NOTE: I am putting my weekly sermons on the church website. It will be on for two weeks (usually posted on Friday) and then placed in the Archives area by date. You can download in a matter of seconds.
Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766
Sunday,
July 25, 2004
Sermon: "Teach Us To Pray"
Scripture: Luke 11:1-13
Reverend Larry Gerber
(Please note that I am using power point now. When you see PP1, etc., that is
where the next power point picture will be shown. They can be seen on location
only, not in this web site)
PP1: Manx.
It''s the language of the Isle of Man, and on December 27, 1974, it was officially
pronounced dead when its last native speaker died in the village of Cregneash
at the age of 97.
Words like coghal, meaning a large chunk of dead flesh in an open wound, or
the word jouyl, meaning devil, are now lost and out of use.
There are 6,800 spoken languages today, and experts believe that at least half
will be dead by the end of the century. Nicholas Ostler is president of a foundation
for endangered languages, and he is concerned about the large number of rare
languages that are now in danger of becoming extinct. He points out that languages
die for a number of reasons —— war, genocide, disease, low birth rates,
government policy. But globalization is probably posing the biggest threat of
all. As the global village spreads and various economies become more intertwined,
many people who speak minority languages will stop using them. For very practical
reasons, they will switch to majority languages such as English, Chinese or
Hindi——Urdu.
Australia is a good example. English came to this continent through British
colonization, just as it came to North America, and it became the language of
government and commerce. As a result, 138 of Australia''s 261 native languages
are now nearly extinct.
PP2: Yet, understandably, neither Ostler nor other experts point to another
language that may be in danger of extinction: the language of prayer.
Perhaps it''s not true. Who would admit that they don''t pray or believe in
prayer? In fact, according to a George Barna survey, in 2001, 82 percent of
adults said they pray at least once a week. And 89 percent believe there is
a God who watches over us and who answers our prayers (see sidebar with more
results of the survey).
Yet, praying once a week hardly seems like a strong endorsement of the power
of prayer. If we really believed that God answers prayer, and that prayer unleashes
the power of God, would we pray just once a week? Come on!
Perhaps it''s a case of people just mouthing the words, racing through the Prayer
of Jabez or the Prayer of Jesus, thus relegating prayer to a minority language
used by fewer and fewer people, leaving it with a cloudy and uncertain future.
Have we allowed the dominant languages of government and commerce to take over
our lives, edging out the lesser——known speech patterns that can connect
us in a life——giving way to God? Have we pushed the language of prayer
to the verge of extinction, making it a tongue that has just a handful of speakers,
most of them elderly?
In short, when it comes to prayer, are we at a loss for words?
In Luke, the disciples of Jesus fear this very same future, so they ask him,
""Lord, teach us to pray"" (11:1). Jesus responds by instructing
them to speak to God as they would speak to a member of their own family, calling
God ""Father"" —— an expression of intimacy and
familiarity —— and suggests that they make three requests. They should
ask for bread, for forgiveness and for deliverance, and they should trust God
to give them whatever they need.
PP3: Approach God with intimacy, trust and expectation.
PP4,5 These are the attitudes that Jesus advises his disciples to adopt as they
begin to learn the language of prayer. He encourages them to approach God in
the same way that they would approach a loving parent,
PP6,7 and to trust God to hear their prayers and answer them in ways that meet
their needs.
PP8.9 But there is one important dimension to these requests that disciples
need to keep in mind —— all appeals need to be consistent with the
words. Expect something to happen, and be ready for it: "Your kingdom come"
(v. 2). God is not going to grant any request that doesn't conform to the priorities
of his kingdom of love and peace and justice.
There is a grammar to this language, just as the thousands of tongues throughout
the world have their own internal rules and regulations. In English, the subject
of a sentence needs to agree with its verb —— it is correct to say,
"My neighbor is a kind man," while it is incorrect to say, "My
neighbor are a jerk." The singular noun "neighbor" always requires
the singular verb "is" —— regardless of whether he is, in
fact, a kind man or a jerk.
PP10: In a similar way, the language of prayer has its own internal logic, and
one of the most important rules is that the requests of a disciple have to agree
with the intentions of the Lord:
PP11: Thy Will be done PP12 On earth
PP13 As it is in Heaven
PP14,15,16,17: Fortunately, requests for bread and forgiveness and deliverance
all fit with God's desires for our physical health and spiritual well——being.
"Give us each day our daily bread" (v. 3) is a petition for the nourishment
we need each day, and it reminds us that we are dependent on God for our most
elemental requirements. Like the manna that the Israelites received in the wilderness,
our daily bread comes to us from a Lord who loves us and wants to support us
each and every day.
Of course, we do not live by bread alone. We also need forgiveness, a gift that
is as necessary to our well——being as basic food and water. Without
this gift from God, we would gradually be crushed by the burden of our guilt,
a load that grows higher and heavier with every sin we commit. Without forgiveness,
we would lose all hope for the future, and sink into the deepest and darkest
depths of despair. But with this gift come release and renewal, inspiration
and encouragement, an assurance of pardon and a deep sense of peace.
This forgiveness from God also gives us the ability to ""forgive everyone
indebted to us"" (v. 4). In fact, the two are not to be separated,
since they are part of the same heavenly package. If we truly want God''s kingdom
to come, we are going to want to show the same mercy to others that the Lord
shows to us. You might say that in the grammar of prayer, forgiveness received
always has to be linked to forgiveness given. It''s like a subject and a verb
—— both are needed to make a proper sentence.
Then Jesus teaches his disciples to pray that our Father will ""not
bring us to the time of trial"" (v. 4). In the long history of God''s
people, we know that there have been many times of testing —— the
testing of Job in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New, the testing of the
Israelites in the wilderness and the church in today''s highly secular society.
Fortunately, we do not have to be at a loss for words when we face a time of
testing. Jesus instructs us to pray for deliverance, asking God to protect us
from anyone or anything that can endanger our bodies, our minds, our spirits
or our relationship with God himself. When we pray to be delivered from the
time of trial, we are asking to be spared the kind of testing that can lead
to our extinction.
PP 18: Jesus goes on to encourage us to pray with persistence, using the language
of prayer to plead for what we need (vv. 5——8). And then he assures
us that God will hear our prayer and answer us, for if we human parents know
how to give good gifts to our children, then "how much more will the heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (v. 13).
Jesus did not tell us what posture to assume when praying. Jurgen Moltmann,
in his book The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life, observes
that praying in the prone position denotes subservience, whereas the kneeling
position —— head bowed, eyes closed —— speaks of an attitude
of contrition and helplessness. Prayer while standing, with arms uplifted and
outstretched, is a prayer of expectation in which the prayer——giver
invites God to come into his life, indicating as well that the prayer——giver
is ready to receive what God has to give.
PP19: If we are in tune with God, we need not be at a loss for words:
PP20: for Thine is the Kingdom
PP21: and the power
PP22: and the glory
PP23: forever and ever
PP24: AMEN
It is worth noting that this language of prayer, may not be a ""language""
at all —— in the sense that it is spoken by a linguistic system, be
it English, Spanish, French or something else.
It may be a nonverbal language in which we speak to God by the manner in which
we live. Ann and Barry Ulanov, in their book, Primary Speech: A Psychology of
Prayer, note that "Prayer starts without words, and often ends without
them."
In any case, it is up to us to preserve this life——giving language,
and keep it from extinction. Within the community of faith, we are challenged
to create a healthy habitat for prayer, one in which we are not afraid to ask
for the gifts we need for physical and spiritual health ... one in which we
search diligently for the will of God among the many competing agendas of contemporary
life ... one in which we knock again and again on the door to God's kingdom,
knock persistently through disciplined daily prayer, knock faithfully and forcefully
with the full conviction that our Lord loves us and wants to meet our needs.
With such an approach, the language of prayer will remain alive and active and
off the endangered list. It will keep us in close communication with God ...
and never at a loss for words.
Let us pray........Our Father..........
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Source:
Ostler, Nicholas. ""A loss for words."" Foreign Policy.
November——December 2003, 30——31.
Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766