also many examples of people in the bible having to wait considerable periods of time for God to answer their prayers, or fulfil what God had promised to them. For example, we remember…
• Abraham waiting to father Isaac (Gn 18:10-12)
• The Israelites as oppressed slaves in Egypt, waiting for God to deliver them (Ex 2: 23-25)
• Job waiting for relief from his afflictions
• Old Simeon, waiting for the salvation of Israel and to see the Lord’s Christ before he died (Lk2:25-32)
• Mary and Martha, waiting 3 days for Jesus to come to their sick brother (Jn:11,1-6)
• Disciples, waiting for the promised Holy Spirit (Ac 1:12-14)
• Today we are waiting, with the rest of creation, for the New Heaven and the New Earth, when God’s rule will be complete and all his promises will come to final fulfilment (Rom 8: 18-25)

3. HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND WHEN WE DO NOT SEE OUR PRAYERS ANSWERED?

i. Seek to develop the prophetic gifts – so we understand what God is saying to us.
This will help us in two ways.
Firstly, if we are in close fellowship with God, like the branches abiding in the vine, and if we are seeking His voice, we will be more finely tuned into what His will is in any situation. This helps us to pray according to the will of God. Fewer of our prayers will be at odds with God’s will. This is one of the meanings of praying “in Jesus’ name”.
Secondly, we will begin to discern God’s answers to our prayers more accurately. For example, we will begin to tell the difference between a “later” answer and a “no” answer. It will also help us to recognise a “yes” answer when the answer we receive is not exactly how we expected it to be. This is because God is able to respond to our much deeper needs, which often lie behind our imperfect prayers.

ii. Don’t make the mistake of thinking of prayers as “my prayers”.

Reading 3 Rev 8:3-4
“Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand.”

As Christians, we are all members of the body of Christ together. The prayers of all the saints together rise up to God in heaven. Therefore, if we pray for something and it is not answered immediately, but is answered when someone else prays, then it is still our prayers together with theirs that have been answered.
For example, when I was at school, I regularly prayed for my best friend, Rebecca to become a Christian. I invited her to our church youth events and talked to her about Jesus at every opportunity. Although she came to some of our “outreach” events, she didn’t become a Christian. Years later, after we’d grown up and moved away from each other, I had a letter from her “out of the blue”. She said that she’d become a Christian and she thanked me for witnessing to her at school! Obviously, others must have talked with her and prayed for her in the intervening period, but it was still an answer to my prayers from years ago too!
Peter Thomas also has two example of this. Many years ago, the House Group he led prayed earnestly for the healing of the son of one their group. The prayer was not answered at the time. Years later, when the boy was a teenager, he prayed for his own healing and received it! Secondly, when Peter was leading a Crusader Camp as “chaplain”, one of the other leaders had a back injury. The leaders prayed publicly for his healing, but nothing happened. However, that night in their tents, the youngsters decided to pray for his healing, and the next morning the back injury was dramatically healed! These young people needed to know that their own prayers were powerful and effective.

iii. Be honest with God and each other.
E.g. Jesus’ healing of the blind man in Mk 8: 22-26. After Jesus had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked him whether he could see anything. “I see people like trees walking” was the reply. If that man had not been honest, but had claimed that he had been healed, then would Jesus have been able to complete the second part of the healing?
I’ve met people who do not admit that God has not answered their prayers. Perhaps they are embarrassed about this, or ashamed of God’s “inability” to act. God is capable of looking after the Honour of his Name, without us pretending or jumping through hoops to claim that He has answered our prayer! I’ve heard people say things like “I’ve been prayed for; therefore I claim the healing even though I do not see the evidence of it yet. I will therefore stop taking medication…” as if they dare not admit that God has not answered the prayer. That response does not glorify God; it is false gods who need men to make excuses for them, not the Sovereign Lord.

iv. Surrender your will to God’s will.
Now this is a biggie! And it’s tough! It is one thing to let God have His way in our lives when what we want is more-or-less what God wants. But God is not Lord of our lives unless we submit to His will when it is precisely against what we want for ourselves! To do this involves a great struggle in prayer. It is not easy. It is like wrestling with God. It will involve tears, maybe fasting, sleepless nights and more. But if we belong to the Lord, he will claim Lordship over every area of our lives. The only way for us to continue to walk with him is to let go of whatever it is that we’re holding on to, and to cling to God himself.
Examples in the bible include Abraham, as he was prepared to sacrifice Isaac; Mary, as she let go of her hopes for her future; Jesus in Gethsemane and Paul as he accepted that God was not going remove his “thorn in the flesh”. We need to realise that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). Even though we may not understand what God is doing, or why, we need to trust that His eternal purposes are good and true, and he is working these out in the world. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Cor 13:12).

v. Address your anger, doubt, sorrow, frustration, disappointment in prayer to God.
E.g. Ps 10 “Why O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble… Why?… Why?” Jesus: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Job: “If I have sinned what have I done to you O watcher of men? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my offences and forgive my sins?” (Job 7:20-21). Even by praying in these “negative” ways, we are glorifying God’s name by acknowledging that He is in control, even though we cannot understand what He is doing.
When you are so distressed that you can’t pray, you may find it helpful to pray the Psalms. There are many Psalms of lament. They are not only a record of what David prayed, but they have also been given to us to help us in our praying.

vi. Don’t take it as personal rejection by God.
Remember, that God is working out his eternal purposes in the world, and these are so much greater than just providing for our own personal comforts and desires (e.g. Jonah 4:8). God has already done everything necessary to show his love for us – sending Jesus to die for us – sending Holy Spirit to comfort and strengthen us – giving his word to teach us and encourage us. We do not need any more signs that he loves us. Therefore, when God leads us through difficult times and does not answer our prayers, it does not mean he’s abandoned us or forsaken us. It may be to develop our faith, perseverance & maturity (James 1:2-4).

vii. Be prepared to wait.
(And while waiting respond to God with worship and faith.)
The book of Habakkuk has been a tremendous encouragement to me as I’ve been grappling with the problem of unanswered prayer. It is worth a complete study in its own right. Briefly, though, God seemed to be inactive when his people were suffering violence and injustice by a nation invading them. Habakkuk questioned God about this, and God’s reply was that things were going to get even worse! Habakkuk then recalled God’s powerful acts of salvation throughout Israel’s history. He prayed for God to act again in Habakkuk’s present situation. God revealed a vision of the eventual punishment of the nation invading them, but said that it was not going to happen any time soon. Habakkuk’s response was to vow to praise God, despite his present circumstances.

Reading 4 Habakkuk 3:16-19
I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.
Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights.

The last verse in Habakkuk’s prayer leads us onto number viii which is…

Viii Receive God’s strength to cope with the situation.
Listen again to what Habakkuk said, “The Sovereign Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights.”
Like Habakkuk, we will receive God’s strength to cope, in even the worst circumstances, when we spend time praying in the ways that I’ve been describing above. It was while Jesus was praying in Gethsemane that the angels strengthened him so he could face crucifixion. It was after Paul had prayed three times for God to remove his “thorn in the flesh” that he received the assurance that God’s grace was sufficient for him.

ix. Pray for one-another
For this final point, I just want to read 2 Cor 1:8-11:
Paul says: “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour granted us in answer to the prayers of many.”

4. SUMMARY

While God graciously answers many of our prayers, there are times when our prayers seem to be ignored by God. This is not unique to us, but happened to many faithful believers in the Old and New Testaments. The bible gives us help and guidance about how to deal with this – and the result is that our faith is strengthened by such experiences.
We should respond by seeking to develop prophetic gifts; by being honest about unanswered prayers; by surrendering our will to God’s will; by addressing our anger, doubt, sorrow, frustration, and disappointment in prayer to God. We should be prepared to wait for God’s timing, and while waiting we should ask God to give us the strength to cope with our situation. Lastly we should pray for one another, especially when we know that people are going through testing times. God may allow us to suffer for a time. He may even use suffering as a punishment. But he remains the only Saviour able to deliver us from trouble.

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)

Abiding in Christ. Remaining united to Him. The heart of this new life and this relationship we have with Jesus Christ is prayer. So over recent weeks we have been praying, “Lord teach US to pray!” We began by thinking about Simple prayer. Asking, seeking, knocking, because asking is the rule of the Kingdom. Praying through the Ordinary things of life, because wherever we are is Holy Ground. Next we learned about praying “just as I am”. Steps in prayer we can all take towards “familiar, unreserved conversation with God.” To offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices as we really are, not as we would wish to be. For this we can all benefit from prayers of self-examination and prayers of confession. In the third week we thought about Praying for transformation. Prayer changes things – but prayer also changes us. Prayers of relinquishment and prayers of surrender – “not my will but your will be done.” And we thought about formation prayers – prayers God can use to make us more like Jesus. Last week we talked about Adoring prayer. Prayers of Thanksgiving for all the blessings God pours upon us. Prayers of Praise for Who God is in Himself. We thought what it means to offer God a sacrifice of praise, praising God when it costs us to do so.
Simple prayer. Self examination. Confession. Transformation. Relinquishment. Surrender. Formation. Adoration. Thanksgiving. Praise. These are just some of the things we have been learning about prayer. And I hope you have been putting the theory into practice. “Do not worry about `proper’ praying, just talk to God. We learn to pray by praying!”
This week we are going deeper into prayer. “Pray without ceasing” Paul commands in 1 Thess 5:17. Be constant in prayer. (Romans 12:12.) Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. (Eph 6:18.) Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (Col 4:2) But what does all this mean? How can we really “pray without ceasing”?
The first and most important thing to say is something we have said more than once already. It is that quote from John Dalrymple.
“The truth is that we only learn to pray all the time everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere.”
If we want to go deeper into prayer and learn what it means to “pray without ceasing”, we must begin by making our regular times of prayer a priority. Setting apart time and space for solitude and silence. Working hard at meeting with God day by day and even hour by hour. A holy life is a succession of holy moments. We have to work very hard at our holy moments! I repeat, “we only learn to pray all the time everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere.”
But then today I want to introduce you to four brilliant practical suggestions to help us on the way to praying without ceasing.

The first suggestion is this. Most of us need to rediscover the great value of praying using set prayers. We belong to a spiritual tradition which values extemporary prayer. We value the freedom we have to come to God just as we are and pray whenever we want using whatever words come to mind at the time. Such prayer is like a conversation we could have with a loving parent or a dear friend, a conversation with God. It is spontaneous and free.
But remember, the vast majority of Christians through the centuries, and the Jews before them, did not generally pray the way we do. Many today do not. Other traditions very happily use set prayers – prayers written by other people, prayers often passed down through generations. They often use the prayers found in Scripture in the Psalms. Most make much more use than we do of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray, which we call the Lord’s Prayer but is really a pattern for our prayers as disciples.
Set prayers have their dangers. They can become “vain repetitions” where we don’t think about what we are saying. But that same objection can apply to the songs we sing. Most Christians are very happy to use hymns and songs and choruses which other people have written. We don’t feel we need to make up a brand new song every time we praise and worship God. The precise advantage of using words somebody else has written is that we can devote ourselves to thinking about the meaning of what we are singing, instead of having to use most of our concentration on thinking of the right things to say.
And the same can be true of our prayers. Sometimes using words which another believer has written can help us to express our deepest feelings better than we are able to do ourselves. It is good sometimes to be able to focus purely on God instead of having to search for the best words. It is a good thing to add our voices sometimes to the voices of countless saints in many places over many generations by using the very same prayers they used. And praying the same words as other believers have also prayed helps deliver us from that temptation of individualism which is gripping this generation. It does our soul good to admit sometimes that there are other Christians who have expressed themselves in prayer better than we ever can. So we humble ourselves and borrow their words to make their prayer our own.
If we were going to meet the Queen or the Prime Minister, or any important person, we would give some thought in advance to what we would say. We might well follow conventional forms of greeting and address, rather than just make it all up on the spot. How much more should we prepare ourselves to meet with Almighty God, and use words which acknowledge the glory and majesty of God. Here again, set prayers can deliver us from a dangerous over-familiarity with the all-powerful all-knowing omnipresent Creator and Ruler of the Universe.
Our spiritual traditions as Baptists, evangelicals and charismatics undervalue set prayers and liturgy. If we want to learn more about prayer that it shouldn’t be a question of either spontaneous prayers or set prayers. It should be both and. If we want to learn more about prayer we should never look down condescendingly on the rites and rituals and liturgies and set prayers of other traditions. All Christians can benefit from liturgy and sacrament and written prayers AND intimacy and informality and spontaneous prayers.
So as a first step to praying without ceasing, begin to explore the Psalms. Buy an Anglican prayer book, or one of the many books of prayers from Christian book shops. In recent years many people have found prayers in the Celtic Tradition and from the Northumbria Community very helpful. Then, next time you don’t feel like praying, or you don’t know what to pray, use prayers written by another person, quite probably somebody who knew more about prayer than any of us ever will. Take their prayer and make it your own personal prayer.
Suggestion One for praying without ceasing – use set prayers sometimes.

Suggestion two – Practising the Presence of God. This idea is especially associated with a 17th century monk Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection.
In a way Brother Lawrence was just talking about what we considered right at the beginning and called “praying the ordinary”. We said then that praying the ordinary means discovering that God is involved in EVERY aspect of our daily lives. It means learning to trust God in EVERY area of our lives, remembering the truth that we are Christians WHEREVER we are. WHEREVER we are is Holy Ground! We need to learn to turn the ordinary experiences of life into prayer; to see God in the ordinary experiences of life; to pray throughout the ordinary experiences of life.
We need to recognise the sanctity of the ordinary, the holiness of created things. In His great acts of creation and incarnation, God has intertwined the spiritual and the material, wedded the sacred and the secular, sanctified the common and the ordinary. We shouldn’t look to find God in the spectacular and the heroic but in the daily and the ordinary.
So our jobs are not a hindrance to prayer but an opportunity for prayer. We can sometimes pray while we work. We should always pray about our work and for our work. But we can also pray through our work. Our work can become prayer – prayer in action. We can present our work to God as a prayer offering to Him.
Colossians 3: 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
1Corinthians 10:31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Whatever the task, we can choose to do it in God’s strength and for God’s glory. All work is holy work. Our homes are just as holy as our church. All places are sacred places! We just need to learn to pray the ordinary.
Brother Lawrence wrote about “Practising the Presence of God.” By this he meant making every part of our everyday lives a subject for prayer. And more than that, he meant engaging in continuous conversation with God in prayer, whatever we are doing. Here are some of Brother Lawrence’s inspiring words. They are printed on today’s take-away sheet in case you wish to think through them when you get home.
“We should strive for `a habitual sense of God’s presence’ – `to be always with God.’ To be with God, there is no need to be in church. We make a chapel of our heart, to which we can from time to time withdraw to have gentle, humble, loving communion with Him. Everyone is able to have these familiar conversations with God. Some more, some less – He knows our capabilities. Let us make a start. Perhaps He only waits for us to make one whole-hearted resolve. Courage! We have but a short time to live.
Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions. He is always near you and with you; leave him not alone. You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you; why, then, must God be neglected?
Our biggest mistake is to think that a time of prayer is different from any other time. It is all one. The time of business does not differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees.
We can do little things for God: I turn the cake that is frying on the pan, for love of him; and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. When I can do nothing else, it is enough to have picked up a straw for the love of God. People look for ways of learning how to love God. They hope to attain it by I know not how many different practices. They take much trouble to abide in His presence by varied means. Is it not a shorter and more direct way to do everything for the love of God, to make use of all the tasks one’s lot in life demands to show him that love, and to maintain his presence within by the communion of our heart with his? There is nothing complicated about it. One has only to turn to it honestly and simply.
The depths of our spirituality does not depend upon changing the things we do, but in doing for God what we ordinarily do for ourselves.
A little lifting of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, one act of inward worship, are prayers which however short are acceptable to God.
You need not cry very loud. He is nearer to us than we think.”
Brother Lawrence – Practising the Presence of God. This is our second suggestion for praying without ceasing.
The third suggestion is as simple and brief as it is dramatically effective. It is to use what Richard Foster calls “breath prayers.” By this he means a specific short prayer which we can say in a single breath. Whenever we want to bring God to mind during the day and acknowledge His presence with us, we breathe this prayer. Whenever we want to dedicate a particular activity to God, we breathe this prayer. Whenever we want to ask for God’s grace and help and draw God into a particular situation, we breathe this prayer. It is a form of prayer which helps bring God into every part of our lives as we use it many many times through the day.
One breath prayer has been used by Christians for centuries. “Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” I used this prayer many times each day during my Sabbatical time in Uganda. First thing in the morning. Last thing at night. When you move from one activity to another. As you go to greet someone. “Jesus, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner.”
There are many other excellent breath prayers. You might like the first line of the prayer of St. Francis, “Lord, Make me a channel of your peace.” You might like to use “Abba Father, let me yours and yours alone.” Or God might lead you to a different “breath prayer” that is personal to you. Learn to pray without ceasing by using a breath prayer. I strongly recommend you to try it this week, starting today!
To finish I want to share you with one more very simple and practical suggestion which helped me enormously when I adopted it many years ago, back in my student days.
One of the things most of us do almost unconsciously throughout the day is look at our watch. How much longer is this sermon going to be? How long is it until lunch? For several years I had fixed to the face of my watch two little strips of plaster, in the shape of a cross. So every time I looked at the time I saw that reminder – “I am a Christian” “God is with me”. And that simple symbol would often prompt me to prayer. Perhaps a cross on your watch, or by your clock, might help you to learn more about “prayer without ceasing”. Or maybe in these days of digital watches and smartphones you might like to set yourself one or two alarms at particular times of day. And when the alarm sounds, take that as a call to prayer. The alarm will remind you that God and your relationship with God are more important than anything else you are doing at that time.
Abiding in Christ. Set prayers. Practising the Presence of God. Breath prayers. Pray without ceasing. “Do not worry about `proper’ praying, just talk to God. We learn to pray by praying!”

It was 37 years ago in the Whitsun Holiday of 1973 that God first revealed just how great He is to me. I was away on the school camp in Borrowdale. I had got up in the middle of the night. It was very dark – I don’t remember seeing any moon. All I could hear was Stonethwaite Beck bubbling alongside the camp and the occasional sounds of insects and birds. The hills each side cut the valley off from any other civilisation. And I remember looking up and seeing the night sky. Full of stars. There were no clouds. And we were so far away from any cities that there was no reflection of streetlights. The sky was darker and the stars were brighter than I had ever seen them before.
This was just a couple of weeks before I became a Christian. But I was still overwhelmed by the beauty of Creation and for the first time in my life I found myself praising the God I didn’t yet really believe in. God brought me to a place where I could be humbled by His greatness and His glory. For maybe half an hour I stood there lost for words at how great God must be to have created all those stars and galaxies, so many and so far away and so beautiful! That was my first experience of our subject for this morning, Adoring Prayer.
God often uses His creation to bring us to that place of adoration.
Psalm 8 1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise … 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Whatever brings us to that point, true heartfelt adoration is always pleasing to God. Remember Mary’s scandalous intimate worship, washing Jesus’s feet with her tears and drying them with her hair, and the lavish extravagance of anointing his head with precious perfume. Going totally “over the top” in her love for her Lord. And that was pleasing to God!
But adoration is nothing to do with buttering God up so that we get what we ask for when we get on to the asking kinds of prayers! Adoration is expressing our love for God, our appreciation for all He is and all He means to us, and that is vital! Adoration focuses our lives on God, expresses our relationship with God and deepens that relationship.
“You awaken us to delight in your praise; for you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
Adoring prayer has three aspects. The first is thanksgiving. The second is praise. The third is what Richard Foster calls “The Prayer of Rest” and we will come to that in a while. We must begin with thanksgiving and praise. What’s the difference between them?
“In thanksgiving we give glory to God for what He has done for us; in praise we give glory to God for who He is in Himself.” “When I give thanks my thoughts still circle around myself to some extent. But in praise my soul ascends to self-forgetting adoration, seeing and praising only the majesty and power of God, His grace and redemption.”
THANKSGIVING
Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name
Give thanks in all circumstances (1Thess 5:18) We have so much to thank God for!
Give thanks for God’s blessings given to everyone
Thank God for the BIRTH of Jesus; for the TEACHING of Jesus; for the MIRACLES of Jesus; for Jesus’s SUFFERING and TRIALS; for Jesus’s DEATH on the CROSS; for Jesus’s glorious RESURRECTION ; for the gift of the HOLY SPIRIT;
Give thanks for God’s blessings to ME individually
Psalm 103 1 Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Thank God for food and drink and family and friends. for answered prayers. for the hope of heaven. for the Bible and the fellowship of the church. for His peace and protection. for the wonderful joy He gives us. for His guidance and strengthening.
William Law, in his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life writes,
“Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives most alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice, but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.”
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) “When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”
There’s one thing every parent learns very early on. You don’t need to teach children how to ask for things. But you do need to teach them to say thank you. We are not always good at remembering to thank God. Think about the story of Jesus and the 10 lepers. 10 were healed. But only one came back to Jesus to say thank you! We need to WORK at prayers of thanksgiving!
Then we should PRAISE GOD
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise! (Psalm 48:1)
1 Chron 23:5 David: Four thousand (Levites) are to be gatekeepers and four thousand are to praise the LORD with the musical instruments I have provided for that purpose.”
The Westminster Catechism declares that ,`The chief end of man (the most important destiny of human beings) is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’
Rev 5:13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!” 14 The four living creatures said, “Amen”, and the elders fell down and worshipped.
Since we are going to spend eternity praising God we may as well start practising now!
CS Lewis: “God (deserves) to be praised! Admiration is the correct, adequate, appropriate response. If we do not admire we will be stupid, insensible and great losers, we shall have missed something.”
We give God our praise for who He is
Psalms 145:1 I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. 2 Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. 3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no-one can fathom.
Praise God our CREATOR Praise God our LIBERATOR Praise God our LORD Praise God our REDEEMER Praise God the JUDGE OF ALL Praise God our FATHER Praise GOD our FRIEND
We give God our praise for all he Has done for us
Psalms 117:1 Praise the LORD, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. 2 For great is his love towards us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures for ever. Praise the LORD.
Praise God for His LOVE; for His FAITHFULNESS; for His ALMIGHTY POWER; for His COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE; for His HOLINESS; for His GRACE and FORGIVENESS; for His PRESENCE everywhere;
Praise isnt an optional extra for Christians! But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light 1 Peter 2:9
C.S.Lewis also identified a variety of things which keep us from true adoration.
1) Greed – instead of savouring what God reveals to us we demand more. We are in such a hurry to move on to the next blessing we fail to appreciate this one.
2) Inattention – we fail to see God’s greatness and glory – due to our busyness and noise.
3) The wrong kind of attention – analysis instead of doxology. Instead of responding to God with love and adoration in our hearts, our minds get in the way. Sometimes we don’t see God because we are looking for the wrong things. “We ignore the Smell of Deity”. When we see distractions, we often fail to recognise God’s messengers.
Richard Foster points us to several Stepping Stones to adoration.
Paying attention to things – birds, squirrels, butterflies. The coolness of a brook the taste of our food. Don’t analyse, don’t look for profound revelations. Just enjoy the experience. Experience the sensations, don’t scrutinise them! Allow the Wonders of Creation to reveal the creator to you. At certain times of year I will often find myself stopping in the middle of a journey or even taking a detour just to get a good view of the beauty of a sunset.
Psalm 19
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
Then we can relive the encounters we have had with God in the past. Remember them. Reflect on them. Use them as a way to enter into God’s presence afresh.
And we must practise gratitude. Work hard at being grateful! Grateful for all the little things in life as well as for the big things! Finally, magnify God. Tell God how great he is. Shout to the world how great God is! Music can help. So can celebration. Sing and celebrate God’s greatness! Psalm 95:-
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
There are times in life WHEN WE FIND PRAISE DIFFICULT
Empty words, pious sentences and songs aren’t praise. God doesn’t want to hear words we don’t mean!
“Make us to be what we profess to be; let prayer be prayer and praise be heartfelt praise;”
There are times when praise is VERY difficult – when life is hard, when we are angry with God, when God seems far away. At such times saying or singing `I love you Lord’ would be a hypocritical lie. We can’t even say `thank you Lord’ and mean it because we aren’t in the least grateful to God. We are resentful, bitter, or hurting.
In those time we should remember that ADORATION and THANKSGIVING are subjective – they express of our feelings.
But PRAISE – declaring how great God is and what wonderful things He’s done, is OBJECTIVE – it’s all about facts!!
We may not feel like offering God our thanks – we may not feel any trace of adoration – but we CAN and SHOULD offer God our praise, acknowledging the FACTS of who God is and what He has done for us. This duty of praise is our SACRIFICE of praise –
Hebrews 13:15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name.
Joni Eareckson Tada “A sacrifice of praise will always cost you something. It will be a difficult thing to do. It requires trading in our pride, our anger, and most valued of all, our human logic. We will be compelled to voice our words of praise firmly and precisely, even as our logic screams that God has no idea what he’s doing. Most of the verses written about praise in God’s Word were penned by men and women who faced crushing heartaches, injustice, treachery, slander, and scores of other intolerable situations.”
So you don’t have to START with prayers of adoration you don’t mean. Start in praise with FACTS about who God is and what He has done for us. A sacrifice of praise leads us on to true thanksgiving, and that opens us to adoration and intimacy with God again.
Adoration, Thanksgiving, Praise. And these can sometimes lead us on to a place which Richard Foster calls the Prayer of Rest. A place where we can simply be still in God’s presence. Where our adoration and devotion needs no words of thanksgiving or praise. A place where we can rest in God’s love and soak in his peace. Where the only work we are required to do is to give our most intense attention to His still small voice of calm within us. Listen to Jesus’s invitation:-
Matt 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
After working at creating the world in six days, on the seventh day God rested. And God invites us to rest. To enter into His rest. To receive His peace, even while we are praying.
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is fixed on You, because he trusts in You. (Isaiah 26:3)
You may ask what can we possibly do to experience this peace and enter into this rest God promises? The answer is very simple: we need solitude and silence.
Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
If Jesus needed to search out solitude for prayer in the midst of the busyness of life, how much more do we need to do so. Through the ages there have been monks and mystics who have retreated into deserts in order to meet with God. We need solitude.
And in that solitude we can practice silence. Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10) Not just shutting out all the noises which so easily distract us. But stilling ourselves, becoming quiet and still and motionless, letting go of all the thoughts and pressures and worries which so easily take our minds away from God.
Francois Fenelon wrote, “We must silence every creature, we must silence ourselves, to hear in the deep hush of the whole soul the ineffable voice of God. We must bend the ear, because it is a gentle and delicate voice, only heard by those who no longer hear anything else.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote
“Silence is the simple stillness of the individual under the Word of God …. But everybody knows that this is something that needs to be practised and learned, in these days when talkativeness prevails.”
“Real silence, real stillness, really holding one’s tongue comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness ….” “The silence of the Christian is listening silence, humble stillness.”
So pay attention to this wonderful Creation and it will reveal the Creator to you. Remember and relive times you have met with God in the past. Practise gratitude. Magnify God. Bring Him your sacrifice of praise. Make some time this week for Adoring prayer. Make space for solitude and silence. Thank God for all He has done for you. Praise God for who He is. Because He’s worth it! And you too can enter into the prayer of rest.

Prayer changes things. But prayer also changes us. And the more we learn about prayer the more we will realise how important it is that prayer changes us.

In learning to pray we began by thinking about simple prayer, asking, seeking, knocking, ordinary people bringing our everyday needs to our loving heavenly Father. “Asking is the rule of the Kingdom.” But any parent longs for the day when his children will see him not merely as a Provider but also as a Teacher and as a Friend. So God longs to the time when our relationship with him will involve more than just a shopping list of things we want God to do for us.

We need a Copernican revolution of the heart. Copernicus realised that the sun does not God around the earth but the earth goes round the sun. In the same way we need to move on from thinking that God is a part of our lives to realising that we are part of God’s life. God is at the centre, not me. And prayer is at the heart of this revolution in our thinking. Prayer changes us. It was the founder of the Baptist Missionary Society William Carey who wrote that “Secret, fervent, believing prayer is the root of all personal Godliness.”

As our relationship with God deepens, as we come to know God better, just like in any other relationship we will want to do more of the things which please God and less of the things which offend Him. We will want to become more like Jesus. And in order to become more like Jesus, we need to learn about this secret fervent believing prayer which changes us –transforming prayer.

This will begin with what Richard Foster calls prayers of relinquishment – prayers of letting go. These are prayer which change us because we invite Almighty God to do whatever HE chooses in our lives. Richard Foster puts it like this. “As we are learning to pray we discover an interesting progression. In the beginning our will struggles with God’s will. We beg we pout. We demand. We expect God to perform like a magician or shower us with blessings like Father Christmas. We major in instant solutions and manipulative prayers.”

But then as we grow in prayer we discover that prayer is not about getting God to do our will. Prayer is about coming to the point where we do God’s will. Not God doing what we want but us doing what God wants. The point which Mary reached when she said to the angel, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

It is that point in prayer which even the Lord Jesus Christ had to wrestle to reach in Gethsemane.
Matthew 22:36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Did you notice there that the answer of God the Father to the prayer Jesus was asking was NO.
“If you are willing, take this cup from me.” NO.
“If it be possible, take this cup from me.” NO.
In the end the only way left open for Jesus was to do the Father’s will. “Not my will but your will be done.” The prayer of relinquishment. Laying down our own human will to do God’s will. Gethsemane shows us a better way to live. The way of helplessness. The way of abandonment. The way of relinquishment. Not my way but God’s way. “My will” in submission to God’s will.

The struggle Jesus experienced in Gethsemane was genuine. Saying “no” to what we want and “yes” to what God wants will often be a battle. As we will see in our evening service in a few weeks time, Abraham struggled with God over Isaac. It took Moses 40 years learning as a shepherd in the desert before he was ready to do God’s work in God’s way. Think of the lives of King David or of the Apostle Paul. Every Christian will have areas of our lives where we struggle with God in prayer: over the job we will do, the person we may marry, where we will live, the church we belong to. And for each one of us there will be parts of our lives God wants to change: our besetting sins. There will be many areas where we each need to come to the point of sating to God, “Not my will but your will be done.” Handing control of our lives open to God in prayers of surrender – prayers of relinquishment.

Andrew Murray was a South African pastor at the heart of the revival there in 1860. One of his most famous books is called “Absolute surrender.” Andrew Murray wrote this.
“The Spirit teaches me to yield my will entirely to the will of the Father. He opens my ear to wait in great gentleness and teachableness of soul for what the Father has day to day to speak and to teach. He reveals to me ho union with God’s will is union with God Himself. How entire surrender to God’s will is the Father’s claim, the Son’s example, and true blessedness of soul.”

Handing our lives over to God in prayer in this way is a vital part of spiritual growth and a deepening relationship with God. When God brings a particular activity or a specific aspect of our lives to our attention, it won’t always be easy to say “no” to self and “yes” to God. Of course, prayers of relinquishment are not only the final prayer of surrender, but also the whole process of days or weeks or months of wrestling with God in prayer until we finally come to the point of being will to say “yes”.

The apostle Paul describes this process of self-surrender in words we know well in Romans 12:1-2.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Here is the challenge to sacrifice what we want to do, and instead to do what God wants us to do – God’s good, pleasing and perfect will.
Sometimes God will ask us to hand some area of our life over to Him, only to give it straight back to us again. The point there is that we all need to learn that God is the boss. Jesus Christ is Lord. When He commands, we must obey. We need to nail our will to the cross so that God’s will is done.

On the other hand, sometimes when we hand an area of our lives over to God He takes it away and never gives it back to us. In those situations the prayer of relinquishment is absolutely vital. Richard Foster puts it this way. Sometimes “we hold on so tightly to the good we know that we cannot receive the greater good we do not know.” That is so important that I am going to say it again. Sometimes “we hold on so tightly to the good we know that we cannot receive the greater good we do not know.” “God has to help us to let go of our tiny vision in order to release the greater good He has in store for us.”

God may ultimately give back to us what we have handed to Him, or He may take it away from us forever. Either way, the important thing is that we come to the point of saying “not my will but your will be done.” What matters is that our own will is crucified so that God’s will is done in our lives – that we come to the point of being able to say with Paul in Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

With crucifixion comes resurrection. God is not destroying our will. But He is transforming it so that we freely will what God Himself wills.

Last week we thought about the value of prayers of confession: acknowledging and bewailing our manifold sins and wickedness. Confession is the first step in opening our lives to God’s transforming power. God can only begin to change us to be more like Christ when we honestly acknowledge that we need to be changed. Then the second step is prayers of relinquishment as we hand our lives over to God and actually ask God to set us free from what A.W.Tozer so memorably calls “the fine threads of the self life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit … the self sins: self-sufficiency, self-pity, self-absorption,… self-deception, self-exaltation, self-indulgence.” Letting God have HIS way in our lives will finally bring us freedom from the everlasting burden of having to get our own way.

Only God Himself can tell us what are the areas of our lives which we are holding on to, where He wants us to hand control over to Him. But there are particular prayers of relinquishment which you may find helpful.

Philippians 2:5-8 reminds us of Christ’s attitude, and we can use that passage as a starting point for meditation and as a “prayer of self-emptying.”
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!
In the same way we can meditate on Jesus in Gethsemane in Matthew 26 or Luke 22 and use his prayer as our own prayer of surrender. “Not my will but your will be done.”

There is a simple prayer of self-abandonment which some people find very helpful:
“Father I abandon myself into your hands: do with me what you will.”

There is a longer prayer of relinquishment in the booklet of prayers which begins,
“Lord I am willing to be made willing. I am desirous that Thy will shall be done in me, and through me, as thoroughly as it is done in heaven. Come and take me and break me and remake me.”

In the booklet there is also a very helpful meditation written by the French priest Michele Quoist entitled, “Help me to say ‘Yes’”. You may like to use the prayers in the booklet in your own prayers this week.

In all we are learning about prayer, the theory is only an introduction to the practice. We learn to pray by praying. So I invite us all to make some time this week to come before God in meditation and in prayers of relinquishment and surrender.

But after prayers of confession and of relinquishment there is another kind of prayer which is very valuable in the process of God changing us. We can call this “formation prayer” or “transformation prayer” – prayer which forms the character of Christ in us and transforms us into His likeness. This is an vital aspect of what all prayer should be about, “to bring us into such a life of communion with the Father that, by the power of the Spirit we are increasingly conformed to the image of the Son.”

We started the year and introduced this sermon series with a simple example of a formation prayer.
Day by day, dear Lord I pray:
To see you more clearly; Love you more dearly; Follow you more nearly Day by Day

Another familiar example would be the prayer of Saint Francis. I have included this in the Booklet of Prayers. For a number of years when I first became a Christian I prayed this prayer every evening just before going to sleep.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, let me bring hope; where there is darkness, let me bring light; and where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Of course prayer is not the only thing we can do to develop our Christian character. Worship, meditation and fasting have their place, as also do faith and love and obedience and humble service. But we should not neglect the importance of prayer: prayers of relinquishment and prayers of formation. And one thing these kinds of prayer need is time. Time given to drawing close to God in prayer. We learn to pray by praying – and that takes time. And also solitude and silence. Separating ourselves from noise and people so that we can really meet with God.

And then when it comes to prayer which changes us, we can learn a lot from the classical mystical traditions of Christian spirituality. You may have heard of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola: a pattern of meditations each day over four weeks. The first week focuses on our own sins and our need to be bathed in God’s love. The second week looks at the life of Christ as we ask to be transformed into the image of Christ. The third week focuses on Christ’s passion as we seek to die to our sins and the fourth week looks at Christ’s resurrection as we see God’s grace to choose God’s will. The Spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.

Another tradition is the 12 steps of St Benedict: 12 meditations on the subjects of a constant reverence for God, rejecting our own will and doing God’s will, confession, cultivating silence, avoiding frivolous talk, using plain simple speech, enduring with patience the afflictions we face and being content in all things. The 12 steps of St Benedict.

I can also offer you a modern equivalent of these classic routes to discipleship and holiness: a five week guided course in discipleship called “Fan the Flame” Week 1 looks at “Knowing God better”. Week 2 covers “Becoming like Jesus.” Week 3 explores “Living in Christ’s Body”. Week 4 is the challenge of “Becoming a Servant” and Week 5 looks at what it means to “Be filled with the Spirit”. Each week has notes for five studies with Bible readings and a few pages to read and pray about – the topics for all the studies are listed on the flier. It is called a guided course because after each week of personal study and reflection the disciple meets one-to-one with a guide to discuss and pray about what they have been learning.
I wrote “Fan the Flame” three years ago and since then something over fifty folk in Brentwood Baptist Church have gone through the course and a number of other churches have used it as well. People have told me they have found it very helpful. If you think you would like to work through Fan the Flame between now and Easter with me as your guide please take a flier and have a word with me.

Prayer changes things and prayer changes us. Prayers of confession, prayers of relinquishment and prayers of formation – transforming prayer. Prayers God can use to make us more like Jesus. But we need to be doers of the word – not hearers only. We learn to pray by praying.

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You can find more details of the guided course in discipleship, “Fan the Flame” at

http://pbthomas.com/new_page_4.htm

A seventeenth- century Roman Catholic Frenchman named Francois Fenelon wrote these words about prayer.
“Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them, talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and to others.
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject… People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back, neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration they say just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved conversation with God.”

So what can WE do to experience such “familiar, unreserved conversation with God”? We thought last week about “simple prayer”, asking God to meet our needs. “Ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a compassionate Father.” Consciously relying on God for all of our everyday needs. We thought about “praying the ordinary”, turning the ordinary experiences of life into prayer; seeing God in the ordinary experiences of life; praying throughout the ordinary experiences of life, learning to see every place as Holy Ground.

And we thought about prayer as a duty, our covenant obligation to God to make detailed resolutions to find the best time for prayer, the best place for prayer and the best heart preparation for prayer. Fixed times of prayer taking priority over everything else to remind us that God is more important than anything else. Place, finding a place which really is “Holy Ground” for you where you find it easy to pray with the minimum of distraction and disturbance. And heart preparation,. a PATTERN of steps we take which bring a holy expectancy in prayer – posture, a Christian book, or a prayer book, or a psalm, maybe even lighting a candle to turn your living room into your sanctuary.

As John Dalrymple said “The truth is that we only learn to pray all the time everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere.”

I hope that you have been trying to apply some of these ideas to your own praying in the past week. Practice makes perfect. The only way to learn to pray is by praying. As Richard Foster says, “Don’t worry about `proper’ praying, just talk to God. We learn to pray by praying.”

But where can we go beyond simple prayer? We should never stop asking and seeking and knocking, but what’s the next step in prayer. How do we move on to what Francois Fenelon calls “familiar, unreserved conversation with God?” The secret here is OPENNESS – we must learn to be open with God, to come to God “just as we are”.

Nobody knows us as we really are. Not our parents or our spouse or our children or our closest friends. Nobody else knows what any of us are really like, and what we truly think deep down. We are afraid that anybody who did know us as we really are would reject us. Or that they could use their knowledge of us to hurt us. So in front of anybody else all of us wear masks all the time. We say the things we think other people will want to hear. We don’t do or say things which might upset them. We all put on a front, to stop other people from seeing “the real me”. And for most of the time this pretence is completely subconscious – we don’t even realise the ways we’re holding ourselves back from other people.

All relationships demand honesty. The closer and deeper the relationship, the more honest we should be with the other person. And this is supremely true of our relationship with God. Prayer demands honesty. So we need to learn to come before God in prayer “just as we are”. To come to God “to lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” “Just as we are” with openness and honesty and no pretence. We have to learn “not to pretend to be more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we actually are. Not to try to conceal our conflicting and contradictory motives from God – or ourselves. And in this posture of openness we can then pour out our heart to the God who is greater than our heart and knows all things.”

God knows us inside out. He knows what we are really like, and loves us just the same. So we don’t need to be afraid with God. But we can’t assume that openness and honesty will happen naturally or automatically. We need to take definite steps to open our life to God – definite steps to share our deepest feelings with God in prayer. So this morning we are going to think about the importance of prayers of self-examination and prayers of confession. Richard Foster talks about “THE PRAYER OF EXAMEN” but I think a better label is prayers of self-examination. Prayers that help us to know ourselves as we are – the priceless grace of self-knowledge. “To offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices we must offer ourselves as we really are, not as we would wish to be. As Richard Foster says, “We need to give to God not just our strengths but also our weaknesses, not just our giftedness but also our brokenness. “Our duplicity, our lust, our sloth, all laid on the altar of sacrifice.” “When in honesty we accept the evil that is in us as part of the truth about ourselves, and offer that truth up to God, we are in a mysterious way nourished.” “Through faith, self knowledge leads us to a self-acceptance and a self love that draw their life from God’s acceptance and love. So our soul falls towards its proper centre which is God.”

There are two aspects of prayer which are helpful in this process of self-examination. Both are equally important and both deserve equal time. But Christians tend to extremes, and depending on our personalities each of us tend to give most of our attention to one of these kinds of prayer and neglect the other.

The first aspect of prayers of self-examination is what classic spirituality called an examination of CONSCIOUSNESS – the remembrance of love – taking time to look back on the day and see how God has been present to us throughout the day, and how we have responded to Him. “Discerning the footprints of the Holy” on our daily lives
When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings; see what God has done;
And when we recognise God’s touch on our lives we will be overwhelmed with thanksgiving.

The second aspect of prayer which can help us is an examination of CONSCIENCE – the scrutiny of love – discovering areas of our lives that need cleansing, purifying and healing and prompting us to confession. God searching our hearts within us – the purifying fire – a joint search so we can’t excuse our sins, but at the same time God will also assure us of His forgiveness.

Some of us dwell on God’s blessings. Others of us are preoccupied with our own sinfulness. Thanksgiving and confession – we need them BOTH! If you tend to spend all your time on one and neglect the other, try praying differently this week! Each of us could benefit from spending a little time this week in prayerful self-examination.

Psalm 139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. …. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:1-4, 23-24)

In the process of self-examination, set prayers of confession can be very helpful. They confront each one of us with the truth that I, like everybody else, am a miserable sinner! We all have our own “blind spots”. Things about us which everybody else can see but we ourselves are oblivious to. Set prayers of confession remind us of the kinds of sins people can fall into, so that the Holy Spirit can challenge our hearts just like that time when the prophet Nathan challenged King David over his crimes of adultery and murder: “you are the man.” True repentance begins when we genuinely `acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness’. And as a result we receive forgiveness of sins and assurance of pardon – your sins really are forgiven you, for Jesus’s sake. This will bring us to an ever increasing appreciation and fuller assurance of God’s grace and forgiveness and to a growing holiness and a deeper relationship with God.

So we confess our sins. “Before a loving and gracious Father we declare our sins without excuse or abridgement. Unbelief and disunity, arrogance and self-sufficiency, offences too personal to name and too many to mention.”
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

Hymn 488 Augustus Toplady’s hymn Rock of ages, cleft for me

Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress; Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly: Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

And these prayers of confession will sometimes bring us to what Richard Foster calls “THE PRAYER OF TEARS.” The godly sorry of a broken and contrite heart. When we truly recognise our own sinfulness we will weep and mourn. Not only metaphorically, but sometimes literally. The prayer of tears. Because prayer should always touch our hearts and not just our minds. We must not only “acknowledge” but also “bewail” our manifold sins and wickedness. As Foster says, “unless the emotive centre of our lives is touched, it is as if a fuse remains unlit.”
True prayer is emotional as well as rational. Time and again in the Bible men and women of faith wept in God’s presence. “Tears are God’s way of helping us to descend with the mind into the heart, and there bow in perpetual adoration and worship.”

Psalm 32:1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. 3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”- and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

So here are steps in prayer we can all take towards familiar, unreserved conversation with God. We all need to learn to come to God “just as I am.” “To lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” To offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices as we really are, not as we would wish to be. For this we can all benefit from prayers of self-examination, discerning the footsteps of the Holy in our lives, and prayers of confession which cleanse our conscience and bring us closer to God. And sometimes we need to discover the prayer of tears – deep godly sorrow which leads to repentance.
Lord, teach us to pray!

PRAYER :

JUST AS I AM, without one plea But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, and waiting not To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, though tossed about With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind; Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need in Thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, Thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because Thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, Thy love unknown Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come. (Charlotte Elliot)

Our son David plays the saxophone. He’s had lessons for quite a few years now and he plays the saxophone very well- well enough that we have had to upgrade his sax to a better model. So every evening he comes home and plays – the guitar. My guitar, actually. For hours. And he is getting quite good on the guitar too. But it’s the saxophone we are paying for all the lessons for and its the saxophone he is preparing to take his Grade 8 exam on. So we would quite like him to practice the saxophone sometimes.

Because learning to play the saxophone is like learning to play the piano (which I was doing at his age) , or learning to ride a bicycle, or learning to drive a car as our daughters have had to do. We don’t learn any of these things by reading books or talking to other people or even watching other people (although the books and the advice can be helpful). The only way we learn to play a musical instrument is by practice. You just have to practice! Just as we learn to ride by sitting on a bike and pedalling and steering and getting back on when we fall off. We learn to play a musical instrument by practice. Scales, pieces, arpeggios, pieces, broken chords, pieces, hands separately, hands together, practice, practice, practice!

And learning to pray is just the same. The only way to learn to pray is by praying. Sometimes the reason we don’t pray is that we feel we are not good at praying. We feel we need more teaching before we can pray properly. But that is a mistake! The way to learn to pray is by praying. We may neglect prayer and hide away from God because we feel we are no good at praying. The answer is to pray more, not less.

We may feel that we are failures because we pray so little. We mustn’t be discouraged. We need to learn “the prayer of beginning again”, getting back on and trying again, and again, and again, rather than giving up and just not praying. Richard Foster gives very wise advice. “For now, do not worry about `proper’ praying, just talk to God. By praying we learn to pray.”

One day Jesus’s disciples asked him, “Lord teach us to pray.” Listen to what Jesus replied.

Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
9 “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

What did Jesus teach his disciples about prayer? Simply this. Ask. Seek. Knock. Richard Foster calls this “simple prayer”, just asking God to meet our needs. “Ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a compassionate Father.” Coming “just as we are” to God, with openness and honesty and no pretence. Making your requests to God, asking, seeking, knocking.

As Spurgeon once said, “Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom.”

Sometimes we stop praying those simple “asking” prayers because we are afraid that our prayers are “too selfish”. Foster reminds us, “We never outgrow that kind of asking prayer because we never outgrow the needs that give rise to it.” “The only way we move beyond `self-centred prayer’ (if indeed we ever do) is by going through it, not by making a detour round it.” So our prayers must begin with where we are. “The only place God can bless us is where we are, because that is the only place we are!”

We must begin by learning to ask God and seek God and rely on God in the ordinary events of everyday life, with our families and jobs and neighbours and friends. What Richard Foster calls, “PRAYING THE ORDINARY”

Praying the ordinary means discovering that God in involved in EVERY aspect of our daily lives and learning to trust God in EVERY area of our lives. We need to rediscover the truth that we are Christians WHEREVER we are. WHEREVER we are is Holy Ground!

Of course we should pray about our Christian activities. We should pray for our church. And its services. And our minister. Of course we should pray about witnessing to friends who are not yet saved. Of course we should be praying for the gospel to spread around the world. There is that challenging question, “If you were to die tonight, would your prayers be missed on the mission field?” We should pray MORE for our Christian lives.

But we also need to learn to see every place as Holy Ground. We can do this by “praying the ordinary”. By turning ordinary experiences of life into prayer; by seeing God in the ordinary experiences of life; by praying throughout the ordinary experiences of life.

Richard Foster puts it this way. “We need to recognise the sanctity of the ordinary, the holiness of created things. In His great acts of creation and incarnation, God has intertwined the spiritual and the material, wedded the sacred and the secular, sanctified the common and the ordinary. We shouldn’t look to find God in the spectacular and the heroic but in the daily and the ordinary. If we can’t find God in the routines of home and shop and family and work and rest and play then we will never find God at all.”

Some people see their jobs as a hindrance to prayer. In fact our jobs are an opportunity for prayer. We can sometimes pray while we work. We should always pray about our work and for our work. But we can also pray through our work. Our work can become prayer – prayer in action. We can present our work to God as a prayer offering to Him.

Colossians 3: 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

1Corinthians 10:31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

“The work of our hands and of our minds is acted-out prayer, a love-offering to the living God.” In the film, Chariots of Fire, the Olympic runner Eric Liddell said, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.” All good work is pleasing to our Heavenly Father, even jobs that seem boring, unimportant and mundane and meaningless or unpleasant. In these days of superstardom in the celebrity jungle and 15 minutes of fame in the Big Brother House, the Bible shows us again and again that “God values the ordinary”. Whatever the task, we can choose to do it in God’s strength and for God’s glory. Ignatius of Loyola said, “Everything that one turns in the direction of God is a prayer.”

So we can pray the ordinary when we see and meet God in the everyday experiences of life. In times of waiting, in queues in the supermarket and the bank, waiting for the telephone to ring. Especially in traffic, driving or as a passenger, we can offer our waiting to God. Just keep your eyes open as you pray! “In the everyday and the commonplace we can learn patience, acceptance and contentment.”

As we learn to pray through the ordinary experiences of life, TV news and newspapers will prompt us to pray there and then for world leaders and current events. We silently pray for the people we meet in shops and corridors and school gates. And we pray in our home life. Our homes are just as holy as our church. All places are sacred places! We just need to learn to pray the ordinary. This will bring us to a conversion of the heart, a Copernican revolution. Copernicus realised that the sun doesn’t go round the earth but rather the earth goes around the sun. So in our spiritual lives, “We need to pass from thinking of God as part of our life to the realisation that we are part of His life.”

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:6-7

Paul is not saying, “Whatever your problems, one quick prayer and everything will be alright.” It is an invitation to continuous prayer, to pray without ceasing, praying about anything and everything. Paul is saying “keep on presenting your requests to God”. And as you keep on bringing every aspect of your life to God in prayer, God will keep on meeting your needs and so you will continue to experience that peace which passes all understanding, which only God can give.

I learned something very important about prayer from the six weeks I spent on Sabbatical in Uganda. Christians in Uganda PRAY before every meal, before every drink, before every journey, after every journey, before they say goodbye, every time when somebody is hurt or sick – not just when it’s something major! For all their problems with water supply and health and transport and survival hand to mouth from day to day, the Christians in Uganda know much more of the peace God gives than most English Christians. Even though many of them suffered terribly at the hands of Idi Amin’s regime, these Christians experience God’s peace. Ugandan Christians consciously depend on God for their daily bread and for all their day-to-day needs much more than we think we need to. They know much more than we do about “praying the ordinary.”

So how can we move on in our prayer lives? This is where Richard Foster points us to the great value of

“COVENANT PRAYER” – committing ourselves to the duty of prayer

We must make time to pray! Prayer is nothing more than an ongoing growing love relationship with God. But all good relationships demand time and effort. As we need to commit ourselves to another person for any relationship to grow, so we need to commit ourselves to developing and deepening our relationship with God.

A.W.Tozer:- “Probably the most widespread and persistent problem to be found among Christians is the problem of retarded spiritual progress. The main cause is most likely to be this: failure to give time to the cultivation of the knowledge of God.
The Christian is strong or weak depending upon how closely he has cultivated the knowledge of God. Progress in the Christian life is exactly equal to the growing knowledge we gain of God in personal experience. And such experience requires a whole life devoted to it and plenty of time spent at the holy task of cultivating God. God can be known satisfactorily only as we devote time to Him.
There is no short cut to sanctity. A thousand distractions would woo us away from thoughts of God, but if we are wise we will sternly put them from us and make room for the King and take time to entertain Him. To neglect communion with God is to hurt ourselves where we cannot afford it. God will respond to our efforts to know Him. It is altogether a matter of how much determination we bring to the holy task.”
A.W.Tozer in The Root of the Righteous

We like to be busy and active. Sometimes we hide from God in busyness and activity. We surround ourselves with noise. What we need is silence and space to meet with God. It’s all about how we use our time. The more important an activity is to us, the more time we will give to it. If we want to get to know God better, we need to make time to pray!

So Richard Foster points us to prayer as an expression of our covenant obedience to God. We may be afraid of commitment and “acts of duty”. Responsibility sounds confining. We fear we may lose spontaneity and joy. We fear we may fail to keep our promises. But God expects and demands and deserves our commitment. Like the discipline of practising the piano or learning to ride a bike! We will never learn to do these things well if we do not commit ourselves to practising even when we don’t feel like it! When we fall off we just get up, get back on and try again. Falling off doesn’t hurt as much as staying on the floor.

If we mean business with God, we need solemn vows of commitment to prayer! Being a living sacrifice will include praying when we don’t feel like praying! God Himself invites us to discover the riches of prayer.
“Taste and see that the Lord is good!” Psa 34:8

But we need detailed resolves! Resolutions to find the best time for prayer, the best place for prayer and the best heart preparation for prayer. See whether God might be leading you make any changes in your patterns of personal prayer.

We need a Covenant of time – constancy, a regular experience of prayer even if it interrupts what we think of as important work. Fixed times of prayer taking priority over everything else reminds us that God is more important than anything else. That could be a commitment to a regular time each day. In this modern busy world some people find it more helpful to commit themselves to a WEEKLY time of prayer and devotional reading. Either way, we need discipline to MAKE a regular fixed time for personal prayer.

Then we need a Covenant of place – stability. Finding a place which really is “Holy Ground” for you. A room, a chair, the garden, some convenient quiet location where you find it easy to pray with the minimum of distraction and disturbance. If this all sounds too restricting, too legalistic, think about these wise words from John Dalrymple.
“The truth is that we only learn to pray all the time everywhere after we have resolutely set about praying some of the time somewhere.”

Then we can benefit from a Covenant of heart preparation. A PATTERN of steps we can take which bring a holy expectancy when we come to prayer. Rituals for preparation, like adopting a helpful posture – sitting, kneeling, standing. Using a Christian book, or a prayer book, or a psalm to prepare for prayer. Many Christians of all denominations find it very helpful to light a candle to turn your living room into your sanctuary. Time; place; heart preparation.

Our times of prayer are a vital expression of our relationship with God. So often so many Christians approach times of prayer with the same level of enthusiasm as we would being summoned to the boss’s office or a visit to the dentist. What a contrast with happy children who are usually delighted to be ably to spend time and have a long chat with loving parents. Richard Foster writes about trysting prayer. A tryst is an old word meaning a prearranged meeting of lovers – a special date with God. Our times of prayer can be like that! “We are glad to waste time with God for we are pleased with the company.”

Lord teach US to pray! Simple prayer. Ask, seek, knock. Asking is the rule of the Kingdom. Praying the Ordinary. Wherever we are is Holy Ground. And times of Prayer as our covenant commitment to God. Time, place, heart preparation.

“For now, do not worry about `proper’ praying, just talk to God. By praying we learn to pray.”

What New Year’s resolutions have you made this year? Do you remember what your resolutions were for 2010? What happened to them? What difference did they make to your life? If they are to be successful, any resolutions need to be so worthwhile and so important that you actually stuck to them.
This morning I am going to suggest 10 possible New Year’s resolutions for 2011 we could all adopt. I wouldn’t expect anybody to choose all 10! But you may like to choose two or three of the things I am going to suggest this morning. Even any one of them could really change your life!
But in case you are worried that this is about to be a 10 point sermon, all 10 ideas are wrapped up in one short prayer: a prayer you may well be familiar with, and a prayer which you may like to make your own and use as your prayer for every day of 2011. It’s a prayer attributed to Richard of Chichester in the 12th Century,
Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits thou hast given me,
for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me.
O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother,
may I know thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
and follow thee more nearly, day by day.
Amen.
You probably know the prayer in the more familiar form made popular in 1970s in the musical Godspell.
Day by day, dear Lord I pray:
To see you more clearly;
Love you more dearly;
Follow you more nearly
Day by Day

TO SEE YOU MORE CLEARLY

Peter ends his second letter like this.
2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen!
Hebrews 5:12-6:2 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

There is so much to find out about God we only know the tiniest fraction and understand even less. Somebody once said, “If God is real and Christians are really God’s children, what are you doing with your Bible shut?”

1. Give more attention to Bible Reading every day.Many Christians spend more time reading their newspapers than reading their Bibles. Most spend more time watching television than reading their Bibles. Many younger Christians spend more time on Facebook or surfing the internet than reading their Bibles.

2. Read at least one Christian book a month.

Books that help us understand the Bible, or understand the world around, or share our faith. Biographies that inspire us and help us to serve God and each other. Christian stories like the works of CS Lewis which are so much more wholesome than most non-Christian fiction.

3. Look for an extra way of learning which is new to you.

If you only come to our morning services, try our evening services. If you don’t already belong to a Home Group, join one of our Home Groups. Consider going to Spring Harvest, or one of the different Baptist Training Days. If you want some more ideas of what might be just right for you, come and have a chat.
All these are ways of seeing God more clearly. It was Thomas Aquinas who said, “to love God is much greater than to know Him.”

LOVE YOU MORE DEARLY

Matthew 22:36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.

Eph 3 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

If we measure how much we love somebody by how much we enjoy being in their presence, or how much time we spend with them, or how much we want to talk to them, it would appear that many Christians do not love God very much.
Sometimes we forget just how much God loves us! When we realise just how much God loves us, we will want to know Him better and to love Him more.
The key to loving God more and to deepening our relationship with God is of course PRAYER. Our sermon series over the next six weeks will focus on learning to pray and our Homegroups will explore prayer in more depth. But knowing about prayer is really less important than actually praying. So how about these New Year Resolutions for loving God more dearly.

4. Give more time to prayer each day.

There is something wrong when Christians spend more time talking to strangers on their mobiles or on Facebook than they do talking to God in prayer. It was that great evangelist Alan Redpath who talked about Blanket Victory in our Christian lives – the victory we need over the blankets in the morning or last thing at night when we end up sleeping instead of praying.

5. Make more opportunities to pray with other Christians

We have our church prayer meetings. I will talk another time about the great value of praying in 2s and 3s with other Christians, prayer partnerships and prayer triplets. Find a friend you would be happy praying with, suggest a time, and start praying!
In your praying either by yourself or with others, make sure that your prayers are not just a shopping list. Make sure to spend time in worship and praise and thanksgiving and adoration too.
Psalm 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

We need to learn what it means to delight ourselves in the Lord! And that takes time in prayer!

6. Set aside a long time for prayer retreats or quiet days

Not just an hour but a whole morning, or a whole day for silence and solitude, prayer and reflection and meditation. Getting to know somebody else and building a relationship takes time – so give it time! Tell an engaged couple that they can spend a whole day together and they will be delighted! Why are so many Christians scared of spending a whole day just with God?
The Christian mystic St John of the Cross said, “Seek in reading and you will find in meditation. Knock in prayer and it shall be opened to you in contemplation.”
It’s a new year! We all have new diaries with lots of empty pages. Take the opportunity to block in some days to spend with God NOW – before other less important things crowd God out!
Here are some valuable steps to loving God more dearly. But then

TO FOLLOW YOU MORE NEARLY

To become more like Christ. In what ways would you like to grow to be more like Jesus in 2011?
Ephesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
We need to discover in our everyday experience more of what it means to “grow up into Christ”

7. Rely on God more in battles against temptation – don’t give in without a fight!

1 Corinthians 10:12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

8. Seek to discover and develop your spiritual gifts in serving Christ in the church and in the world

Eph 4:11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

We all have gifts – we all have a part to play

16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

As Baptists we believe in the priesthood of ALL believers – all of us share in the work of ministry. All of us have our part to play. And we need each and every part to do its work! By the way, for some folk this would be a good time to think about being baptised as a believer – for others, to think about becoming a member of North Springfield Baptist Church.

9. Work hard at bringing others to faith in Jesus Christ

“The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost”! I will be suggesting ways we can do this in weeks to come.
So here are 10 New Year’s Resolutions which could change our lives and change our church. Which will you choose to make for 2011, starting today?
SEE YOU MORE CLEARLY
1. Give more attention to Bible Reading every day
2. Read at least one Christian book a month.
3. Look for an extra way of learning which is new to you.
LOVE YOU MORE DEARLY
4. Give more time to prayer each day.
5. Make more opportunities to pray with other Christians
6. Set aside a long time for prayer retreats or quiet days
TO FOLLOW YOU MORE NEARLY
7. Rely on God more in battles against temptation – don’t give in without a fight!
8. Seek to discover and develop your gift in serving Christ in the church and in the world
9. Work hard at bringing others to faith in Jesus Christ
But now for the 10th resolution which underlies all the others.

10. Press on to discover more of the love and the power of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Following Jesus is not about turning over a new leaf but about living a new life, not in our own strength but by God’s grace with God’s power.
Day by day, dear Lord I pray:
To see you more clearly;
Love you more dearly;
Follow you more nearly
Day by Day