Praying For People
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
Series I, Cycle C
Ulysses S. Grant fought many significant battles as commander of the Union forces in the War Between the States. He also served as President of the United States where he probably engaged in as many battles as he did while he was a general. Toward the end of his life he fought his toughest battle -- with cancer and death.
It was during the last encounter that one of his former generals, O. O. Howard, came to visit the former Commander-in-Chief. Howard had a well-known reputation for being a religious man. As they reminisced about battles gone by, Grant stopped his friend in mid-sentence and asked, "Howard, tell me what you know about prayer."
To pray -- it may be the most natural thing that we do. Especially for a believer, it is almost second nature to ask someone to pray for us. It may be just as natural to pray for someone that we love. In fact, to pray for someone may be the highest expression of love that we can give to another individual. William Law stated, "Nothing makes you love someone so much as praying for him." To give of our time before God in behalf of another person, to seek to transfer love energies from our heart to theirs, may be love's foremost expression.
To be asked to pray for someone could be one of life's greatest compliments. I always am flattered when someone asks me to pray for them. To think that someone has enough confidence in my relationship to the Father to seek my intercession is not only a compliment of the first rank but a serious responsibility as well. I usually pray for that individual immediately and also later add them to my prayer list. To pray for someone upon their request is our obligation of love that benefits both parties and can turn the tide of the fiercest of battles. Like Grant, many Christians believe that the greatest of life's battles are won or lost in the prayer closet. But, please, pray tell me, what do you pray for?
Tell me, how do you pray? You kneel to pray and the first image to penetrate your mind is your best friend's request, "Please pray for my mother. Her situation is terminal. We worry about her pain and there are decisions to be made!"
"Lord, what do I pray for? Do I pray for her pain to subside, for a miracle, or for her to go on and die? Help me, Lord; how do I pray?"
You kneel to pray and your mind turns to work. "Lord, I really want that promotion. It will enable me to care for my family better, to provide security for the future. But, I guess that I have to be honest, Lord; my friend is equally qualified and really needs it more that I do. Help me, Lord; how do I pray?"
You kneel to pray and the image pops into your mind, the image of your harshest critic. This is the one who refuses to believe the best about you and speaks the worst about you. This one sees the best about you and ignores it. This one sees the worst and talks about it. This one is your enemy while pretending to be your friend. "Help me, Lord; how do I pray?"
I talked to an individual recently who had just lost his job. His so-called friend at work told lies about him, causing him to be fired because the so-called friend wanted the job for a family member. "How do you handle that kind of unfairness and injustice?" I asked him.
He replied, "I just want to do the right thing!" How does one have that kind of attitude?
How does one "pray" like that?
We could just spout, "Lord, just let your will be done!" But is that not in some ways a cop out? Is that prayer not in some sense an excuse not to pray specifically? Is it not an avoidance of the responsibility to risk, to believe, or to seek to sort out that for which to pray? We utter some vague generality, "Let your will be done," and we don't have to struggle with petition and the personal needs of our loved ones! Besides, if the all-knowing God already is aware of everything we need, why pray in the first place?
I am sure that I have raised more questions than five sermons can answer, but it is vital to raise the right questions if we want to find the right answers. Let us see if Paul can help us find an answer or two.
In our text, Paul prayed with and for the persecuted church at Thessalonica. Notice first that the apostle identified with the people. In the second epistle to the young church it is the intimate personal, "our father" (v. 1), not the general and impersonal "the father" of 2 Thessalonians 1:1. Paul now feels close to the struggling community to the extent that he prays not to them or about them but with them and for them.
Secondly, notice that Paul addressed his prayer to God. I know that it seems so basic, so elementary, that it should not have to be said, but is it? Our prayers should be directed to God, not to our listeners.
We must ask ourselves, "How many times have we prayed to our audience to influence and persuade them. How many times have we heard others seeking to educate or indoctrinate the overhearing congregation?" Real prayer is addressed to God and is prayed with God, a point that we will consider later.
Thirdly, notice that the founding father of the persecuted church did his best to encourage them in their trials. He complimented them on their "growing faith and their increasing love for each other" (v. 3). He openly admitted to "boasting about their perseverance and faith" (v. 4). Even though Paul later would have difficult things to say about them and to them, he couched his comments in an atmosphere of love, concern, and encouragement. How important is encouragement especially to those whose faith is being tested?
Then Paul got down to the real business of prayer. Paul prays constantly that "our God" would "deem" ("count" NIV), not "make" them worthy of his calling (v. 11). His prayer is that the Father would see their faith and deem them worthy of the call that God had initiated toward them. The emphasis seems to be that God and others would witness the quality of their lives and see them as fitting, not betraying, the call God had extended. The verdict would be rendered that God had made no mistake in choosing and investing himself in the Thessalonians. No one could accuse them of letting God down. Their lives would reflect the nature of the One who had called them.
Mother Teresa may have caught the essence of Paul's emphasis.
Make us worthy, Lord,
to serve others throughout the world
who live and die in poverty and hunger.
Give them, through our hands,
this day their daily bread
and by our understanding love,
give peace and joy.1
Could it be that God deems them worthy because it is in and through God alone whose "power may fulfill every good purpose and every good art" (v. 11)? It is God alone who is the author of their every good intention and purpose. It is God alone whose power will enable the young Christians to accomplish their fine resolve. God is in the process from the inception of the purpose to their efforts at putting that purpose into being.
John Marks Templeton has his name upon several and has been identified with over seventy mutual funds for fifty years. For all those years and at the beginning of every directors' meeting of those funds, he began with the prayer, "I pray to be in tune with God's purposes." Paul praises the persecuted people that the music of their lives has been in harmony with God's composition of purpose.
Then, Paul proceeds to pray that as God's power fulfills God's purpose in their lives, the name of the Lord Jesus would be glorified (v. 12). Paul prays that others would take note of their lives and they would bring credit, praise, and honor to Christ. Would it not be wonderful if some would look at our life and remark, "The only explanation for such a life is the power of God"? Oh, that others would see our lives and say, "Praise be to God!"
May I share with you an insight or two that I have gleaned as I have struggled with this text? The first insight learned or remembered is that I don't know how to pray. Perhaps that is okay! Possibly it is all right that I don't know how to pray because God does know how to pray and is seeking to pray through me. Is this what Paul is pronouncing in Romans 8:26-27? "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will" (NIV). The Holy Spirit is our intercessor, who searches our true heart and prays the prayer that we are unable to pray,
In 1976, I returned to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville to undertake post-graduate work. One of my first doctoral seminars was titled "Project Methodology" taught by my faculty supervisor, the late G. Willis Bennett. Dr. Bennett began that first session by saying to the men and women, "You are about to begin a journey upon which you have never traveled before. It is called 'social research.' " He continued, "You will master this, to some degree, because this will provide the process for your doctoral paper." He lectured for another hour and none of us had the slightest idea about which he was speaking.
One student, at the end of the hour, bluntly blubbered, "We don't really have to do it this way, do we? I have been studying with the renowned British theologian, F. F. Bruce. Can't I do this his way?"
To which the Director of Advanced Professional Studies responded, "No, you don't have to do it my way and you don't have to pass this course, either!"
As Dr. Bennett continued to guide us in the next four weeks, something significant began to happen. Eyes lit up! Ideas began to form. We were "turned on" as if by a light switch to see the direction, the only direction, we were to go, and just as importantly, how to get there. Dr. Bennett was our intercessor! He introduced us to the idea, he taught us about the idea, and guided us through the process as we began to implement the idea practically. This is what God does in prayer. Real prayer begins with God as he infuses the idea into us, interprets it, and enables the idea to grow in us into practical application. So, maybe it is not too bad that I don't know how to pray, particularly if I will let the Holy Spirit pray through me.
Secondly, I have been reminded that I cannot pray for my enemies. I simply am unable to pray for those who oppose me as long as I have something to defend. In his wonderful book, Clowning in Rome, Henri J. M. Nouwen states: "An enemy is only our enemy as long as we have something to defend. But when we have nothing to hold onto, nothing to protect, nothing to consider as exclusively ours, then nobody can be an enemy and then we can, in fact, recognize in the center of our solitude that all men and women are brothers and sisters."2 When I can admit that I have no exclusive right to a thought or the truth, then I can give up my insistance that I always have to be right. I can yield my pride to my enemy and to God, hopefully to enable the real truth to be known. But as long as I insist that my position is the only one, as long as I feel that I have something to defend, I will only make more enemies and never turn my enemy into a friend.
The third truth I have discovered is that I should not be hesitant to pray specifically or personally. I should not hesitate to try to discern God's will. I should pray specifically. Possibly not as specifically as the prayer prayed by a minister asking God for deliverance from a drought in the Old West. If you wish to hear a specific prayer, just listen: "Oh, Lord, we need rain ... BAD. Send us rain. Lord, we don't want a ripping, raring, tearing rain that will 'harrien' up the face of nature, but a drizzling, drozzling, sloshing rain, one that will sort of last all night and into the next day as well."3
We should do our best to seek God's specific will. We should seek to pray that God would transfer his will to ours or transform our will to his. If I pray astray, so what! God will hear the sincere prayer of my heart and answer according to his divine will. But as I seek to know his will, the more likely his will is to become mine.
I guess that the most important truth I have discovered as I sought the truth in this text is the simple fact that I should pray. I should quit trying to understand prayer or fret that I am praying awry. The most important thing is to pray!
James Montgomery talks of prayer.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
that trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
the falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye,
when no one is near ... but God.
____________
1. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, "Make Us Worthy, Lord," in A Gift of God: Prayers and Meditations (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 71.
2. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Clowning in Rome (New York: Image Books, 1979), p. 31.
3. E. Glenn Hinson, The Reaffirmation of Prayer (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1979), p. 114.
It was during the last encounter that one of his former generals, O. O. Howard, came to visit the former Commander-in-Chief. Howard had a well-known reputation for being a religious man. As they reminisced about battles gone by, Grant stopped his friend in mid-sentence and asked, "Howard, tell me what you know about prayer."
To pray -- it may be the most natural thing that we do. Especially for a believer, it is almost second nature to ask someone to pray for us. It may be just as natural to pray for someone that we love. In fact, to pray for someone may be the highest expression of love that we can give to another individual. William Law stated, "Nothing makes you love someone so much as praying for him." To give of our time before God in behalf of another person, to seek to transfer love energies from our heart to theirs, may be love's foremost expression.
To be asked to pray for someone could be one of life's greatest compliments. I always am flattered when someone asks me to pray for them. To think that someone has enough confidence in my relationship to the Father to seek my intercession is not only a compliment of the first rank but a serious responsibility as well. I usually pray for that individual immediately and also later add them to my prayer list. To pray for someone upon their request is our obligation of love that benefits both parties and can turn the tide of the fiercest of battles. Like Grant, many Christians believe that the greatest of life's battles are won or lost in the prayer closet. But, please, pray tell me, what do you pray for?
Tell me, how do you pray? You kneel to pray and the first image to penetrate your mind is your best friend's request, "Please pray for my mother. Her situation is terminal. We worry about her pain and there are decisions to be made!"
"Lord, what do I pray for? Do I pray for her pain to subside, for a miracle, or for her to go on and die? Help me, Lord; how do I pray?"
You kneel to pray and your mind turns to work. "Lord, I really want that promotion. It will enable me to care for my family better, to provide security for the future. But, I guess that I have to be honest, Lord; my friend is equally qualified and really needs it more that I do. Help me, Lord; how do I pray?"
You kneel to pray and the image pops into your mind, the image of your harshest critic. This is the one who refuses to believe the best about you and speaks the worst about you. This one sees the best about you and ignores it. This one sees the worst and talks about it. This one is your enemy while pretending to be your friend. "Help me, Lord; how do I pray?"
I talked to an individual recently who had just lost his job. His so-called friend at work told lies about him, causing him to be fired because the so-called friend wanted the job for a family member. "How do you handle that kind of unfairness and injustice?" I asked him.
He replied, "I just want to do the right thing!" How does one have that kind of attitude?
How does one "pray" like that?
We could just spout, "Lord, just let your will be done!" But is that not in some ways a cop out? Is that prayer not in some sense an excuse not to pray specifically? Is it not an avoidance of the responsibility to risk, to believe, or to seek to sort out that for which to pray? We utter some vague generality, "Let your will be done," and we don't have to struggle with petition and the personal needs of our loved ones! Besides, if the all-knowing God already is aware of everything we need, why pray in the first place?
I am sure that I have raised more questions than five sermons can answer, but it is vital to raise the right questions if we want to find the right answers. Let us see if Paul can help us find an answer or two.
In our text, Paul prayed with and for the persecuted church at Thessalonica. Notice first that the apostle identified with the people. In the second epistle to the young church it is the intimate personal, "our father" (v. 1), not the general and impersonal "the father" of 2 Thessalonians 1:1. Paul now feels close to the struggling community to the extent that he prays not to them or about them but with them and for them.
Secondly, notice that Paul addressed his prayer to God. I know that it seems so basic, so elementary, that it should not have to be said, but is it? Our prayers should be directed to God, not to our listeners.
We must ask ourselves, "How many times have we prayed to our audience to influence and persuade them. How many times have we heard others seeking to educate or indoctrinate the overhearing congregation?" Real prayer is addressed to God and is prayed with God, a point that we will consider later.
Thirdly, notice that the founding father of the persecuted church did his best to encourage them in their trials. He complimented them on their "growing faith and their increasing love for each other" (v. 3). He openly admitted to "boasting about their perseverance and faith" (v. 4). Even though Paul later would have difficult things to say about them and to them, he couched his comments in an atmosphere of love, concern, and encouragement. How important is encouragement especially to those whose faith is being tested?
Then Paul got down to the real business of prayer. Paul prays constantly that "our God" would "deem" ("count" NIV), not "make" them worthy of his calling (v. 11). His prayer is that the Father would see their faith and deem them worthy of the call that God had initiated toward them. The emphasis seems to be that God and others would witness the quality of their lives and see them as fitting, not betraying, the call God had extended. The verdict would be rendered that God had made no mistake in choosing and investing himself in the Thessalonians. No one could accuse them of letting God down. Their lives would reflect the nature of the One who had called them.
Mother Teresa may have caught the essence of Paul's emphasis.
Make us worthy, Lord,
to serve others throughout the world
who live and die in poverty and hunger.
Give them, through our hands,
this day their daily bread
and by our understanding love,
give peace and joy.1
Could it be that God deems them worthy because it is in and through God alone whose "power may fulfill every good purpose and every good art" (v. 11)? It is God alone who is the author of their every good intention and purpose. It is God alone whose power will enable the young Christians to accomplish their fine resolve. God is in the process from the inception of the purpose to their efforts at putting that purpose into being.
John Marks Templeton has his name upon several and has been identified with over seventy mutual funds for fifty years. For all those years and at the beginning of every directors' meeting of those funds, he began with the prayer, "I pray to be in tune with God's purposes." Paul praises the persecuted people that the music of their lives has been in harmony with God's composition of purpose.
Then, Paul proceeds to pray that as God's power fulfills God's purpose in their lives, the name of the Lord Jesus would be glorified (v. 12). Paul prays that others would take note of their lives and they would bring credit, praise, and honor to Christ. Would it not be wonderful if some would look at our life and remark, "The only explanation for such a life is the power of God"? Oh, that others would see our lives and say, "Praise be to God!"
May I share with you an insight or two that I have gleaned as I have struggled with this text? The first insight learned or remembered is that I don't know how to pray. Perhaps that is okay! Possibly it is all right that I don't know how to pray because God does know how to pray and is seeking to pray through me. Is this what Paul is pronouncing in Romans 8:26-27? "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will" (NIV). The Holy Spirit is our intercessor, who searches our true heart and prays the prayer that we are unable to pray,
In 1976, I returned to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville to undertake post-graduate work. One of my first doctoral seminars was titled "Project Methodology" taught by my faculty supervisor, the late G. Willis Bennett. Dr. Bennett began that first session by saying to the men and women, "You are about to begin a journey upon which you have never traveled before. It is called 'social research.' " He continued, "You will master this, to some degree, because this will provide the process for your doctoral paper." He lectured for another hour and none of us had the slightest idea about which he was speaking.
One student, at the end of the hour, bluntly blubbered, "We don't really have to do it this way, do we? I have been studying with the renowned British theologian, F. F. Bruce. Can't I do this his way?"
To which the Director of Advanced Professional Studies responded, "No, you don't have to do it my way and you don't have to pass this course, either!"
As Dr. Bennett continued to guide us in the next four weeks, something significant began to happen. Eyes lit up! Ideas began to form. We were "turned on" as if by a light switch to see the direction, the only direction, we were to go, and just as importantly, how to get there. Dr. Bennett was our intercessor! He introduced us to the idea, he taught us about the idea, and guided us through the process as we began to implement the idea practically. This is what God does in prayer. Real prayer begins with God as he infuses the idea into us, interprets it, and enables the idea to grow in us into practical application. So, maybe it is not too bad that I don't know how to pray, particularly if I will let the Holy Spirit pray through me.
Secondly, I have been reminded that I cannot pray for my enemies. I simply am unable to pray for those who oppose me as long as I have something to defend. In his wonderful book, Clowning in Rome, Henri J. M. Nouwen states: "An enemy is only our enemy as long as we have something to defend. But when we have nothing to hold onto, nothing to protect, nothing to consider as exclusively ours, then nobody can be an enemy and then we can, in fact, recognize in the center of our solitude that all men and women are brothers and sisters."2 When I can admit that I have no exclusive right to a thought or the truth, then I can give up my insistance that I always have to be right. I can yield my pride to my enemy and to God, hopefully to enable the real truth to be known. But as long as I insist that my position is the only one, as long as I feel that I have something to defend, I will only make more enemies and never turn my enemy into a friend.
The third truth I have discovered is that I should not be hesitant to pray specifically or personally. I should not hesitate to try to discern God's will. I should pray specifically. Possibly not as specifically as the prayer prayed by a minister asking God for deliverance from a drought in the Old West. If you wish to hear a specific prayer, just listen: "Oh, Lord, we need rain ... BAD. Send us rain. Lord, we don't want a ripping, raring, tearing rain that will 'harrien' up the face of nature, but a drizzling, drozzling, sloshing rain, one that will sort of last all night and into the next day as well."3
We should do our best to seek God's specific will. We should seek to pray that God would transfer his will to ours or transform our will to his. If I pray astray, so what! God will hear the sincere prayer of my heart and answer according to his divine will. But as I seek to know his will, the more likely his will is to become mine.
I guess that the most important truth I have discovered as I sought the truth in this text is the simple fact that I should pray. I should quit trying to understand prayer or fret that I am praying awry. The most important thing is to pray!
James Montgomery talks of prayer.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
that trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
the falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye,
when no one is near ... but God.
____________
1. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, "Make Us Worthy, Lord," in A Gift of God: Prayers and Meditations (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 71.
2. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Clowning in Rome (New York: Image Books, 1979), p. 31.
3. E. Glenn Hinson, The Reaffirmation of Prayer (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1979), p. 114.
