Excerpt from a sermon
I had the chance to talk about the prayer ministry at our church and to answer the question... Why do we pray as a church?
The bottom line is that we are made for worship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and for relationship with Him. Prayer is simply talking and walking with Him and it has always been his heart for us to do it as a church family. In the garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve chose self worship, God asks the question, “Where are you?” Some things never change and to this day, God still asks, where are you? What hinders us in our personal life and our corporate prayer life is us, at the end of the day. We are worshipping elsewhere. The Israelites worshipped a calf—right after God did that big Red Sea miracle and He was forming them into a family! The Ephesians used to carry a graven image of Diana around in their hands. Today, I have my smart phone, my car keys and my credit card. If I am not worshipping God, than I am worshipping myself and my desire is to control my life, not to glorify God. What do we worship? It’s not how we spend our time. Many of have jobs and we do not worship those jobs, it’s deeper. What consumes us? That is what we worship. So, for me, what often consumes me is fear, guilt, shame, efficiency, convenience, and stability. I try to find peace externally when it can only be found internally. I find it easy to surrender and worship God in the big things, but daily life and worship and to trust God with my schedule, finances and relationships –that is harder. I go to other things besides God. Here’s what God says, “I am a consuming fire”. He told Moses at the beginning of this church thing—it started with the Israelites—I am a jealous God. He wants all of us and He will have His way! In Exodus 33 and 34 we find a compelling conversation and amazing example of intimacy and prayer. Friends, Moses was just a guy—ups and downs, but he shows us the possibility of a life believing God. At the end of this dialogue—really, they are arguing—God agrees to show Moses His glory. He puts Moses in a crack in the mountain, covers Him with His right hand and allows His back to pass by so Moses doesn’t die from the holiness of God. The Message translation says this…
God passed in front of him and called out, “God, God a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient—so much love, so deeply true—loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion and sin. Still, he doesn’t ignore sin. He holds sons and grandsons responsible for a father’s sins to the third and even fourth generation!” Moses fell to the ground and worshipped, saying, “Please, O Master, travel with us, hard headed as these people are. Forgive our iniquity and sin. Own us, posses us.”
Church—if this does not describe our prayer life, and if God is not consuming us and if we do not cry out like Moses—own us, posses us, then we are living small. We pray as a church so that God can reveal Himself to people! We pray to know Him rightly and ourselves rightly. We pray to extend that to others! Amen.
