“Why Bother?”
1 Thessalonians 5:12-20
V. 17 “Pray continually”
Is prayer effective as a painkiller?
Anita Manning, USA TODAY provides the following information how "Americans have found a no-cost painkiller they say is as effective as prescription drugs: prayer.
"More than half of those who responded to a USA TODAY/ABC News/Stanford University Medical Center poll released Monday say they use prayer to control pain. Of those, 90% say it worked well, and 51% say "very well."
"Among a dozen therapies, including bed rest, massage and herbal remedies, only prescription drugs were as successful as prayer in easing pain: 89% report that such drugs work well and 51% say "very well.""
While I will not advocate for or against prayer as a painkiller, I do believe the words of a chorus sung many years ago in Salvation Army churches around Canada:
“More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of
More things are wrought by prayer than this world knows,
With prayer we forge a chain
A chain of gold around the earth
That binds us to the feet of God.”
Today marks The Salvation Army’s Global Day of Prayer. In an effort to honor this emphasis we will consider prayer. We will not be addressing the “how to” of prayer but the “need to” of prayer
Why bother? Because
1. Prayer connects us to God
Our custodians are working wonders! They are task-oriented with multiple jobs to do and are determined to finish them before the day is out. I remember seeing the expression on a custodian’s face one day when she turned on her Harley (vacuum cleaner) and couldn’t get it to work. She checked the switch; she examined the nozzle and attachments, but still no power. When I chuckled she knew what had happened. I had pulled the cord out of the wall socket! She laughed; I plugged it back in and away she went!
There was a current flow through the whole building supplying power to computers, lights, heating systems, and magnetic door stops. All that energy flowing through a building of 24,000 square feet and yet one small vacuum didn’t work. Why? The vacuum wasn’t plugged into the source of power. The connection of simply putting the cord into an electrical wall outlet changed that and the work could continue.
A person who reads the Bible but doesn’t pray is a spiritual hermit (a recluse or removed from interacting with people). If you read the Bible but don’t pray, you are not interacting with God. On the other hand, a person who prays but doesn’t read the Bible is a chatter-box (one way conversation is so hard to sit through). It is easy to be a spiritual hermit or chatter-box. God attempts to offer words of love and instruction, of advice and warning but we easily miss the whole experience and pay no attention. Other times some think they’re hearing voices and say, “What was that?”
I read this week of three pastors who quickly stated that God told them to divorce their wives which they did without question. Now, if they had spent some time interacting with God, they would have known that God did not tell them to divorce their spouses.
It is the result of an incomplete connection to the heart and mind of God.
The connection is only complete when God speaks to you and you speak to God. Jeremiah 33:3, “{You} call to me and {I} will answer.” We call it prayer.
Jesus reminds us in John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, 15)just as my Father knows me and I know the Father." To have this deep, intimate experience and knowledge of God, one must cultivate the relationship and spend much time together. If current is to flow in a relationship and there is to be connection, it requires listening and talking, an interaction of thoughts and desires.
Rosalind Rinker wrote, “Prayer is a dialogue between two persons who love each other…Prayer’s real purpose is to put God at the center of our attention and forget ourselves.”
Prayer is not a time-slot plugged into our planners but an experience of God plugged into our hearts.
Prayer not only connects us to God but
2. Our connection to God connects God to our communities
Isn’t it rather amusing that when a baby is born “some people” (women!) know who that baby is like! “He looks just like his dad! She’s got her mom’s eyes! He’s the spit of his cousin, 27 times removed! (Must be a gift!)
What a compliment is offered when someone says, “I wanted God in my life because when I met “Derrick” I knew “he” had something that I needed. Then I found out “he” has God. And I decided that if that’s what it means to have God then I want him too!”
Interesting note: Paul instructs in today’s Bible passage, “14)Warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak…16)Always be joyful…18)Always be thankful…19)Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.”
These verses are extremely powerful! If we do not warn the lazy, encourage the timid and take care of the weak, we choke the Holy Spirit’s influence in our communities. However, when we do warn the lazy, encourage the timid, look after the weak, demonstrate joy when life is unfair, and are always thankful, especially when there does not seem to be much reason to be thankful about, our communities want that same connection!
If our communities are to be connected to God through us, then we must first be connected to God ourselves. To live in obedience to verses 16 and 17 one must have a deep experience of God. Chrysostom says, “The way to constant joy in the midst of persecution is constant prayer, unuttered or expressed.”
If you want to evaluate the prayer attitudes of any church, look at the life attitudes of its members. By evaluating how we interact with each other, we see how we interact with God.
Case in point: 1 John 4:20 ”Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters (faith community), are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” To be in love with God is to automatically be in love with those God loves. To demonstrate hatred or mere tolerance for a person is to demonstrate mere tolerance or hatred of God.
Kenneth Boa suggests, “The quality of our vertical relationship with God has a direct bearing on the quality of our horizontal relationships with others.” If our relationship with God is inconsistent, self-centered or there is no relationship with him at all, we can hardly expect that we will really matter to each other. On the other hand, when we are madly in love with God, turned on and tuned in to God, we enjoy nothing more than experiencing his presence in our daily existence and wanting it to flow into the hearts of others.
Author and conference speaker, Evelyn Christenson, speaks further about the vertical and horizontal relationships calling them dimensions of prayer. She says, “The two are inseparable, standing as it were at the opposite points of the base of a triangle, with God at the top…One definite horizontal result of prayer is unity – in the church, in the home, in the community.”
Disunity in the church, in the home or in the community simply reflects disunity in our relationships with God.
▪ Prayer connects us to God.
▪ Our connection to God connects God to our communities.
3. Prayer stabilizes us when community is shaken
PATCH ADAMS (played by Robin Williams) fell in love with character Corinn Fisher. She always talked about the spirit and beauty of a butterfly as it would flutter away from the cocoon and without worry or concern would have a beautiful freedom and was unrestrained. She always wished she could be a butterfly.
Corinn was murdered by a patient that she and Patch were treating. Patch became angry at God.
When Patch had nowhere else to turn, no one else to talk to, no one to vent his anger with, he turned to God. His intent of course was to blame God but prayer in crisis gave him the answer to his hurt.
Edward McKendree Bounds, 19th century American prayer prophet said: “Satan has suffered so much by good praying that all his…devices will be used to cripple its performances.”
Satan will send terrors, dangers, plagues and disaster to crush deep-spirited, genuine relationship with God, through prayer. He is intent on shaking us up and wearing us down. He is adamant about destroying faith and the faithful of God.
Psalm 91:5“Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night, nor fear the dangers of the day, nor dread the plague that stalks in the darkness, nor the disaster that strikes at midday…9If you make the LORD your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, 10no evil will conquer you.”
The very effort of the Enemy to destroy our relationship with God is the very effort that deepens it!
Our relationship with God is the most valuable resource we have especially when everything else seems to be falling apart. With so much break-up and let-down running wild in our world, it is wonderful to have something solid as a rock to hold on to – our relationship with God. When the earthquakes of moral compromise, economic crisis, unhealthy living and unhealthy health, are staring us in the face, the “Government” of God never changes! He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
To “keep on praying” (v17) is to cultivate a constant dependence on God every moment. It is to be always aware of his presence and conscious of my need of him to sustain and help me where I am right now.
WRAP
▪ God wants you to experience his presence and love for you; to talk with you and share with you. This is realized through prayer and reading the Bible
▪ God wants to channel his relationship with you to the world so they can be in relationship with him. God wants to use you as a conduit to lead others to communion
▪ God wants to provide you with a connection point so deep and intimate, that you will be able to worship him in trusting confidence when all the odds say otherwise.
