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| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, September 11th, 2016:
'The Power of Prayer'
Good morning. And welcome to good news in the morning. My name is Brent Russett. I am the Senior Pastor at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church here in Ottawa. I have been pastoring there for 26 years. One of the things I love to do is show how God’s word that was written a long time ago, connects with our world right now
I am glad you have turned your radio on this morning. Starting your day with God’s word is a really good place to start. Of course, if you are not a morning person, and you want to re-listen or get the manuscript for this program, you can find us on the internet at Goodnewsinthemorning.ca . There you can keep up to date with what is happening around Good News Christian Ministries.
I want to say a special welcome to our international listeners, who listen via the internet. We are glad that you have found us, and that you are finding this ministry an encouragement.
This morning I want to talk about the power of prayer.
There are all kinds of questions when it comes to prayer. You will hear people talk about great experiences when it comes to prayer. You will hear people talk about answered prayer. But if you listen you will also hear people talk about unanswered prayer – or when God says no. There are all kinds of hard questions around prayer, yet the bible tells us to pray. More than that, Jesus not only expected his followers to pray but often he could be found praying.
If you are a follower of Jesus your call is to pray. Many people I know feel guilty about how little they pray. That is really unhelpful. Guilt is only a short term motivator. It doesn’t help in the long run. This morning I am hoping to give you some tools on how to pray.
Now I know that when it comes to prayer, many of us ask the question – although we would never put it so crassly, “How do I get God to do what I want?”
But it really is the wrong question. You see we are not into witchcraft. Witchcraft says that if I can just say the right incantation the right way I can manipulate the deity into doing what I want. But that is not who we as Christians are – we on our better days, know that we cannot manipulate God, nor would we want to.
Nor are we as Christians superstitious. If I can just do all the right things in the right way, If I can just pray in the right amount with the right words then I will get the right result from God.
But prayer is much more profound than that.
It is right and good to ask God for what we need. But God wants to do so much more than that in you through prayer. Prayer is one of God’s primary ways of changing us to be more like him. If you want to be more like Jesus. Pray. You will not only be imitating him, because he prayed, but praying, I mean real praying is God’s way of changing you.
The first thing you need to know about prayer is that you are talking to God who is actually listening. I know that may seem really basic, but prayer can become something much different than that.
I grew up for years praying over my food with a prayer I was taught. “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. By his hand we all are blessed, thank you for our daily bread. Amen.
I prayed that prayer hundreds maybe thousands of time. I am not sure that I realized that I was talking to a God who was actually listening.
Prayer can become rote, or perfunctory, or showy, - it can become something else other than talking to God, who is actually listening.
In later years, to break away from my wrong mindset, I would sometimes put an empty chair in my place of prayer, and let that chair remind me that God was as present as if someone were sitting in that chair. Prayer then became talking to God who was actually listening.
The second thing you need to know about prayer is that if in prayer you are talking to God who is actually listening, then you can’t lie. It is the only relationship that you are in where you can’t lie. You can’t fudge the truth. You can’t wear a mask and somehow deceive God.
You know what that means, it means that you can afford to be completely yourself. There is no downside to being yourself. In other relationships, you may be tempted to think if they knew all about me, I am not sure that they would like me. So I am going to fudge what I say to show myself in the best light. Or I am going to withhold saying all that I could say.
But God does know exactly what you are like, and he invites you to come before him. You can’t lie, so you might as well be yourself.
This in itself can be transformational. Lying to God in prayer is like lying to yourself about yourself. Before you can be really transformed, you have to be honest about where you are at. The best place to do that is before a God who really loves you. And he really does love you. He cares profoundly for you.
When it comes to prayer, we put these two truths together, we are talking to God who is actually listening, and we can’t lie to him so we might as well be ourselves – put those truths together with another truth you know intuitively, Life is messy.
All of us to a greater or lesser extent understand that life contains pain, whether physical or emotional. We live in the middle of a very uncertain world. We have worry and concerns and cares. And we battle with ourselves, and we face challenges at home, challenges at work, challenges with our kids, challenges with money, challenges.
In prayer we are talking to God who is actually listening, and we cannot lie to him, and life is messy.
So the question is, how then should we pray?
The great prayer book of the Bible is Psalms. The book of Psalms is a record of people’s prayers. There are different kinds of prayers, for different kind of occasions.
Much of the bible is God talking to people. The book of Psalms is mostly people talking to God. The book of Psalms is not the best place to create theology from. – What I mean by that is – just because it is in the book of Psalms which is in the bible does not mean that what it is saying is right. In one Psalm, the Psalmist is so angry with his enemies that he prays that God would take their children and bash them against rocks.
That is not good or right – Jesus taught us to love our enemies. So you don’t develop a theology from that trying to somehow make it right – But what you do see is a person who understands they cannot lie to God – And that is what they want God to do.
I take great comfort from the fact that our prayers do not have to be perfect or theologically correct for God to hear them. It appears that what God values the most is faith based authenticity. Where you come before God (is) right where you're at by faith.
This morning what I want to do is take you to some kinds of prayers I the Psalms that I believe are the most helpful and most transformational.
Not all these prayers are to be prayed all the time. But when you are in a place where these prayers are appropriate, they can be so helpful.
The first Psalm I want to point out to you is a Psalm of lament. If you're are at a place where you are in pain and God seems distant or absent – then this kind of prayer is for you.
Psalm 13 (NIV)
1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.
That is known as a Psalm of Lament. God will you forget me forever. You are hiding from me. My heart is full of sorrow.
I know we started out talking about prayer as talking to God who is actually listening. And that is true. But sometimes it feels like he is not. Sometimes it feels like God has forgotten us, or is hiding from us. Our pain is much more real to us than God.
The Psalmist is not trying to lie to God. He is in pain and they are letting God know that they are in pain. He has questions and they don’t have answers. They are asking for God’s help. He eventually makes it around to making a statement of faith. “I will trust in your unfailing love.” You get the sense that is more a statement of faith than a feeling of faith.
If you are in the middle of pain I believe it is important to learn to pray prayers of lament. It is the only way to be honest before a God who is listening.
Prayers of Lament are best prayed in faith based authenticity. It is not just yelling at God, but it is telling God exactly how you feel. But also remembering the promises of God. I once heard someone say, don’t doubt in the darkness what you have learned in the light. That is helpful in times like these.
I don’t believe that you can become spiritually mature without suffering. Life is not fair, so some suffer more than others. Suffering does not necessarily make you grow spiritually but it can if you let it. One of the ways of letting it is through prayers of lament. I would urge you, don’t waste your suffering. Be transformed by God through prayer.
MUSIC – How long OH Lord – Brian Doreksen 5:07
I want to take you to another kind of transformational prayer. This is a prayer of repentance. This is the kind of prayer we pray when we have sinned. This is the kind of prayer we pray when we realize we have done what is wrong in God’s sight.
Psalm 51
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
In this Psalm, David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then to cover it up, he sent her husband to the front line in his army where he was killed. David was confronted by a prophet of God. This prayer was the result of David coming to terms with his sin.
Have mercy on me, wash away my iniquity. God you were right I was wrong. You are right in condemning what I have done, but I am asking for forgiveness and mercy.
I think learning to repent is one of the most important prayers that one can learn, in order to be transformed. Some people find the word scary because of weird people standing on street corners holding up signs that yell Repent.
But in reality repentance simply means turning back towards God. You have been walking in a different direction than towards God, and now you are changing direction and walking back to God.
Here is what I have discovered over the years – you can make the Christian life about a lot of things. It can be about rules, or it can be about spiritual disciplines, or it can be about having the right beliefs, or a number of other things. But what I have come to understand is the most important thing in the Christian life is, am I oriented towards God.
I have seen people who have been in the faith for a long time, they believe all the right things, they do all the right things, but when you talk to them, their lives are pointed to something other than God. I have watched others who have been in the faith for a very short time, but they are headed towards God, even though they don’t have all the right beliefs and the right actions.
When Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and said the prostitutes are closer to the kingdom of God than you are – that is what he was talking about. They were oriented to rules, but Jesus was seeing in the hearts of some women, and their orientation towards God.
Orientation matters. And if you are headed in a different direction, whether it is towards, comfort or money, or power, or control, or pleasure, or anything else other than God, then then only way back is repentance.
Here is why repentance matters. It was David who prayed Psalm 51 – who prayed repentance. In reflecting on this experience, this is what he said in Psalm 32
Psalm 32:1–7 (NIV)
1 Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.
3 When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
my transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave
the guilt of my sin.
6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
will not reach them.
7 You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
God is the author of life. When we orient ourselves towards him we receive life. When we cover up our sin, we block the flow of life to us. Repentance is an important prayer for transformation.
I want to lay one more transformational kind of prayer on you. It is the prayer of remembering who God is.
Psalm 8 (NLT)
Psalm 8
1 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
Your glory is higher than the heavens.
2 You have taught children and infants
to tell of your strength,*
silencing your enemies
and all who oppose you.
3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?*
5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God*
and crowned them* with glory and honor.
6 You gave them charge of everything you made,
putting all things under their authority—
7 the flocks and the herds
and all the wild animals,
8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,
and everything that swims the ocean currents.
9 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
We might call these prayers of worship. Whenever we reflect back to God, his character, who he is, it has a way of transforming us. When we tell of God’s qualities, we are being who we were created to be. That then helps us be who we were called to be.
When you see who God is and you know who you are and you can see what God is calling you towards – it can make a huge difference in your life.
Let’s pray:
Lord Jesus,
My prayer is that you would draw people to prayer. Allow them to pray. Help us all, Lord, to be transformed into your image.
For those who are hurting, I pray that you would touch them, Lord, even as they lament to you in prayer.
For those who have been wandering away from you, I pray that you would reorient them. Help them to pray prayers of repentance, so that they can turn back to you.
And, Lord, for those who are walking well right now, I pray that you would burst their hearts open with song of worship to you.
I ask this in Jesus’ name, AMEN.
I want to tell you about an exciting event that well be happening on Friday September 30th at 7 p.m. Rev. Ernie Cox, one of the most beloved Christian music entertainers in the Ottawa area is going to be in Concert at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church. Admission is free, but we will be taking up an offering in support of Good news in the morning. Mark it on your calendars Friday September 30th at 7 p.m. at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church. It’s going to be a great time. I hope to see you there!
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As you pray, may you encounter God for who he is. Loving and gracious. May you encounter the God who is calling you to be all that you were created to be through His son Jesus Christ.
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
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PODCAST LINK to the CFRA broadcast:
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