{1st Timothy 2:1}

‘First of all…’  That word first speaks of being first both in chronology and in priority.  In other words, Paul is telling us that this thing called prayer should be our top priority as a church.  Our immediate impulse and knee-jerk response whenever we face any kind of difficulty should be prayer. So often we think of prayer as our “last resort.” After we’ve tried everything else, we’ll finally say, “Well, I guess all I can do is pray.”  And what Paul is urging the church in Ephesus to do, and us by extension, is to make prayer a first priority instead of a last resort.

In the book, The Art of War, there is this story about one of my heroes of the faith, Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon of course, was a famous preacher from London who lived during the late 1800’s.  He led a very successful ministry that served more then 10,000 people every week. The story goes that one day, five college students who were studying in London, decided to go hear the famous C.H. Spurgeon preach.  While waiting for the doors to open, the students were greeted by a man who asked, “Gentlemen, let me show you around. Would you like to see the heating plant of this church?” They were not particularly interested, for it was a hot day in July. But they didn’t want to offend the stranger, so they consented. The young men were taken down a stairway, a door was quietly opened, and their guide whispered, “This is our heating plant.” Surprised, the students saw 700 people bowed in prayer, seeking a blessing on the service that was soon to begin in the auditorium above. Softly closing the door, the gentleman then introduced himself. It was none other than Charles Spurgeon.

Spurgeon rightly attributed the success of his ministry to the prayers of hundreds of invisible saints.  You see, Spurgeon understood something about the nature of ministry, and prayer, and that is, the breadth of our public ministry is often determined by the depth of our private devotion and prayer life. He honestly believed that the ministry he led would succeed or fail based on the amount of time and energy he and the members of his church devoted to prayer.  It was a priority for him and for his church and it needs to become a priority for us as well. The church is to be a people of prayer. That’s what we are to be. It’s not that we have to pray to God. It’s that we get to pray to God. It’s that God loves us enough to listen and he cares enough to answer prayer and to involve himself in history and in our lives. And so he tells us that we should be a people of prayer.

I think that one of the main reasons so many of us struggle with prayer is because we feel like what’s going to happen is going to happen so what difference does it make, right?  Like some of you are probably thinking, ‘If God is really sovereign and His will is ultimately going to come to pass anyways, then why pray at all?’  It’s a good question and I’ll be the first one to admit that there is a lot of mystery surrounding the issue of prayer, but let me tell you why I think we should pray.  Because God tells us to…  Listen to this invitation God extends to His people, ‘Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.’ {2^nd Chronicles 7:14} That’s a beautiful promise.  But notice, it’s conditional.  ‘If’ my people humble themselves and pray… Then—I will hear from heaven…’ This is the mysterious part of prayer.  The bible would seem to indicate that there are good things that God is wanting to do in and through our lives that He has yet to do because we have failed to pray.  In one of the sadder verses in the bible James laments, ‘You have not because you ask not.’ {James 4:2} So what do I take from that?  That we should be praying.  Jesus said, ‘Everyone who asks receives.’ {Matthew 7:7} 

What this all means is that in some weird way that we cant fully comprehend, prayer really changes things.  For whatever reason, God has chosen in His sovereignty to accomplish His will and plan through the human means of prayer.  As one person put it, ‘When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.’  The bible is filled with wonderful promises regarding this aspect of prayer.  In the book of James we are told, ‘The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.’ {James 5:16} Think about that.  Simply put, what that verse is telling us is that God has chosen to make prayer the means by which He displays His glory and power in our lives.

Now listen to this astounding statement regarding prayer: Jesus said this to His disciples, ‘I assure you that whatever you ask the Father he will give you in my name. Up to now you have asked nothing in my name; ask now, and you will receive, that your joy may be overflowing.’ {John 16:23-24 J.B. Phillipps} Isn’t that a wonderful promise.  God wants us to pray for things, so He can answer our prayers and receive glory and so our joy can overflow.  Now, that’s not to say that we can use prayer as a way to get whatever we want from God—as though prayer were some kind of divine shopping list where we boss God around and tell Him all of the stuff that we’d like Him to do for us and when we add ‘in Jesus name’ at the end of our prayers that somehow that is the secret ingredient that forces God to give us what we want.  As though God were like, ‘Oh—they said ‘in Jesus name’ I guess I have to give them what they asked for.  To pray in Jesus name is to pray in accordance with Jesus will.  You see, prayer is not the means by which we get our will done in heaven.  Rather, prayer is how we line our hearts up with what God is already wanting to do in our lives.  It’s the divine means by which God has chosen to accomplish His sovereign will on earth.  So here’s what that means.  Prayer is not about me twisting God’s arm and bending God’s will so I can get my will accomplished in heaven. Prayer is humbling myself and bending my will to God’s plan and opening up my heart to see what God wants me to accomplish on earth for His glory.

So prayer is this wonderful gift that God has given to the church and it’s the primary means by which God has chosen to showcase His power and display His glory in our lives and that’s why Paul urges Timothy and the church at Ephesus to pray.   And notice how he strings together all of these different words to describe how we should be praying.  He says, ‘Offer up supplications, and prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving…’ These are all different words that describe various types of prayers.  So we should be praying and we should be praying all kinds of prayers.  And then notice who we should be praying for…  all people. All people—that means everybody.  Literally, we are to pray for all kinds of people.  It cuts across ethnicity, class, economic status.  Friends and enemies.  People that we like and people that we don’t like.  People that we feel comfortable around and people that we don’t feel comfortable around.  People in our city and people in our world. We pray for rich and poor.  For different people from different places.

~Daniel

So here’s my question:  Why? Why would so many men be willing to leave their families and risk their lives to spend months exposed to the elements and the cold?  When the men who responded to the ad were asked this question, almost every one of them said they were willing to risk it all for the chance to have an adventure with someone of Shalketon’s reputation.  In other words, they were willing to take the risk because of the name attached to the invitation.  The name made all the difference in the world.  They knew that as long as Ernest Shackleton was with them, they would be safe!

In the gospels, we find Jesus issuing a similar invitation.  The invitation of Jesus over and over again in the New Testament is come and ‘follow me.’ Oftentimes, when Jesus would extend this invitation to would be disciples, he would qualify what it meant to follow Him by saying things like, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’ {Luke 9:23}  On another occasion Jesus said to a crowd of potential followers, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.’ {Luke 14:26}  Jesus turned to his disciples at one point and said, ‘I send you out like sheep among wolves.’  That’s not an encouraging thing.  I’ve watched enough of the Discovery channel to know how that one plays out.  But that’s what Jesus says.  In Matthew 10 as Jesus sends them out He says, ‘All men will hate you because of me.’  At this point his disciples must have been thinking, ‘What have we signed up for?’ He might as well have ran an ad that said, ‘Men wanted for hazardous journey…’ It would almost appear from these texts that Jesus were trying to discourage potential followers from actually following Him.  And sadly, many who stood in the crowds listening to Jesus as he shared what it really meant to follow Him left after hearing such statements, deciding that the cost of discipleship was just too high. But a few heeded the call and responded to Jesus invitation to become His followers.  These men and women were the first Christians.  They walked with Jesus and learned from Him and sat under His teaching.  Then after He rose from the dead, they began to spread His message of love and forgiveness wherever they went.  They risked their lives and put themselves in danger for the sake of this mission.  Many gave their lives for their testimony that Jesus had risen from the dead.  Why did they do it?  Why were they willing to risk it all?  Because of the name attached to the invitation.

And when we respond to that invitation, it draws us into a similar life of adventure and risk. Some people want to live their lives by seeking their maximum comfort and avoiding all risks. But this is not the Believer’s lot. We are called to follow Christ.  It is an invitation into a life full of risk and adventure. The journey we’re on will be tough, and will require that we endure many hardships but in the end, if we endure we’ll discover that it’s absolutely worth it!

~Daniel

What Jesus is saying is that there are basically two ways to go through this life.  We can live in such a way that we demonstrate that our treasure is here on earth.  Or we can live in such a way that we demonstrate to the world that Jesus is our treasure.  The problem with storing up treasures here on earth is that they don’t last and you can’t take any of it with you when you go. If we don’t learn it by life experiences, there is something we should learn from every funeral. We don’t “own” anything because we don’t take it with us.  You’ve probably heard it said, you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul.  Solomon, the wisest man ever, said, “Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand.” {Ecclesiastes 5:15}   The apostle Paul concurred, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” {1st Timothy 6:7}   Here’s what that means.  If your treasure is on earth, then every day you are getting further and further away from it. You are not staying on this planet. But if your treasure is in heaven and that is where you are investing, then every day you are getting closer and closer to it. So the question becomes, do you want to be moving away from your treasure, or do you want to be moving toward it? It’s up to you.

The other problem with earthly treasures is, they don’t last.  We’ve all experienced this.   You buy something, and then you get it home and by the time you’ve taken it out of the box they’ve already come out with the next version.  And it’s bigger, or better, or faster, or shinier.  Riches are uncertain.  They don’t last.  That’s why we are encouraged to invest in the Kingdom.  Every investment you make for God’s Kingdom will pay dividends, not only in this life, but also in the life to come. Randy Alcorn says it like this, ‘Financial planners tell us, ‘When it comes to your money, don’t think just three months or three years ahead.  Think thirty years ahead.’  Christ, the ultimate investment counselor, takes it further.  He says, don’t ask how your investment will pay off in just thirty years.  Ask how it will be paying off in thirty million years.’

But it’s that last part of what Jesus says that is the real key.  It’s not that God is after your stuff.  God is after your heart.  And the thing is, God knows that our hearts tend to wrap themselves around our wallets.  Let me give you an example of this.  Would you like to get interested in, say, Apple? I’ll tell you how to do it very quickly: buy Apple stock. All of a sudden you’ll find yourself reading articles and learning everything you can about the company.  Why?  Because our hearts follow our treasure.

So the question becomes, how do we get out of this cycle where we continually treasure other things over and above God.  And the answer is, we must learn to see Jesus as being infinitely better then whatever it is that is competing for our affections.  Because He is infinitely better. Nobody says it better than C.S. Lewis. In his famous essay, The Weight of Glory, Lewis says this, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.   We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” I love this quote. Because it’s us!  We don’t long for Him.  We don’t treasure Him.  Why?  Because Bravo has some new show about Cakes! Because the play-offs are on.  That’s why we don’t yearn.   So the real problem is, we don’t always want God like we should.

So how do we rectify that?  We fight to bring ourselves into God’s presence.  That’s what we do. Because God’s presence is the most beautiful glorious thing there is.  And the heart that has been awaked to the reality of God wants nothing to do with the things of this world.   The heart that has seen the Lord cries out with the Psalmist, ‘Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.’ {Ps. 73:25-26}  You see,  Christ is to be cherished, not just chosen.  And the heart that has truly seen the glory of Christ would gladly trade everything for the joy of knowing Him.

So fight your way into the presence of the Lord today.  Fight for your joy.  Do whatever you have to do to make your way into His glorious presence.  Because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Pastor Daniel

welcome video from Joshua Jhun on Vimeo.