This is a very special day for me. I’m
getting a little emotional. This is the last Sunday that I have to wear a thick
wool varsity jacket during my sermon. I just want to offer that up as a praise
to the Lord today. Thank you, Jesus!
Next Sunday, I will become a normal pastor
again. But it has been fun to show off your varsity jackets each Sunday
morning.
Today is a pretty special Sunday for me
because today, I am wearing a varsity jacket that belongs to Hannah Travis who
was part of my congregation in Lancaster.
Hannah lettered in golf at Lancaster High
School and she is now on the golf team here at Ohio University. Hannah is with
us today. Every Sunday after worship, I would ask Hannah for a new golf tip.
So Hannah, welcome to Ohio University and
your church away from home! Would you welcome, Hannah. This is her first Sunday
with us!
Today's varsity jacket is to remind us of the importance of lettering in prayer. If we want to have a varsity level faith, we need to letter in prayer.
David
Troxel tells about his eight year old son who came home from school one day
with a stuffed animal he had won at the class Valentine’s party. “How
did that happen?” he asked.
“Well,”
his son explained, “the teacher put all
our names together, and then picked one out.
I cheated, though,” he said, looking guilty. “I
prayed.”
If only we could approach prayer with even
half the confidence of this little boy!
This morning is the final part of a seven
part sermon series from the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians on what it
takes to have a varsity faith, a mature and growing faith and today we look at
one of the most vital topics of the Christian faith, prayer.
How’s your prayer life? If you’re like me, there’s always room for
growth in this area of our faith.
Paul ends his letter by emphasizing the
vital importance of prayer. He writes for
us to pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. And specifically, Paul says to pray for one
another and to lift each other up.
What a powerful thought for us as we
conclude this sermon series. Just dream
with me what it would be like if we would take Paul’s words about prayer to
heart. What difference would it make if
we as a church would dedicate more of our time and energy to praying for one
another?
I was reading about a church that made
prayer a big focus in their church. Three high-energy, committed women were
serving on the new evangelism committee for Benton Street Church.
They were fired up to do great things for
God that year. They brought in a church consultant to get some direction about
what they could do first. They were thinking that this consultant might suggest
a calling campaign, or a bring-a-friend to church Sunday, or maybe a direct
mail marketing inviting the community to check out their church.
“No,”
the consultant said. Not that. Not yet. She told them to pray for three months
before doing anything! Three months! That seemed like an eternity for these
three women.
The evangelism committee at Benton Street
was looking for activity, for hard work, for something to do. But instead, this
consultant told them to stand still and pray. Stand still for three months!
Prayer is a different kind of hard work,
of course. Most of us don't know how to do it, at least not for very long, but
this evangelism committee learned.
They prayed together for one hour every
week. During their board meeting, when it was their turn to report, they would
say, "We're still praying. The
consultant is making us do it! And so, we’re just praying."
People would laugh because this wasn’t
what they were expecting when they hired a consultant. As the days and weeks
went by, board members started giving the evangelism committee prayer requests.
After three months of doing nothing but
praying, interest in evangelism had skyrocketed. By the end of the year, 65
people were helping with evangelism in that church.
New visitors were checking out the church.
Twice as many people were baptized as the year before. There was a new excitement in the church, but
it wasn’t because they were doing more.
It was because this church made prayer the center for everything.
Prayer is not always the first thing that
comes to our minds when faced with a problem or challenge. Like the evangelism
committee of the Benton Street Church, our first thought is usually to do
something, try some new strategy, like begin a new church program, anything but
wait around for three months praying!
Paul tells us to pray at all times. Wait a
minute. Isn’t this the same man who started at least fourteen churches,
traveled on three long missionary journeys, and wrote half of the books in the
New Testament? When did he have time to pray? He was always doing something.
Paul was a doer but he also knew of the
importance of prayer. Bible scholars believe that Paul wrote the letter of
Ephesians while he was in prison. He probably had a lot of time to pray while he
was in prison.
Being alone with God wasn’t a new thing
for Paul. When he first encountered the risen Christ, he was blinded and spent
those first three days in prayer. He didn’t begin his mission work until three
years later. He needed that time to be alone with God.
The Benton Street Church thought three
months was a long time to pray. Just think, Paul waited three years!
Of course, Jesus taught us the same thing
about prayer. Jesus would often get away by himself to pray, especially after a
busy time of teaching and healing. Jesus began his ministry by spending forty
days in the wilderness with God. During that time, he fasted and prayed.
The number, forty seems to be the biblical
time frame for intense prayer. Noah was on the boat for forty days. Moses was
on the mountain for forty days. The Israelites were in the wilderness for forty
years. Elijah was on the mountain for forty days. The disciples spent forty
days with Jesus following his resurrection.
Paul understood that prayer isn’t a
peripheral part of the Christian faith. Without it, we just become busy people
who do a lot of busy things.
Between the time it was announced that I
would be your pastor back in February until the time we actually moved here to
Athens, it felt like an eternity. Those four months felt really awkward.
I still had a lot of things to do at the
church I was serving, but at the same time, I was curious about getting started
here. That’s a weird place to be when you are in between churches.
Whenever a move is announced, the District Superintendent reminds the
pastor and the church who will be receiving that new pastor to not engage in
any type of ministry until the pastor officially begins at the new church. That
all makes perfectly good sense even though it’s difficult to be patient during
that time of transition.
And since I am a doer and like to keep
busy, I was finding it difficult to just chill out during those four long
months of waiting. It was during the beginning stages of that awkward waiting
period that it dawned on me.
This was an opportunity to spend time
praying for you and preparing for the transition. There wasn’t a day that went
by that I didn’t think about you or pray for you. There were times when I would
just mentally picture the people of our Leadership Board. I would visualize
each person from that late January introductory meeting and then pray for each
person by name.
Sometimes, it would take some time for me to
remember a name, but the more I prayed, the more I was able to get the names
right. And then I would pray for the congregation and the ministries and
programs of the church. Your church’s Facebook page helped me to see what you
were up to during those four months.
I read about the concerts that were taking
place here at the church, your fun Caberet evening back in February, the annual
Good Works Walk that you hosted even though it was really cold and snowy that
day, the accessibility improvements that you were able to make to the front of the
church, the early Growing Tree pre-school enrollment announcements, and the
updates on Lara Pickett who passed away just a month after we met over a
conference call during my introductory meeting here at the church.
When I saw the announcement about her
death, I remember feeling so humbled that even in her weakened condition, she
wanted to meet her new pastor even if it was over a conference call. That
memory will always stay with me. On one level, I didn’t know Lara, but on the
level of prayer, I think I did know her.
Yes, you have been in my prayers from the
end of January through this very moment and I will continue to pray for you and
for us as we share in ministry together. Lord knows that I need you to pray for
me!
During those four long months, I was
reminded that prayer isn’t just window dressing. Prayer should be at the heart
and soul of everything we do in the church.
When we gather for worship, let’s remember
to pray. When we come together for a church meeting, let’s remember to pray.
When we eat together, let’s remember to pray. When we don’t know which
direction to go, let’s remember to pray.
When any of us are hurting or down, let’s
remember to pray. When any of us are filled with joy, let’s remember to pray.
When Penn State has their first game in two weeks, let’s remember to pray.
Hey, Paul tells us to pray for every
occasion. I’m just being biblical, here!
We have spent these past several weeks
this summer walking through the Letter of Ephesians. I think it’s fitting that
we conclude this series with this focus on prayer. Paul ends his letter by
emphasizing prayer but remember, he also started this letter with a prayer.
There must be something about this thing
called prayer. It’s something we are called to come back to again and again. Prayer
is what makes the difference in everything we do. It reminds us to not trust in
our own strength, but in God’s guidance and direction.
Prayer is mysterious. It opens doors that
we never knew even existed. One of the great Christian leaders of the twentieth
century, William Temple declared that whatever else one might say about whether
prayer worked, he had noticed that when he prayed, “coincidences” happened; and
when he stopped praying, the “coincidences” stopped happening.
The same thing can be said of the golfer
who, when someone accused him of being lucky agreed, but commented that he’s
noticed that the more he practiced, the luckier he got.
Paul viewed prayer in the same way. Prayer
is something that we are to practice at every opportunity. In the quiet of the
morning when you wake up, as you face a difficult decision at work, when you
gather in this place to worship, and when you attend that church meeting.
If we want to have a varsity faith, a mature
faith, Paul says that we need to letter in worship, unity, growth, spiritual
gifts, kindness, a Spirit-filled life, and prayer. The more we practice these
spiritual disciplines, the more we will be the people and the church that God
has called us to be.
Several years ago, I remember reluctantly
getting into my car to come to a church meeting one evening. I knew that it was going to be a
controversial meeting and most likely a very long one as such meetings go.
I had worried about the meeting the entire
day. I felt anxious about it because people were let’s just say, passionate
about their differing points of view.
But when I made the turn to come into the
church entrance, I felt this tug at my heart to say a prayer. And so I prayed.
“Dear
God, thank you for reminding me to pray to you before going into this meeting
tonight. You know how concerned I am
about this meeting. I pray for the
chairperson tonight that he would be guided by your Holy Spirit. I also pray for the committee members that
they too would be open to your Holy Spirit so that we would move into the
direction that you would have for us. I pray
this in the name of Jesus. Amen.”
After I said the “Amen” I got out of the
car and headed in for the meeting. It was
a strange feeling. The anxiety and the
concern that I had felt during the day was no longer there. And now in place of that anxiety and concern was
God’s peace and assurance.
While there were some tense moments during
the meeting that night, I was amazed at how clearly God was leading us and
guiding us in ways that wouldn’t have been possible if left to our own strength
and preferences.
As we were leaving the meeting that night
and heading out to the parking lot, one of the committee members turned to me
and said, “You know, even with all of the
difficult issues we had to discuss tonight, that was one of the most positive
and productive meetings we have ever had. Someone must have been praying.”
I smiled in agreement as we
continued to our cars.
And just to think, that earlier that day,
I didn’t think we had a prayer.
