Presbyterian Church of Easton
Sermon Psalm 66:18-20 “Prayer”
March 27, 2022
This Palm Sunday we will be receiving the One Great Hour of Sharing. One Great Hour is a special giving opportunity of the Presbyterian Church USA. It supports three important ministries of the denomination, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Hunger Program and Self Development of People. Today I would like to talk about Self Development of People.
Self Development of People is a program that deals with the root causes of poverty around the world. It provides grants to groups of impoverished people to help them better their lives. These grants go directly to groups of economically poor people who directly benefit from it. They are designed to provide long-term correction of conditions that keep people bound by poverty.
Last year the Self development of People program made a grant to Afghan Cattle Cooperative in Bristow, Virginia. As Afghan refugees arrived in Virginia it quickly became apparent that they needed jobs and Halal food. Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Nokesville, Virginia thought that Self Development of People could help with these needs. Afghan Cattle Correrative was formed by a group of refugees. With the help of Self Development of People they received a grant to buy a farm in Bristow, Virginia. This farm now employs refugees and produces Halal food. All of this is supported by your contribution to Self Development of People through the One Great Hour of Sharing. Please be generous.
Today we will look at a most important spiritual practice, prayer. Our scripture for today is from the Psalms.
Psalm 66:18-20
18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
19 But truly God has listened;
he has given heed to the words of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God,
because he has not rejected my prayer
or removed his steadfast love from me.
Let’s pray. “Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy Heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)
What is prayer? If anyone knew how to pray it was Moses. He prayed all the time. Let’s see what prayer was like for Moses
Exodus 33:7 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. 8 And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. 9As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. 10 Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. 11The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.
So Moses would go into a tent and speak with God the same way you and I would talk to a friend. It is that simple. You just talk with God and tell him whatever you want. You don’t have to prepare anything. You don’t have to go anywhere special. You just talk with God.
Jesus also prayed all the time. He would often get up very early in the morning to pray. Sometimes he would climb a mountain to pray by himself. He prayed from the beginning to the end of his ministry. And he taught his disciples how to pray.
Luke 11:1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: “‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”
9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
God created us to be his conversation partners. He put Adam and Eve in a nice garden where God could come down and talk with them. But when sin came into the world our ability to talk with God was disrupted. Adam and Eve were too ashamed to talk with God so they hid from him.
Genesis 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
And what do you think God’s response was when he could no longer communicate with his people. Well, here is what he said.
Genesis 3:9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
So we are to talk with God as we would talk with a friend, but sin disrupts the communication and so God is left asking of us, “Where are you?”.
The first thing we must do before we can have conversations with God is to confess any ongoing sin and repent, stop sinning. Sin always disrupts communication with God. But God still wants to have a conversation with you. And he is wondering where you are. So put the sin behind you, confess and ask for forgiveness and your communication with God will be restored.
I believe that there are three stages of prayer which I have experienced in my own life. And I would like to go over these different stages.
The first stage of prayer I call intersession. Whatever is on our hearts we offer it to God. If our mother has arthritis we pray that God will ease her pain. If we are having trouble at work we ask God to make it better. If we have financial difficulties we ask God for help. If we have a test coming up in school we pray for assistance. Whatever is on our hearts we pray to God. This is intercession.
Intersession is the first stage of prayer, but there is another stage of prayer I call discernment. With a discernment prayer, we ask God questions. We want to know God’s will for our lives. We ask God, “Should I marry this woman?”. Should I take that job? How should I respond to sin affecting my children? We offer these questions to God and patiently wait for an answer. This waiting is called meditation. The answer from God could be verbal, but more likely it will be a feeling that what you are doing is right. The answer could come quickly or may take days or years before God responds. So you have to be patient and quietly meditate until God answers.
So far we have looked at two stages of prayer, intercession, and discernment. Now let’s turn to the third stage, submission. Once you have told God what is on your hearts and have sensed an answer to your questions you are now to submit to God’s will. Too often we pray for a certain answer from God. And when God gives us an answer we didn’t expect we usually resist it. But with prayer, a conversation with God, we begin to accept God’s answer and submit to his will.
I have experienced all this. For years I operated a business in Washington. I would often pray that the business would grow. Sometimes it did well. Sometimes I needed to fix it. But, with God’s help, I was able to keep it going. I was also active in my church. I served as a deacon for three years and for nine years I was in the Bethel Bible Series program as a student, teacher, and coordinator. I offered up prayers of intercession for my business and ministries.
After teaching Bethel for four years the church decided to end the program and do something different. For the first time in years, I didn’t have my own ministry at the church. I didn’t know what to do. So I began to pray prayers of discernment to ask God what I was to do next. I had trouble hearing directly from God, so I went to see a pastor of the church. We prayed for discernment and began talking about requirements for becoming a pastor. I left her office with an application to become an Inquirer in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). And I prayed, asking God if this is what he wanted me to do. I had a sense that the answer was yes.
So God wanted me to be a pastor. I would have to spend three years of my life unemployed and in school. I hadn’t been a graduate student in 30 years. And my family thought I had lost my mind wanting to be a pastor. But through much prayer, I submitted to God’s will, began the process of becoming a pastor, and moved to California to study at Fuller Seminary.
As I went through these stages, intercession, discernment and submission, I found that I experienced great joy because I was doing what my creator wanted me to do. This is available to you as well. Just confess and repent any sin in your life, then offer up to God whatever is on your heart, discern God's answers to your most difficult questions through meditation, and then submit to God's will for your lives.
Your pastor search committee is doing this right now. They started, last fall, by praying for the wisdom to develop a ministry information form and begin their search. Pray for them as they do this work. Pray that God will speak to them as they discern who God has chosen for this church. And pray that the church will submit to God’s will by calling and embracing the new pastor.
Of course, I am going through another round of discernment for my own call. When my ministry for this church comes to an end I will be retiring as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament. Grace and I are trying to discern where God is calling us next. We certainly have some preferences for where we would like to go. But ultimately we will submit to God’s will because God knows best about where and how we should serve in this next phase of our lives.
So what have we learned today? Prayer is a simple conversation with God. Sin blocks this conversation so we must confess and repent for our prayers to be heard otherwise God asks, “Where are you?” You offer up the concerns of your heart as intercessions to God. You ask your deepest questions to God and meditate as you wait to discern the answers. And once you discern God’s will you submit to it and do what God wants you to do. This is prayer. Prayer is a spiritual discipline that brings us closer and closer to God. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, you are our model of a person who prays. We know you prayed often, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes high on a hill. You prayed for and received guidance at each stage of your ministry. Hear our prayers now and help us to discern and submit to God’s will for our lives. This we pray in your glorious name. Amen.
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