Merry Christmas from Bellevue Foursquare!

Marking the Anniversary of the Abolition of Legal Slave Trading in Britain and Martin Luther King day

Matthew 7:7-12
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12 So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
James 1:26-2:13
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
The title of this message is long and full of historical significance: “The Spring of Persistent Public Love - Marking the Anniversary of the Abolition of Legal Slave Trading in Britain: A Sermon on the weekend before Martin Luther King day”
I hope to weave together three things:
1) a biblical portrayal of the origin of persistent public love,
2) a tribute to the abolition of the slave trade in Britain on February 24, 1807, with a special focus on the biblical roots of this abolition in the life of William Wilberforce, and

3) a connection to the ethnic challenges of our own situation in honor of Martin Luther King Weekend next week
Wilberforce, and the Bible
First, let’s go to the Bible, God’s word.
Both William Wilberforce in Britain two hundred years ago and Martin Luther King in America fifty years ago rooted their persistent, socially transforming, public love in the Bible.
I don’t mean that they understood and used the Bible in the same way.
Wilberforce was an evangelical, doctrinally orthodox Anglican.
King did not, as far as I know, make his doctrinal views explicit as a mature preacher, but his early papers lean toward a kind of liberalism that would not be called orthodox.
But my point is that without the Bible neither man would have been who he was, and neither would have done what he did:
- Wilberforce being the decisive human instrument under God in defeating the African slave trade in Britain,
and
- King being the decisive human instrument under God in replacing racial discrimination with laws supporting equal rights for all Americans regardless of race.
Their lives and their work and their achievement are inexplicable without their dependence on the Bible.
Wilberforce built his whole personal and public life as a Member of Parliament on what he called the “peculiar doctrines” of the Bible.
And virtually every time King opened his mouth you could hear Bible.
And so the Bible has a way of exerting its power in very different hands.
Wilberforce’s peculiar doctrines:
Wilberforce embraced the totality of the gospel message - the forgiveness of sin, and necessity of faith in Christ in order to be the child of God and have eternal life.
This is what he meant by the “peculiar doctrines” of the Bible.
But he did not stop there, or with the great news that God is our Father and is for us and only gives us good things.
He went on like Jesus did and saw the next word in verse 12. “So whatever you wish that others would do to you ”
A stronger translation would be “therefore.”
They mean the same thing.
The word so or therefore signals that what Jesus just said leads somewhere
In other words the word therefore is linking what has just been said with what is now coming
And so the question for us is - where does the word so or therefore lead us?
This is one of the most famous verses in the Bible.
We know it as the Golden Rule: “So [or: therefore] whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

The Word So in Verse 12
When I titled this message “The Spring of Persistent Public Love,” I was referring to the Golden Rule
Doing to others what you would have them do to you
I want you to see that the word so at the beginning of verse 12 implies
Because you have a Father in heaven who only gives his children what is good for them.
- we can love people persistently.
- we can treat them the way you would like to be
treated.
Your Heavenly Fathers’ love for you is the foundation of your persistent public love.
All of that is implied in the word so—
1) You can live for others;
2) You will live for others; and
3) And this kind of life fulfills all that the law and the
prophets were aiming at.
Martin Luther King and the bible
Goree Island, just off the coast of Senegal, West Africa, was the place where captured Africans were collected and shipped off to slavery in the New World.
A few years ago a beautiful and powerful and humbling speech was made there.
I am aware as I speak today that there are more races than white and black.
That the call to racial harmony is very complex and goes deeper than color.
And I carry a special burden in my heart for the experience of the nations of the world and our relationship to each other.
And I call us as a church to grow in our understanding of that experience which has a uniquely painful place in the history of our country.
Here is a key part of this speech made on Goree Island . (At the end, I will tell you who made it):
For 250 years the [African] captives endured an assault on their culture and their dignity.
The spirit of Africans in America did not break.
Yet the spirit of their captors was corrupted.
Small men took on the powers and airs of tyrants and masters.
Years of unpunished brutality and bullying and rape produced a dullness and hardness of conscience.
Christian men and woman became blind to the clearest commands of their faith, and added hypocrisy to injustice.
A republic founded on equality for all became a prison for millions.
And yet in the words of the African proverb, “No fist is big enough to hide the sky.”
All the generations of oppression under the laws of man could not crush the hope of freedom and defeat the purposes of God.

In America enslaved Africans learned the story of the Exodus from Egypt and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom.
Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters.
Enslaved Africans heard the ringing promises of the Declaration of Independence—and asked the self-evident question, “Then why not me?” . . .
The evils of slavery were accepted and unchanged for centuries.
Yet, eventually, the human heart would not abide them.
There is a voice of conscience and hope in every man and woman that will not be silenced—what Martin Luther King called “a certain kind of fire that no water could put out.”
That flame would not be extinguished at the Birmingham jail.
. . . It was seen in the darkness here at Goree Island , where no chain could bind the soul.
This untamed fire of justice continues to burn in the affairs of man, and it lights the way before us.
One of the sad things about this Martin Luther King weekend is that many people—mainly white people—will not mark or celebrate racial justice or the advance of civil rights on this weekend because it is named for Martin Luther King, just like there are many people—mainly black people—who would not listen to that powerful speech if they knew it was spoken by George W Bush.
I pray that at Bellevue Foursquare Church we will be able to hear and feel the beauty and the painful force of that speech made by an imperfect man
That we will mark with prayer and resolve and action a weekend named for another imperfect man.
True Christianity:
True Christianity—is moved by a Christ-shaped heart of mercy.
In the verses from James there are two admonitions to us who are Christ followers that I would like us to take note of:
A. Partiality
Partiality means that you base your treatment of someone—or your attitude toward someone—on something that should not be the basis of how you treat them.
James says that we should not treat those who are different form us with any partiality
In these verses he uses the distinction of riches and poverty.
Verses 2-3: “For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in. 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit down at my feet’. .
.”—this is what James calls partiality.
Good treatment and bad treatment, honor and dishonor, rejection and acceptance should not be based on riches or race.
If you read these verses in James carefully he is saying that the way we treat others is the evidence of our relationship with Christ.
B. Law of Liberty
Verse 12 - When you don’t show partiality but love others as you love yourself, you are acting according to the law of liberty.
What doers that mean for us today?
We who are believers are forgiven and freed from the condemnation and dominion of sin.
And so we are to live in that freedom
Should that then produce lawlessness?
James and Paul in other verses answer no.
It produces love.
For both of them, love is the natural fruit and the necessary evidence of being Christians.
Unfortunately that is why and dare I say it, the kind of Christianity that is consumed with self is totally perverse
You see in this liberty there is a law—the law of liberty, that is, the law of love.
We will be judged under this law. And this law says, Do not show partiality to others
And so lets look at the Golden Rule
The Flow from Verses 7-11
Before we unpack the Golden Rule let’s make sure we see why it must flow from verses 7-11 of Matthew 7
The reason is that treating others the way you want to be treated involves an amazing, profound, supernatural change in the way you make choices.
Once upon a time, you chose things mainly because they benefited you; but now you choose things because they benefit others.
And here’s the catch: You may start by thinking, “If I treat others the way I would like to be treated, then I will get treated that way too.”
But Jesus never makes that promise.
In fact, he promises that the opposite will often happen.
For example, Matthew 5:1, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”
In other words, when you trust me and persist in love the way I call you to, it will cost you dearly.
The Father Gives Everything You Need to Endure
Now do you understand why the so at the beginning of verse 12 is so important?
If the people that you treat lovingly according to the Golden Rule often return evil for your good, how do you keep on loving?
How can you keep on returning good for evil?
Jesus answers: because you have a Father in heaven who gives every good thing you need when you ask him.
He doesn’t spare the trial.
In fact, he promises it.
But he does give you everything you need to endure it and become more Christ-like through it.
If you know God as your Father through Jesus Christ, then you can and you will persist in doing to others what you would have them do to you, even if they don’t do the same back to you.
The Golden Rule and the End of the Slave Trade
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, about three million African slaves had been transported to the Americas on British ships
It was a profoundly racial issue and unfortunately the sinful attitudes connected with it are not gone from our day
William Wilberforce, with many others in his day became deeply persuaded that this traffic was a great moral evil for many reasons, not the least of which was its utter inconsistency with Jesus’ Golden Rule.
Many of the Christian abolitionists of his day pressed the nation to look at things from the slaves’ point of view and to do to others as you would have them do to you.
Abraham Booth, for example, a Calvinist Baptist preacher, preached a message in London on January 29, 1792, titled “Commerce in the Human Species, and the Enslaving of Innocent Persons, Inimical to the Laws of Moses and the Gospel of Christ.”
One of the most moving parts of the message was his imagining the slave ships landing on British shores and raiding London and Bristol and Liverpool kidnapping your loved ones and dragging them away never to be seen again.
We have all heard that slavery ended in 1865 here in the USA.
But folks unfortunately modern slavery continues.
The Federal Government estimate that there are as many as 55,000 slaves here in the USA.
If we were to take a look at the world today slavery is widespread in many countries.
For instance in Mauritania there are over 100,000 people enslaved. Sudan, with the persecution of the Christians.
Then you only have to take a look at the Muslim world – especially in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern Arab countries.
The instances of slavery are well documented in these countries
Of course in many countries in Asia there is the enslaving of young girls in prostitution. Thailand and Cambodia are examples of this
I am so glad that the USA will prosecute anyone who engages in sex with a minor in these countries.
Just a few years ago a man from WA state was convicted to traveling to Thailand for the purposes of sex with a minor
So it is not only human trafficking for prostitution, but also in many countries there is child labor where very young children are robbed of their childhood as they are employed in factories and sweat shops
And so how des this all apply to us ?
Heart Christianity
Five years earlier on October 28, 1787, William Wilberforce wrote in his diary at the age of twenty-eight, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of [Morals].”
For twenty years Wilberforce endured setback after setback in his persistent public love.
But he never gave up and on February 24, 1807, at 4:00 AM, twenty years later, the decisive vote was cast and the slave trade became illegal.
That kind of persistent public love is not adrenaline Christianity but heart Christianity
Adrenaline gives you energy for a moment and then lets you down.
That’s the way many people engage in a cause of love and justice.
But the heart keeps beating as long as you live.
That’s what I meant by heart Christianity
It persists in loving and serving and doing justice year after year after year.
And I asked, who of you will be the heart Christians in the cause of racial harmony and the sanctity of life?
Applying Wilberforce’s Gospel-Based Persistent Love
Today, let me apply the Golden Rule—Matthew 7:12, with its all-important therefore—and the example of Wilberforce’s gospel-based persistent love like this:
There will always be challenges to love people different from ourselves—whether the differences are ethnic or in some other way.
Because Christ is your Lord and Savior we can also apply the Golden Rule to every kind of difference we may encounter in others
One practical way to approach this in your family would be to work with your spouse and children—or a group of singles together, or a small group—and make a list of attitudes and words and behaviors which you could express to a person of another ethnic group but which you would not want expressed toward you.
The list might sound something like this:
- Would I want to be made fun of because of the way I look?
- Would I want to be shunned by others?
- Would I want to be talked down to as an inferior?
- Would I want to never be invited over for dinner?
- Would I want to never be considered for a job I’m qualified for?
- Would I approve if people didn’t want to be my neighbor?
- Would I approve if no one would consider me for a home loan though my credit is good?
- Would I approve if I was never considered for a promotion at work though I am qualified for it?
Jesus Is Even More Radical
But even that set of questions is not radical enough

Jesus, unlike others in his day, did not say “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.”
He said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
That is even more radical, because it means that we are to become creatively proactive in our relationships—across ethnic lines and every other way.
So make another list: What things might I do for another person (of another race) that I would want done for me in his shoes?
If God is your Father and if you trust him to give you freely and sufficiently everything you need to live for his glory, the answers to those questions and many more will shape your life into a life of persistent private and public love.
You may live to see a great victory like William Wilberforce did on February 24, 1807, with the abolition of the British slave trade (two hundred and one years ago next month).
Or you may be cut down in the middle of the battle the way Martin Luther King was at age thirty-nine on April 4, 1968.
In either case, you will not have wasted your life.
Not if you have persisted in lifelong public love rooted in the faith that your Father will give only good things through Jesus to those who ask.
Display Christ’s Many Glories
I pray that you if you have never watched the movie that came out last year called Amazing Grace and drink in the spirit of this man—the spirit that persists, perseveres, endures in the cause of public love, righteousness, justice, the Golden Rule that you will make a decision to do so

And I pray that all year long—you will be an ongoing witness to Christ and what He has done in your life

Let’s live that together.

John 15:7
If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you.

Matthew 6:9-10
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

Parallel Rails for the Track of our Souls
This is the second message on one of our emphases this year – Prayer and the Word
In this watershed year the reason I believe that these two things – prayer and the learning of scripture is so important is because these are the two great means of grace that God uses to conform us to the image of his Son
And so as we begin 2008, I believe God’s aim for us is that we be set on a two-railed train track in the direction of holiness and love and mission and heaven.
The two rails of this train are prayer and meditation on the Word of God.
We need to renew our zeal for prayer and Bible mediation at the beginning of the year.
Everything gets old and worn and weak without re-awakening and renewal and restoration.
So this year I want us to rivet our attention on these great and precious things in order to rekindle our passion for prayer and the Word.
The Most Urgent Need of the Western Church
What is the most urgent need in the church of the Western world today?
That’s the question that Don Carson poses at the beginning of his book that was published 15 years ago entitled A Call to Spiritual Reformation.
It’s a good question to pose at the beginning of the new year as I think the questions he raises in his book are even more relevant for us today.
Is it the need for purity in sexual matters, he asks, in a culture obsessed with sex at almost every turn?
Is it integrity and generosity in the financial arena where the “raw worship of Mammon has become so bold, so outrageous, so pervasive in the Western world during the last ten years that many of us are willing to do almost anything—including sacrificing our children—provided we can buy more” (p. 13)?
Is the most urgent need more evangelism and church growth—when careful studies show that perhaps 4% of those who make decisions at major crusades are persevering with Christ five years later, and when the church attendance is not accompanied by an increase in holiness?
Is the most urgent need disciplined, biblical thinking and strong biblical scholarship, when many students and faculty in seminaries and colleges and universities have an extraordinarily shallow knowledge of God, in spite of all their academic work?
I would add one question and I could have listed a bunch more – what is it about us that hero worships people like some of the sports personalities and being obsessed with the lives movies stars who are so not role models for us?
Whose lives by any standard of decency and normative values of society are so dysfunctional and gross?
The author does not belittle any of these needs, but says, “There is a sense in which these urgent needs are merely symptomatic of a far more serious lack.
The one thing we most urgently need in Western Christendom is a deeper knowledge of God. We need to know God better” (p. 15).

The Interdependence of Prayer and the Word
In the Bible, God speaks to us, and in prayer, we speak to him.
The Scripture teaches us to pray and shows us what to pray and how to pray and tells us the basis for prayer and fills us with encouragement that God hears our prayers.
And prayer applies the Scriptures to ourselves and others.
It turns the word into prayer, and it pleads for help from God in understanding the meaning of the word and living the word.
So prayer and the word are interdependent in the way they help us be conformed to the image of Christ.
Prayer as a Foundational Step in Knowing God
Carson says that prayer is one of the foundational steps in knowing God—”spiritual, persistent, biblically-minded prayer.”
He thinks that we have become so good at other things that we have forgotten how to pray: “We have learned how to organize, build institutions, publish books, insert ourselves into the media, develop evangelistic strategies, and administer discipleship programs, but we have forgotten how to pray” (p. 16).
Several years ago at a North American seminary, 50 students planning to go overseas in ministry for the summer were interviewed for their suitability.
Only three—six percent—could testify to regular quiet times of reading the Bible and devoting themselves to prayer.
In a survey a couple of years back the Southern Baptists did a survey and found that the average pastor spent about 30 minutes a day praying
They found that Lutherans and Presbyterians spent the least time in prayer while Pentecostals spent the most time in prayer
We assume that our pastors and missionaries are the models but unfortunately we are not
J.I. Packer wrote about his own pilgrimage in prayer and commented, “I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face”
The Reforming Power of the Word
In John 15:7. Jesus said to his disciples If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.
The text has two halves:

The first half is, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you.”
And the second half is, “ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.”
The first half is the condition for the second half.
There is an “if-then” connection.
If you abide in me and my words abide in you . . . THEN ask and it will be done.”
The condition for powerful praying is that we abide in Jesus and his words abide in us.
So today I want to talk about the condition, the IF clause—especially the words of Jesus abiding in us— and about the result, the THEN clause—praying with powerful effect.
I believe that the great need of the hour is to know God more deeply and personally and more biblically.
And I agree that study and thinking is crucial, but that without personal communion with God in prayer we will not really know him, but only know about him.
My Desire and God’s Desire for the Church
In the Bible, God speaks to us, and in prayer, we speak to him.
And the two are interdependent in their effectiveness.
The Scripture teaches us to pray and shows us what to pray and how to pray and tells us the basis for prayer and fills us with encouragement that God hears our prayers.
And prayer applies the Scriptures to ourselves and others.
It turns the word into prayer, and it pleads for help from God in understanding the meaning of the word and living the word.
So prayer and the word are interdependent in the way they help us be conformed to the image of Christ.
1 John 2:14b says: “I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”
Notice, he doesn’t just say they have overcome the evil one; he says two things about them: They are strong and the word of God abides in them.
Of course, this is not just true of young men.
The principle is the same for every Christian, old or young, man or woman.
The evil one—the devil—is conquered by the strength that comes from having the word of God abide in us.
If you don’t get anything else, please get this: Your strength to overcome the evil one comes from having the word of God abiding in you—1 John 2:14.
My prayer is that this will be an incentive to you this year to become more bible conversant
May the Lord say of you at the end of 2008, “You are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”
And so I want Bellevue to be utterly devoted to :
1. The Word of God – I want to encourage you to join the rest of us and begin the journey of actually memorizing scripture.
2. Prayer —private prayer, small group prayer, congregational prayer, extraordinary times of prayer, prayer and fasting, adoring prayer, repenting prayer, requesting prayer, prevailing prayer, healing prayer, authentic prayer.
If this is the soil in which biblical truth is continually preached and taught, then we will know God—not just know about God.
And folks I know this is not just my desire for Bellevue.
It is God’s desire.
I felt this afresh a couple weeks ago when read these words of God in Isaiah 56: [The foreigners] I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
God means for the house of his dwelling to be a house of prayer for all peoples.
And he means to make his people—including foreigners who trust him—joyful in his house of prayer.
He means for prayer to be mainly a joyful business.
So on top of everything else that comes with a deeper life of prayer, you can add joy—”I will make them joyful in my house of prayer.
Extraordinary Prayer
The aim of the focus of these two messages on Prayer and the Word is to help you see and feel in a fresh way how important they are so that you resolve to be a praying person and a person who has a grasp of the Word of God
So as we take a look at prayer I am not going to give a detailed exposition of one text but a broad overview in answer to three questions:
1) What is prayer?
2) Where or with whom we should we pray?
3) And why should we pray?
And in the last part of the message, I will try to focus our closing attention on Jesus’ main, overarching concern in prayer that will give unity and depth and a magnificent scope to all your praying.
Lord, come and help us understand and love prayer.
1) What Is Prayer?
By prayer, I mean intentionally conveying a message to God.
It’s frustrating—isn’t it?—how unclear language can be if we are not careful.
Why do I say “intentionally conveying a message to God?
Why don’t I just say that prayer is talking to God?
Well, because Romans 8:26 says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
I take this to mean that there are groans of our hearts that the Spirit inspires that are sometimes wordless.
So prayer for us is usually talking to God, but there are times when you can’t talk and can still pray, that is, convey a message to God.
Or why don’t I just say, then, that prayer is communicating with God?
Well, because that sounds like I’m talking to him and he is talking to me.
But that is not what prayer is.
God talking to me is never called prayer in the Bible.
When God communicates something to us, we call it revelation or illumination.
It is not prayer.
And we get into a big, unbiblical muddle if we use the word prayer for what God speaks to us.
Why then don’t I just say that prayer is conveying a message to God?
Well, because people are conveying messages to God all day long, but we don’t call it prayer.
People are conveying messages like, God is not important to me.
Or, God is irrelevant to this situation.
Or, God doesn’t exist.
But these messages are not intentionally sent to God.
They are clear, and we can sometimes discern them.
God always discerns them.
a. Intentionally Conveying a Message to God
So I chose the words: Prayer is intentionally conveying a message to God.
And that prayer can be at least five different kinds of message:
1. You can ask for something—this is the most basic meaning of prayer, and God delights for his children to ask him for help. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).
2. You can praise him or marvel at him or give expression to your adoration of him. “Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:2-3).
3. You can thank him for his gifts and his acts “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign” (Revelation 11:17).
4. You can confess your sins and tell the Lord that you are sorry. “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).
5. And finally, you can complain to the Lord. “With my voice I cry out to the Lord. . . . I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him” (Psalm 142:1-2).
Now here, again, language frustrates.
So are you saying, Peter, that it is good to have a complaining heart toward God?
No.
It’s not good to have a complaining heart.
Let ask you this – is it not painful to be in the company of someone who is always complaining about something?
So why then do you say we should complain to the Lord?
Because sometimes our hearts do complain about the circumstances God has given us, even though our hearts shouldn’t do this, and it is better to consciously direct it toward the Lord than to think he doesn’t see it.
Acting like you are not complaining is hypocrisy and will make you a very phony, shallow, plastic person in the end.
So prayer is intentionally conveying a message to God.
And that message may be asking for something, praising God for something about him, thanking him for some gift, confessing your sins to him, or complaining to him.
b. Continual Communion with God
That is what I want you to do every day, all year long, in 2008.
Be a praying people.
Convey your heart to God over and over.
Let it be the way you begin and end everything.
Convey your heart’s longings to God before and after everything you do.
Let it be the way you breathe.
Be in communion with God continually.
Have not sometimes bee n frustrated by a person who after you have spoken to them on the cell phone, they don’t turn it off?
And so you can hear that person going about their business.
But it is certain that it does not bother God if you never hang up.
Just leave it on.
And I’ll do my best to help you keep your batteries charged.
2) Where or With Whom Should We Pray?
Now I have already answered in a sweeping way the second question, Where or with whom should we pray?
Namely, everywhere.
But let me be more specific.
Alone in Your Private Room
Pray alone in your private room.
The word in Matthew 6:6 means “inner room” or “storage room for storage or treasures.”
Verse 5-6: “When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Here is Jesus’ call to everyone of us at the beginning of 2008 to set aside a place where we convey our hearts to God privately and in a focused way.
Do you have a place?
Do you use it as regularly as you do other less important things?
News? Email? Eating? Sleeping?
Find a place to dedicate for prayer, and pray there alone regularly.

With Your Family
If you live with your family, pray with them every day, and not just mealtime prayers, as good as those are.
Where better for a child to learn to pray than in watching and listening to his father and mother pray?
If a child does not see his father pray, it is very unlikely that he will think prayer is important.
In Small Gatherings
Pray in small gatherings of Christians—small groups and prayer meetings.
Jesus said, “If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matthew 18:19-20).
Just two or three—and the world can be moved.
God’s hand is not shortened by the size of a prayer gathering.
He has his reasons for calling us to pray in groups.
And we should do it.
Here’s a great example of what can happen.
In Acts 4:29-31, the church is together praying. “Lord, . . . grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness. . . . And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”

God has special blessings for those who meet with each other to pray.
Do you have a group of people with whom you regularly pray?
I know that many of you do not.
There is a power and a blessing which you do not enjoy because of this.
For your joy and your wholeness and your fruitfulness, I plead with you, pray in 2008 with other Christians regularly.
In Worship Services
Pray in worship services.
Corporate worship is mainly prayer structured around the word of God to us.
You will see why that is in a few minutes when I focus on why we pray and how much it has to do with displaying the greatness of God—which is what worship does.
Many of our songs and hymns and spiritual songs are prayer.
They are addressed to God.
Mean them.
And even when they are about God, not to God, sing them consciously before God.
There is Scripture reading.
Pray that our hearts would receive it, understand it, believe it, and be changed by it.
Then there are moments of silence.
Fill them with prayer.
Speak to God about the longings of your heart.
Then there are the public prayers.
Pray with them and say Amen to what is said.
Engage.
Don’t be passive.
Then there is the sermon.
Pray before it, during it, and after it.
Pray that it be true.
That it be faithful to the Bible.
That it be empowered by the Holy Spirit.
That you yourself would see more of Christ and that you would more and more be conformed to Christ.
Everywhere
And finally back where we started: Pray everywhere.
Keep the green button on.
Let the most natural breathing of your heart be Help, Lord! and Thank you, Lord!
When Peter began to sink on the water, he cried, “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30).
The father of an epileptic boy cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
Anywhere, any time, cry out to him.
Live in his presence so that this is not an awkward moment.
Speak to him often so that your conscience does not condemn you as a fox-hole Christian—only talking to God now and then to save your skin.
He loves to save your skin, but he loves even more be your friend.
So what is prayer?
Prayer is intentionally conveying a message to God—to ask, or praise, or thank, or confess, or complain.
And where should we pray?
Privately in our room, with family, in small gatherings of Christians, in worship, and everywhere and anywhere we need help and feel thankful.
3) Why Should We Pray?
Finally, why should we pray?
A. God Tells Us To
First, we pray because we are told to by God over and over again in the Bible.
1. James 5:16: “Pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
2. 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Pray without ceasing.”
3. Luke 22:40: “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
4. Luke 18:1: “He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
5. Luke 6:28: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
6. Matthew 6:9: “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven ..”
B. Because It Is a Staggeringly Awesome Privilege
We pray because it is simply a staggeringly awesome privilege.
Think of it.
God runs this world with infinite wisdom.
You and I never inform him of anything he doesn’t already know.
We never add to his wisdom about what he should do next.
He doesn’t need our prayers to know what he should do.
This is as basic as it gets.
Nevertheless, God has ordained to make our prayers real causes of real events.
Real causes.
The words of James 4:2, “You do not have because you do not ask,” do not mean, “You would have had anyway, even if you didn’t pray, since God had a plan and your prayers don’t matter.”
“You do not have because you do not ask” means prayer causes things to happen that do not happen if the prayers don’t happen.
This is breathtaking.
And if you neglect this privilege—your participation in God’s moving the world—you are acting very foolishly.
We pray because it is a staggeringly awesome privilege.

C. Prayer Glorifies the Father and the Son
Finally, we pray because depending on God the Father in prayer in the name of Jesus makes them both look gloriously strong and wise and loving—in other words, prayer glorifies the Father and the Son.
Jesus said it clearly in John 14:13: “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
The psalmist put it like this in Psalm 50:15. God says, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
You call.
I answer with power.
You give me glory.
That’s why we pray.
.Therefore, we obey this command: Call on me; I will act; and people will glorify me.

Hallowed Be Your Name
Let’s close with a brief but all-encompassing observation about why we pray from the Lord’s prayer
The Message 7-13
“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply.
Like this: ?? Our Father in heaven, ? Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name
Or Let your name be kept holy, or Let your name be treated with reverence
The first thing that Jesus tells us to ask God to do—mark this!
The first thing.
The head of the list.
Above all others.
Most central.
Most supreme.
Most overarching thing is that God Would Display His Greatness
That God would overcome blindness to seeing God.
That God would overcome indifference to God.
That God would remove obstacles to knowing and admiring and loving and trusting and treasuring and obeying God.
In fact this is at the heart of what it means to be born again.

Before we are born again, human beings are central in our mind and in our affections.

God is not.
But when we are born again, and our mental framework is changed and He fills us with a sense that we have a profound and wonderful calling.

That He has called us to pray, and in our praying to move the mighty hand of God to act for the glory of his great name

And so in closing let me ask you this :

Whether single or married, old or young, man or woman, boy or girl, would you join us?

Let the word of God abide in you richly and make your life a life of prayer.

Your Father in heaven will give you good things when you ask.

And you will be strong and overcome the evil one.