Witness And Prayer

This was a fairly short talk in the context of a family service

Back in March I got an email through our church website. It was from an American called Tagg Wolverton. He works for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Tagg Wolverton explained that Billy Graham’s son Franklin would be doing an outreach event at the ExCel centre in London at the end of August. Would we like to support it?

Later, Tagg Wolverton came down to Bournemouth. I met up with him and later, Priscilla and I took him out for a walk and a picnic at Hengistbury Head. That isn’t all that relevant! When I met Tagg, he gave me TWO leaflets. This is one. It says, simply, ‘Pray.’ This is the other. It says, ‘I am Andrew.’

In the Bible, Jesus had a disciple called Andrew. Andrew met Jesus. Jesus made a big impression on Andrew. Then we read in the Bible that Andrew …

‘found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus’ [John 1:41].

Andrew brought his brother to Jesus.

The first little leaflet is about praying. The second leaflet is about bringing our family or friends to Jesus. Are those two things connected?

In our service today, we have thought about two things.

We thought about prayer. I read a book titled ‘Any time, any place, any prayer.’ We learned that the relationship between God and humankind has been repaired. We can now come to God! We can call him ‘Father.’ The book encourages us to pray – ‘Any time, any place, any prayer.’

Earlier in the service, Israel, Vanessa and Daniel performed a sketch. In the sketch, Dale Augustus, who was a crazily rich person, had prepared a WONDERFUL gift for his friend Kyle. He passed the gift to his delivery person, Livvy. She had to deliver the gift to Kyle. The point of the sketch is that WE are in the role of Livvy. Jesus has entrusted us with a priceless gift – the gospel. We have to faithfully pass it on. We have to tell people about Jesus.

We have thought about the same two things as in the Billy Graham association leaflets: praying, and inviting our family or friends to come to Jesus. Are those two things connected?

They definitely are!

Billy Graham was probably the most famous evangelist of the past 100 years. He once said that the most important steps in preparing for an evangelistic outreach are: prayer, prayer, prayer. If anyone knows, he should! It seems that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is following the same principle. As they prepare for their outreach, their message is simple: pray.

If we’re sharing the gospel, why do we need to pray?

The basic reason is that this is something we can’t do, but God can.

Jesus once said, ‘No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him’ [John 6:44].

Drawing someone to Jesus is GOD’S WORK. God has the power to change hearts. We don’t. We need to pray for God to work.

WE also need God’s power as we try to witness to him.

On the day of Pentecost Peter preached and 3,000 people came to faith.

But before that, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’ disciples. God gave his disciples power to witness to him. And before that, what do you suppose Jesus’ disciples were doing? In the first chapter of Acts we read that Jesus’ 11 remaining disciples and some other people had met together in a room in Jerusalem.

Then Luke – who wrote Acts – tells us:

‘All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer’ [Acts 1:14].

Jesus’ disciples’ prayer paved the way for God to give them power and for them to then share the gospel.

There are many similar examples in the Bible.

Many years before Jesus, God’s people, the Israelites, had fallen away from God. They were spiritually dead. There was a prophet at the time called Ezekiel. God gave Ezekiel a vision of a valley full of dry bones. The dry bones was a picture of the people who were spiritually dead.

God asks Ezekiel, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’

Ezekiel answers, ‘O Lord God, you know.’

Then God told Ezekiel to do a strange thing. He told Ezekiel to prophesy over the bones. God said to Ezekiel, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’

Then Ezekiel tells us, ‘So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.’