There are many questions that people have
about their faith. One of those questions centers around the topic of prayer.
More specifically, people want to know if
God cares about every little detail of our daily living. Is it OK to pray to
God about being selected for a new job? What about praying for God to give me
an “A” on my next test? If I pray, will God help my favorite sport’s team win?
My home church had a Ultimate Frisbee
league when I was in high school. If you never heard of Ultimate Frisbee, it’s
kind of like football except you use a Frisbee and there’s no tackling and
you’re not allowed to run with the Frisbee. You have to work the frisbee down
the field by throwing it to your teammates. You score when someone catches the
frisbee in the end zone.
Before each game, the two teams would come
to mid-field for a prayer as a sign of good sportsmanship. Somebody from one of
the teams would give the prayer. The person who was giving the prayer at one of
the games was offering a really nice prayer, but then ended the prayer by
saying, “And Lord, help the Muppets to
win. Amen.” Of course, he was referring to his team which was known as the
Muppets.
Does God care about which team wins a
Universal Frisbee game? What about football players who point to the sky after
scoring a touchdown? Should preachers do the same thing after preaching a
stirring sermon?
What about the weather? Should we pray for
nice weather when we’re planning a big event? And what about a particular
situation we may be facing? Does God want us to pray for there to be a certain
outcome that will benefit us?
I think that Psalm 139 offers some
important insights to these questions about prayer. This Psalm reminds us that
God is not some remote deity who is disengaged from our day to day living. This
is a God who knows each one of us intimately. This is a God who is acquainted
with all our ways.
The Psalmist begins by saying, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thought from far
away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my
ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.”
What does this Psalm teach us about
prayer? It teaches us that it’s OK for us to pray about the specific details
that are going on in our lives. What kind of details? It includes everything
from challenges and adversities, to joys and celebrations that we experience in
our everyday lives. God cares about it all.
Jesus had this picture of God in mind when
he taught the crowds by pointing out some birds in the air and saying how they
neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet our heavenly Father feeds
them. Are we not of more value than they?
This is the biblical picture of who God
is. God is a God who cares about our needs, our problems, our wants, and the
challenges we face. Have you ever heard someone refer to God as the “man
upstairs?” I don’t think that’s an
accurate biblical image of God. The biblical image is that God is intimately
connected with all of creation and wants to have a relationship with us.
God is not the absent landlord. God is the
ever-present source of life.
God calls us by name like he did for the
young boy Samuel in the middle of the night. Samuel heard his name being called
and it was Eli, the Priest who helped Samuel to know that it was God who was
calling him. God wanted to have a personal relationship with Samuel so that
Samuel would be able to grow in his faith and use his leadership gifts to be a blessing
for God’s people.
When our two children were in their early
elementary school years, my brother gave each of them a very special gift on
their birthdays one year. He had taken a picture of each of them and had their
photos enlarged and placed in very large frames to hang in their bedrooms.
At the bottom of each of their photos was
a verse from this Psalm. It was the first part of verse 14 in this Psalm where
the Psalmist states, “I praise you, for I
am fearfully and wonderfully made.” What a wonderful verse to remember. “I praise you, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made.”
Say that with me. “I praise you, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made.” I’m sure that when he thought of this large picture idea
for their birthdays, that he just wanted them to always be reminded that God
loves them and cares about them.
Maybe we should all have large pictures
like this somewhere in our homes with this same verse to remind us that we have
been wonderfully made by God. Sometimes, we might not feel like we have been
wonderfully made. Sometimes, we may question if God is that close at all.
Psalm 139 reminds us that even if we take
the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even
there, God’s hand shall lead us, his right hand shall hold us fast.
This is a Psalm that reminds us of that
wonderful Wesleyan doctrine of Prevenient Grace. Prevenient Grace is the grace
of God that is always present with us in any given moment of any given day. The
good news of our faith is that God is always reaching out to us and wants to be
in a relationship with us. Prevenient Grace is God’s grace that is always being
extended to us even though we are not always conscious of its presence.
God’s Prevenient Grace reminds me of my 40th
birthday which ended up being a surprise party. My wife was sneaky. During the
several weeks leading up to my birthday that year, she had invited my family
from out of state to come and surprise me.
Now, I’m not the brightest crayon in the
box so I didn’t pick up on the clues that she was up to something. One of those
clues was when she asked me to clean the house a few days after I had just
cleaned it. I remember saying to her, “But
I just cleaned it last weekend. Can’t you tell?” She said, “I just think it would be nice to clean it again.”
She wanted the house to look really nice
for when the family would arrive from out of town. And in my own clueless happy
go lucky way, I said, “Okay, I’ll clean
it all over again.”
That’s the definition of a happy marriage
when your wife can get you to clean the house for your own surprise birthday
party!
And then on the day of the surprise party,
I’m still totally clueless that anything was going on. It was the day before my
birthday, a Saturday, and she said, “Let’s
go out to lunch and then go see a movie.”
We went out to lunch and had a wonderful
time together and on the way back to the movie theater, she said, “I need to stop at the church to pick up a
few things first.” And I’m thinking,
“This might make us late for the movie.
What does she need to pick up at the church?” But remember, I’m Mr.
Clueless so I didn’t think anything more about it. I just said, “OK.”
I would be the world’s worst detective. All of these clues and I still don’t pick up
on any of this.
So we walk into the church, go down the
hallway, and I’m thinking to myself, “I
wonder what she left in the Fellowship Hall?” She opens the door and I hear
everyone yell out, “Happy birthday!”
So then, I’m thinking, “Oh that’s nice. Some people in the church
are throwing a birthday party for me.” And
as I start talking to one of the church members, out of the corner of my eye, I
see my mother who had traveled from out of state to be there. And I think, “Oh that’s nice, Penny arranged for my mom to come to Ohio for my
birthday.”
After I hug my mom, I look over her
shoulder and I’m shocked to see my brother in law who was also from out of
state. “Gary is that you?” And then I
notice my nieces, my sisters, and my brother who all came in from long
distances to throw this surprise birthday party for me. I was so humbled. I
looked over at Penny and she was laughing so hard because she knew that I was
totally clueless.
And by the way, I am still upset that we
never made it the movie theater that day!
Prevenient Grace is like that surprise
birthday party. As we go through our day, God is working behind the scenes to
remind you and me of just how much he loves us and wants to be in a relationship
with us.
There are clues of God’s grace all around
us, but we’re so focused on our regular day to day living, that we don’t always
pick up on the little hints or even the big hints along the way.
The story of the bible is a story of the
great lengths that God is willing to go to be in a relationship with us. This
God just doesn’t know when to quit! Even if we quit seeking God or we take
detours away from God, God is always there for us wooing us back. God always
takes the first step toward us and all we need to do is respond.
The Psalmist says, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your
presence?” God is always preparing a
surprise party for us even though we are often times clueless!
One of the ways that we can live out Psalm
139 on a daily basis is to take some time during the day, to just slow down and
remind ourselves that in that very moment, in that very moment, God is reaching
out to us with his grace. What an incredible thought to keep in mind during our
day to day living. God is reaching out to me with his grace in this moment.
How about right now in the middle of this
sermon? Did you know that God is trying to get your attention? God is saying, “Hey, I’m here. I’m right here. You might
have forgotten about me, but I haven’t forgotten about you! You are fearfully
and wonderfully made!”
“Hey
Robert, I know you’re preaching right now, but I want you to know that you are
fearfully and wonderfully made and I care about you. Don’t worry. I’ll help you
finish this sermon. You’ll be fine.”
I want our church to be a church that is
always seeking to be aware of God’s Prevenient Grace at work in our lives. I
want our church to be a church where we help each other recognize and celebrate
God’s prevenient grace in our lives.
One of the ways that we can become more
like the Psalmist and remember God’s Prevenient Grace is by living out our
church’s vision which is to love, grow, and serve. We love by being part of weekly
worship. We grow by attending a Sunday School class or attending one of our six
core courses that we are just beginning to offer on a rotating basis throughout
the year. We serve by becoming part of a LifeGroup where our small group serves
in a ministry and where we can share our faith with each other on a regular
basis.
Love, Grow, Serve. That’s how our church is
seeking to be a Psalm 139 church where we are becoming more aware of how God’s
grace is being poured out in our lives every moment of every day. This is what
makes our faith real. It’s when we help each other know that God cares about us
and wants to be in a growing relationship with us.
We began this message by thinking through
if God cares about our many concerns and desires in life. Based on Psalm 139
and Jesus’ teachings, the answer is yes. God does care about our what we are
thinking about and dealing with in life.
Now, we can take this a little too far and
expect God to help our favorite football team go undefeated every year. We might expect God to provide nice weather
for a special event we are planning. And we might even pray for God to help us
get that promotion at work.
How do you think God handles these types
of prayer requests on a daily basis? In thinking this through with someone, his
thought was that God must have a great big spam folder in heaven that catches
all of these types of requests. There
may be some truth to that. I don’t know.
But even when we offer to God these kinds
of prayer requests, I believe that God still wants to hear those requests. God
might not perform a miracle and give us an “A” on a test, but God can
strengthen us to study as much as we can and be as prepared as possible for
that test.
God might not give us a promotion at work,
but God wants us to use our gifts and abilities in the best possible way so
that we can make a positive difference through our work. And God might not lead
our favorite team to an undefeated season every year but God can help us to be sportsmanlike
regardless of the outcome.
In all of our prayers, not matter how
noble or petty they may seem, there is a God who wants to be in a loving
relationship with us. This is a God who not only knows everything about us but
who wants us to know Him.
Psalm 139 reminds us that it takes one to
know one.
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