Rounding out our series on COMMUNITY today, we’ve been walking through that the past four weeks, looking at these four key aspects of Christian community: church, wise counsel, accountability, and today we finish on PRAYER >
We’ve covered how ‘church’ is this “web of stubbornly loyal relationships in complex and challenging situations” yes, but also it exists for the purpose of “practicing the way of Jesus for the renewal of the world.” And the beautiful words from 1 Peter 2 that say God’s church is his CHOSEN people, his SPECIAL POSSESSION and we are ‘called out of darkness and into wonderful light.’ That’s what we get to be!
We’ve covered in the context of Christian community we’re going to need some ‘wise counsel,’ not only counsel but the wise counsellor himself, the Holy Spirit gifted to us by Jesus himself.
And we’ve covered how ‘accountability’ is really essential for church to function as a team, both celebrating each others’ wins and walking alongside each other through the losses as well, many benefits of seeing church as a team, where a culture of accountability to what our God has given us is learned and lived out together.
And today we’re looking at what PRAYER is > already one of the ‘Big 4’ things mentioned in Acts 2:42, our means of communicating with God directly, hearing from him, a vital way we are called into relationship with him and also with each other.
And our focus on PRAYER today actually fits very well with it being Pentecost today, this celebration of the Holy Spirit coming over people, uniting people in this miraculous way, and we think of this as the birth of the church, led by the Spirit and overflowing out into the world.
We have access to the Spirit through the word, and through prayer > We pray to Jesus, we pray to our heavenly Father, and the Spirit is our means of connection to God and the means through which God works in us and in the world.
So a question for you to think about as we get into this today, for you >
What is your GO-TO personal prayer??
What are the words you pray the most, what words do you fall back on in challenging times, what are the words you were taught and you have since taught others…
Maybe your prayers are centred around a particular theme at the moment, like a health or relationship challenge, or something you’d love to see happening but is not happening right now…
I might have shared this before but this is a form of a prayer my mother-in-law often prays, you may have heard it or used it yourself, only three words long:
‘GIVE ME STRENGTH’
You might not think that’s an actual prayer, but for a person of faith it is actually a prayer > there’s no word count on our prayers – it’s more about what God’s doing than what we’re doing as we know.
We might categorise ‘Give me strength’ more as a venting of frustration than a prayer, but actually the ‘venting of frustration’ is absolutely part of prayer! Again we don’t have to get all the words right all the time in our prayers, we are allowed – actually encouraged – to tell God how we feel, to tell him how it actually is for us > if you want examples of that there are literally hundreds of them in the Psalms for a start.
And we know he already knows how we feel and what’s going on > prayer is not useful for God, it’s useful for US > to know him, to spend time with him, to be in relationship with him, for us to notice the work he’s doing in our lives and the lives of those around us. And it’s also useful for us as COMMUNITY, praying together and praying for each other is essential to the life of our church, essential to doing this thing together.
In the past few years I’ve found myself taking on my mother-in-law’s prayer myself > it’s easy to pray, it can be said anywhere anytime, it applies in more ways than one, this prayer for what I need and what God gives > I need his strength to be a pastor, to be a husband, a father, an uncle, a son, a brother, a friend, all these different aspects of life. And with faith I can trust that God will give me strength, because he says he hears our prayers and will be with us forever.
So that’s a bit on our GO-TO prayers > I’d love to know what yours is!
What about our GO-TO prayer as church?
We’d probably all say the Lord’s Prayer > these words from Jesus, where he tells us how to pray – and what to pray for as well. Solid, reliable, covers everything we need and what God has to give us.
And Jesus has more words for his disciples today, we hear about the coming of the Holy Spirit but before this event Jesus had these words for his disciples:
Words from John 20:
Jesus says, ‘Peace be with you!’
He says, ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’
And he says, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’
He also talks about forgiving and not forgiving sins, outlining the accountability we have to the forgiveness we’ve received and the forgiveness we are called to give to others.
So what did the disciples get out of this, what do we get out of this?
PEACE, PURPOSE & PRESENCE.
That’s what we get, that’s we get at Pentecost, that’s what we get through prayer > a lot of P words today!
Peace, purpose & presence, at Pentecost, through prayer. There’s a line to remember today!
We get PEACE very simply because Jesus says so! He gives it to us, it is ours to receive.
We get PURPOSE in that Jesus was sent by the Father and now he sends his disciples, he sends us – you and me are sent by Jesus, we are given roles in this story, not alone but with peace and also with the Spirit – that’s the next bit.
We get the PRESENCE of the Holy Spirit, our own personal wise counsellor, the one who connects to our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus, and the one who holds together this ‘web of stubbornly loyal relationships’ we call our church.
So there’s a few ‘birthday presents’ to receive on the birthday of the church today!
PEACE, PURPOSE AND PRESENCE, literally gifts that keep on giving, gifts that play out among us as we heard in our second reading on the gifts of the Spirit, given out to all those part of his body, the church, practicing the way of Jesus for the renewal of the world.
I want to finish today with another prayer, some words that we’ve got on the wall above our coffee machine at home > I may have mentioned this before as well!
This prayer is called ‘The Ritual of Morning Coffee’ – a very important ritual for us in our household – and I’ve tweaked it a little bit to fit our context today, let’s pray:
Meet us O Christ, in the stillness of this moment.
Move us O Spirit, to quiet our hearts.
Mould us O Father, into who you call us to be.
Where there is discord, we ask for your peace.
Where there is discouragement, we ask for your hope.
Where there is weariness, we ask for your strength.
Where there is doubt and uncertainty, lead us to put our faith in you.
Where there are wounds and damage has been done, bring your healing and restoring love.
Let us enter each new day aware of our need, and awake to your grace. Amen.
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Tom Kitson 