Sermon 3
PRAYER – RELEASE THE RIVER!
A sermon on prayer! How many would actually like to leave now if you could and escape the next 20 minutes of torture? Isn’t that what you are expecting? The very mention of prayer makes you feel guilty; you expect a sermon to make you feel even more guilty – challenging you to more prayer, rebuking your lack of prayer.
With this text we could certainly do that – it is a call to diligence, discipline, endurance in prayer – and I am sure we all need to hear that call.
Paul asks for prayer for himself as an evangelist and I could challenge you as to how much you pray for missionaries and the spread of the gospel.
Then there is the example of Epaphras, a real prayer warrior, and highly commended for it by Paul in vs12-13 – I could urge you to follow his example.
More than exhortation is needed. Are we not afflicted with despair as well as guilt? Burdened by our own past experience that no matter how many sermons we hear on prayer little changes? Burdened by disappointments in prayer; the seeming weakness of our prayers; the feeling that our prayers are dry, fumbling, repetitive and ultimately futile.
“People are changed not so much by moral exhortation as by a transformed imagination.” Today I would like to try to renew your vision for prayer.
Paul’s message to the Colossians did not begin at 4:2 – that is important. He did not begin with an exhortation to pray. He began with the gospel – listen to
When we understand what is wrong with the world and appreciate what God has done in Christ, that Jesus is Lord, ie when we are gripped by the gospel, we will start to pray and will not stop. There is a river waiting to flow through the world, God’s river of reconciliation, salvation and life; it flows where the gospel is preached, and where Christ’s love is shown love but it needs an accompanying power of the Spirit unleashed by prayer.
If you were in a country stricken with drought and you could do something to bring rain wouldn’t you do it? yet spiritually that is exactly where you live – a drought stricken land where people are dying of spiritual thirst and yet there is a river waiting to flow from God. The work of God is often pictured as water in a desert cf
How did the ents feel in the
When we see and feel this, then the effort of prayer is not a burden. We are able to devote ourselves to pray – Greek: ”Be busily engaged in”
We want and are able to be diligent, disciplined, persevere and never give up.
We are thankful – we have tasted of that river for ourselves.
We are able to be watchful – vigilant about those matters and people which especially need prayer.
One key thing we then learn is to pray for those engaged full-time in advancing the gospel. Paul asks for prayer. Why?He is a weak person like us who needs others praying for him. (remember my chains’ he says – ie don’t forget my suffering)
But principally because he is a preacher of the gospel. To pray for what?
that God will open opportunities for evangelism – a door is an opportunity provided by God in his sovereignty for ministry or mission, and along with it an openness on the part of people to receive the message.
for prayer for gifts of communication for a clear presentation of the mystery ie revelation of Christ. If you want to release the river then pray for the advance of the gospel. Get the information and be diligent in the use of it
What about fear of praying with others? It is OK to admit fear – but it is not OK to do nothing about it – we must address and overcome our fears otherwise we live our lives in mediocrity, regret and bondage. Admitting fear is honesty; but remaining in bondage to fear is defeat and unbelief. is Jesus able to do nothing about them?
Real reason behind our lack of prayer or fear of public prayer is that Christ and the gospel are actually having so little transforming influence upon our own lives – we may vaguely agree with it all in our heads but it is not filling our hearts; we are not drinking deeply of the river and swimming in it. We do not want the world to taste and see.
When we see the world as if it were Isengard, in the grip of dark powers, and when we see the glory, greatness, life-giving power of the river of Christ, the vision of the kingdom of God, then we will not shrug our shoulders about prayer, nor yield to fears; we will be driven to our knees to plead with God to make the river flow; and we will run to those places where we can join our hearts with others who share that same longing.
Ah you say, but that is still for others greater than I! What Paul says he says to everybody – he is addressing the whole church – this is a role and responsibility for all Christians to take on – what a privilege and an honour! What a gateway to power!
Or you ma say, well, we are not strong in prayer but we are good in other ways. Without prayer all else is in vain. Since Paul appeals for prayer for his own ministry he is in effect saying that if there is no prayer, there will be no power. ie this is not just one area we can fail in while we succeed in others. The truth is that if we fail here, we fail everywhere. if the electricity goes off in your house nothing works; if there is a power failure in church due to prayer-failure then nothing else will work.
There is a world out there – you may picture it as a desert, or you can picture it as a world burdened with the filth of all kinds of sin; and there is a pure, holy, cleansing, life-giving stream flowing from Christ our Lord. Don’t you want to see your heart, your church, your community washed in that stream, drinking of that stream, swimming in that stream? You have been told again today that you have a part to play through prayer – now go: Christ exhorts, summons, indeed commands you to cast your fears to the winds, shake off all sloth, disappointment and negligence – get down on knees on your own, join with others wherever you can find them and release the river.
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