Too Busy Not to Pray
Church Campaign Sermons
Session 1 » Why Pray?
Setup
A question for you, as we get going today: Why do you pray?
Have you ever thought about that?
Why do we pray?
More specifically, why do you pray?
Assuming you pray—and most of us do, you know. Even those who don’t name themselves Christ followers admit to tossing a few pleas northward from time to time. So, assuming you are one of the 75 percent of people on this planet who claim on latest surveys to pray “frequently”—even as often as once a day: Why do you pray?
This is the central question I’d like to address today: the question of why we pray.
Point 1: We Encourage Prayer by Asking, “What is God Going to Do?”
Down through the ages, prayer has:
changed attitudes,
changed circumstances,
changed minds,
delivered wisdom,
delivered resources,
delivered deliverance,
cured sickness,
calmed winds,
healed marriages,
untangled financial knots,
emboldened the oppressed,
expanded the gates of heaven,
and brought to life those who were dead.
In a word, prayer has mattered. And for so many of us, clearly we think it matters still today.
It has mattered to Christ followers since the beginning of the church, in fact. Let’s revisit a well-known scene, a scene from the book of Acts.
When the local church gathered in Acts 2 and was given the gift of the Holy Spirit, in about A.D. 33, they were inspired from the beginning by supernatural displays of the power of God. On Pentecost Day itself, Acts 2:2 tells us there was the sound of a violent wind. Think for a moment about that. What if right here, right now, in this very room, a violent wind rushed through?
We’d have no idea where it had come from, where it was going, and what was going to happen while it was here. We’d be a little freaked out, don’t you think?
How loud will it get?
How strong?
When will it shut off?
It will shut off, won’t it?
The text says that during the violent rush of wind, a great ball of fire then appeared in the room and dispersed into little flames that hovered over the heads of each one gathered there.
Maybe then is when we’d freak out. Yes, surely then.
This was supernatural, my friends. This was power.
Understandably, the people were so inspired by these happenings that they left that gathering and went out to proclaim Jesus Christ. And many of them found themselves proclaiming Christ to others in a language they had never studied. Consider that for a moment: You find yourself speaking another language, and people you could never communicate with before are all of a sudden understanding you. Supernatural.Power.Supernatural power.
Later we find that the early church functioned in such a way that signs and wonders were actually commonplace. People walked around in a constant state of awe: What was God going to do next?
We read that after one sermon in particular that was preached by Peter and others, two thousand people surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ. Two thousand! And this, on the heels of the three thousand people who had already raised their hands on the Day of Pentecost, to follow Christ and also to be baptized.
Peter and the disciples were healing the sick. The lame were walking. The blind were given sight. Amazing—just amazing—stuff.
One time, after a bunch of these healings, there was so much controversy about these goings-on in the city that Peter and the disciples were arrested and thrown in jail. The politicians wanted to settle things down a little bit. And miraculously, the prison doors opened and they walked back out into the streets and started preaching again. The prison guards were asking how that happened. They, too, were confounded by the supernatural displays of the power of God. But the followers of Jesus weren’t confounded. They were just in awe. They were just going about their business thinking, What is God going to do next?
A little while later, an incident occurred that centered on one of the godliest women in a particular region where the gospel was being promoted. This was a woman known for her generosity and her compassion. She was the local rock star of compassion in this community. She takes sick and dies, and everyone in her faith community is devastated. Peter pays a visit to the town and says he’d like to see the woman. Yes, he says, he knows she is dead. But still, he’d like to see her.
Peter goes to the room where the woman is being prepared for burial. He prays for her, and she is resurrected. Peter walks out of the room with this woman, the woman who was just dead, and presents her alive to the faith community. They then go absolutely nuts.
Guess what questions they can’t help but ask?
You got it:What is God going to do next?
Word of this power, all these dazzling displays of God’s power, is spreading. People are crowding into the city to hear more about this and to figure out who’s behind all these displays of power. And that’s where our story picks up, in Acts 12.
Let’s turn to Acts 12 now.
A politician named Herod says this whole thing has got to stop—the dazzle, the display, the power. He feels like hisown power is being compromised, by all this attention being paid to Jesus and his crew.
It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them, we learn in Acts 12:1. You do realize that “persecuting” is just a nicer word here than “killing,” right? “Killing” is what was going to be done.
“Killing,” like what happens still today.
I think too often we read right past that verse, believing it holds no relevance for us today, in civilized, twenty-first-century society. But this level of persecution still happens in our “civilize” day and age. We can’t imagine it, most of us.
Think of it: we are meeting on a typical Sunday morning in here, as usual, when a few members of our city’s police force march right up the aisle here and start pointing their beat sticks at various members of our congregation, saying, “You, you, you, and you. Come with us.”
There are no questions. There are no phone calls. There are no rights to be read. The people they single out get tossed into jail and told they may never get out. In fact, they might get killed—all because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
It’s an interesting thing to ponder, isn’t it—if you knew you might get arrested just for being in church, how eager would you be to get here each Sunday morning?
But this is exactly what Herod had the audacity to do. He said he was going to stop this kind of revolution that was happening around the name of the resurrected Christ. He was going to put an end to all the buzz about this thing called “church.” So he capriciously arrested some of the members and threw them all into jail. Word traveled about that throughout the Christian community, and people said, “Hey, wait. What is all this? We’re being persecuted? Just because of our faith?”
Herod doesn’t stop there. He takes things a little bit further. Acts 12:2 says that Herod had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.
Quick Bible trivia question: Who are the first three disciples that Jesus drafted?
That’s right: Peter, James, and John.
In Luke 5, we read he drafts them while they are fishing. This is the James of “Peter, James, and John.”The James who was part of the inner circle of Jesus’ followers. When Jesus was going to be arrested and he went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray that last night, he said he just wanted three guys to go the further distance with him to pray: Peter, James, and John.
Thishappens to bethat James.
James was one of the most visible leaders in the early church. And Herod arrests him, throws him into prison, and then publically executes him by running him through with a sword. It’s a very grisly way to die.
The text says that after this, “When he—[Herod]—saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also.”
Now, Peter’s the franchise player. Peter is the most visible leader in the early church. “This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread,” says Acts 12, verses 3 and 4. “After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.”
So, the Passover is going on and Herod doesn’t want any big public disturbances. But it is his full intention, as soon as the Passover is over, to publically execute Peter.
Certainly that will calm things down, for the out-of-control growing church—in Herod’s view, anyway.
Let’s step back from this scene for a moment.
Can you imagine how traumatizing this turn of events would be for the early church? First, some members are arrested; then James is killed publically. Now, Peter is under arrest. People are asking, “Who’s next? Who’s it going to be? Am I going to risk my life? Am I going to keep gathering in the name of Christ if the price is going to keep getting higher?”
As the one up her teaching, I have to ask myself: If I took a good, old-fashioned beating every time I stood on this platform, would I find myself up here more than once?
How many physical beatings would you take, before you said, “This is a price I just don’t want to pay”?
This is what was going on in the early church, and church members were asking themselves the same thing: “Hey, it’s great that Christ has forgiven my sins; it’s great I’m going to heaven; it’s great I have guidance and strength for my life. But if gathering is going to imperil my well-being, I don’t know that I want to do this anymore. I’m going to think long and hard about it.
The early church was traumatized. So what did they decide to do, especially after Peter was arrested—their friend Peter, their leader Peter, the figure-head of their entire deal?
Did they scatter?
Did they bail?
Did they shrink back in white-knuckled fear?
I’m not suggesting they weren’t nervous.
I’m not suggesting they didn’t experience fear.
I’m simply suggesting that what they chose to do in spite of those things was to get on their knees and pray.
Look at Acts 12:5: “So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”
We read in this text that they gathered in the home of a woman. And there, they decided to pray. They decided to hunker down together and collectively wonder, “What is our great God going to do next?”
Quite possibly—quite probably, even—the night that the church had gathered, they did so at the risk of their own lives. I feel sure they were a confused bunch, a perplexed bunch, a disillusioned bunch. And yet the one thing they knew to do was to push pause on their feelings and pray.
Philippians 4 affirms this approach: “Do not be anxious about anything,” we read, “but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. And the peace that passes human understanding will guard your minds in Christ Jesus” (vv. 6-7).
Do not be anxious about anything, it says …
Really?
I don’t know about you, but my response to that verse is, “Really?”
Don’t be anxious about anything?
What fantasy world was the writer of that verse living in, for him to be able to write something as absurd as that?
You know who wrote that verse? The apostle Paul.
You know where he was when he wrote it? In prison.
And he could have been killed any hour of any day.
Yeah, Paul knew a little about anxiety. Paul had been in prison before Paul had been stoned. Paul had been shipwrecked. Paul had been physically beaten. Paul, of all of the early church members and leaders, was well acquainted with anxiety—which is why this phrase of his, that you should not live even an hour of your life in this crippling state called anxiety, holds some water.
Listen to me: if you or I had faced even one of these challenges, we’d be tempted to make it the through line of our lives. Don’t you think? I mean, if you survived being shipwrecked, you’d probably write a book about it! You’d go on CNN and all the morning shows and let them interview you about what it was like to be at sea and then to be in a terrible wreck and then, against all odds, to survive. You’d talk about how terrifying it was, and how anxious you still are, to get on a boat even today.
But Paul says, no, no, no. Don’t go there. Don’t take up residence there. Don’t let anxious experiences define you. They’re destructive. They’re counterproductive. They’ll take you down faster than you can say “splat.”
Don’t live an hour of any day in an anxious state of mind.
Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Sounds like a great, great way of life.
But it’s not easy to do, is it.
It’s not easy to live anxiety-free.
Just out of curiosity, any of you anxious about anything today? Are you? Anybody get a troubling medical report in the last sixty days? Anybody get laid off lately? Anybody worried that you will be? Anybody worried about your son or daughter or your mom or dad’s spiritual condition?
One family discovers they have to sell their house in the next thirty days or they’ll be in a world of hurt. The hourglass is turned; they’re counting down those days. You think they’re a little anxious?
Probably a little anxious.
Another family has a son being shipped off to Afghanistan in one week’s time. The parents are having trouble sleeping, thinking about their boy in the middle of a war zone. Think they’re anxious?
Yeah, they’re probably a little anxious.
We could probably go around the room and spend the next eighty-six hours talking about the things that are making us anxious at the moment. There is no shortage of stuff to be anxious about.
We look at the early church who had gathered and we think, “Surely they were anxious about their leader facing sure death.” What would they do without their leader?
But we don’t see them gathering to wring their hands. We see them gathering to pray.
We see them choosing not to spend time in a state of anxiety, but instead in a state of prayer. By their actions, we learn a valuable lesson: whatever could make us live in an anxious state must become the subject matter of earnest prayer immediately, before anxiety does its destructive work in our lives. We can convert all that anxious energy into energy that will fuel our prayers.
Jesus said the same thing, in Matthew 6. He asked which of you has ever found it productive when you’ve spent a whole day worrying and you got to the end of the day. Did it take you anywhere? Did it do anything profitable in and for you? Did it forward your progress in any way? Of course not.
Convert the energy you would invest in anxiety over to an investment in earnest prayer. You’ll be glad you did.
Let’s keep going. The next phrase in Philippians 4 says, “Let your requests be known to God”—that’s verse 6.
Have you ever wondered what that sentence means? Is it code language for something confusing? Is it a trick verse where you go, “Oh, man, I don’t know about that. Does that kind of thing really work?”
It means that in Acts 12, when the church had gathered, they had full permission from the Scriptures to say to God, “Arrange this prison break for Peter, Father. We need this guy. We love this guy. He’s our leader. And even if you have to do it supernaturally, please do what we are asking you to do. For the sake of our church and the future of this faith community, please, set Peter free.
Point 2: We Extinguish Prayer by Asking,“What am I Going to Do?”
So why don’t we pray this way more often?
I’ll tell you the reason why.
Somewhere along the way, we let our central question change.
We shift from asking, “What is God going to do?”—a question loaded with faith, loaded with expectancy—to asking, “What am I going to do?”—a question fraught with anxiety, uncertainty, and fear.
This is a deadly shift.
I’ve lost my job. What am I going to do?
I’ve lost my spouse. What am I going to do?
I’ve been caught in my sin. What am I going to do?
I’ve let down my kids. What am I going to do?
I’ve failed yet again. What am I going to do?