wpc
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Bradenton, Florida
Sermons
Teach Us To Pray: When We Pray
|
|
“Teach Us to Pray: When We Pray”
Hosea 11:1-11
The Reverend Chris Adams
August 1, 2010
We continue our sermon series on prayer this morning. Last week, I introduced the series to you with the Lord’s Prayer. I suggested it as our community’s prayer, the prayer we offer that marks us and our prayer life as belonging to Jesus.
So how’s it going? Have you had a chance to practice what I preach? Are you any more confident in your prayer life, now that you have the Lord’s Prayer?
If you are, then I am thrilled. I heard from a couple people that the Lord’s Prayer has new life for them, and that they see it in a different way. That’s truly a blessing for us all.
But maybe you’re not, anymore confident in your prayer life. If not, then maybe we ought to go back one more step. Maybe, when we assume that folks are in prayer, we assume that everybody understands what prayer is all about in the first place. And you know what happens when we assume?
So what is prayer about? What happens when we pray anyway? I have another little quick illustration for you to consider... watch this.
When We Pray (Sorry No Link)
Last year, I took Jose out on one of our kayaks late one afternoon. He is still too young to paddle for himself, so he sits right in between my knees and I do all the paddling.
We have had some great adventures together, he and I in that kayak. We paddle around Robinson Preserve watching the wildlife go by, peering down into the clear water at fish swimming underneath us.
It’s pretty amazing stuff, Loving Life in the first degree.
Well on this particular day, I think it was early spring of last year, while we were out the sun started to go down. It’s hard to imagine on days like we are having here in August, but it actually turned a bit cool as the sun started to sink into the horizon. The water was still a little cool too.
So in not very much time at all, Jose turned to me and said, “Dad, I’m getting cold. Can we go back?”
“Sure,” I said. And I turned the kayak around and started heading back to the beach where we had put in. We were not that far away, but as it turns out, we were farther away than Jose was ready for.
As we paddled along together, he told me again that he was getting cold, and I noticed that he was starting to shiver a bit. I have seen him shiver before, he isn’t quite as blessed with body fat like I am, and so I pulled him a little closer to me and we continued to paddle home. I reassured him that we were on the way.
Well, things started to get a little more serious. Jose’s shivering was getting worse, and he kept telling me over and over that he was getting colder and colder. By now, I had him pulled up against me as tight as I could get and still paddle, but he was absolutely freezing. He started to cry. I tried my best to comfort him, but he was getting more and more inconsolable.
Now I was starting to get a little concerned. What bothered me most was that he had stopped crying now, and even asking me how much further, or telling me he was cold, and now just sort of stared ahead. His lips were shivering and they were even turning a little blue. I kept telling him over and over, “Hang on buddy, we’re almost there.”
By the time we got back to the beach, Jose was literally “stone cold silent.” He wouldn’t answer me when I asked him how he was doing. He would just sit and shiver. At this point, I was worried and the minute the boat hit the beach, I scooped him up and headed for the car.
Now that I didn’t have to paddle, I hugged him and tried to cover as much of his little body as I could with mine. We got to the car I cranked it up and put on the heat. It still wasn’t cold enough outside for heat, it might have been in the high sixties, but I figured he needed it.
Right out in front of God and everybody, we stripped off his clothes, and wrapped him up in a towel. I found some extra clothes in the car, and put them on him and put him in the seat where he could get warm again. At this point, he still wasn’t talking but I continued to tell him over and over again that he would be alright in a minute or two.
In just a few minutes, the shivering stopped, his color came back, and he started talking again. He was fine. No worries. Only then could we go back and get the boats put away and head for home.
Now here’s the point. When Jose told me he was cold, he was telling me of a need he had. That need at that point was important but not yet crucial. However, as the situation developed it became more and more important both to him and to me.
Even when he could no longer express that need to me, I knew what he needed most in that moment and I would have done almost anything to make sure he got what he needed most. I was the only person in that moment that could have satisfied that need.
Most importantly, and the reason I tell you the story, is that Jose trusted me with that need. Somehow he also knew that I was the only person that could satisfy that need for him. There was nobody else that could. He couldn’t do it himself. Had I not been there, he would have been in serious trouble.
But I knew what he needed. First, because he told me and then I just knew because I love him and want the best for him.
You see, that’s how prayer works with God as our Father. When we pray, we tell God that we trust Him. We tell God that He is the only one that can truly help us in life’s greatest struggles. We trust God with our hopes and our dreams, our successes and our failures.
Prayer is the trusting acknowledgment that we can’t do it by ourselves and if we try, we will be in real trouble.
Imagine if Jose had just decided to get out of the boat and go it by himself. Would he have made it? No. In prayer, we tell God as our Father the very same thing. We can’t do it ourselves, Lord, we just won’t make it.
In the Old Testament, Hosea was a great prophet. He was from the Northern Kingdom of Israel and lived at a time of great calamity and chaos. The last great king of Israel, Jeroboam has been dead now for fourteen years, and since him all four kings since have been assassinated by political enemies.
At the same time, Assyria has come marching in and conquered the entire nation. Hosea watches as his people are made into slaves, and many people are casually slaughtered by the Assyrians who just want the land. This is a time of great wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The message brought by Hosea is that God has not forsaken the people. Hosea tries to call the people back to a time of prayer. He wants them to once again place all their trust in God as the only one that can truly deliver them from this tragedy they live each day.
The people have turned away. They have convinced themselves that they could go it alone. They have come to believe they don’t need God any longer.
But look again at the eleventh chapter, the verses we read together today. Hosea reminds his people that they are the children of God. They have always been God’s children and God has always been their Father.
And even when they have gotten themselves in trouble, God has rescued them. Over and over they have turned away from God, but God has remained faithful to them. Often, like my son Jose, the people couldn’t even ask for what they needed, and yet God like a doting Father provided for their every need.
Hosea wants his people to trust God again, and to go to Him in prayer. Not because God doesn’t know what they need, but because they need to be reminded again what happens when we pray.
When we pray, we remind ourselves of who is ultimately worthy of our trust. We testify to all that God is our trust, and that God will provide for us. There is nobody else that we can turn to. When we pray, we seek God. When we pray, we trust God.
Friends, I have to tell you that I was praying that day on the water in my kayak. Jose might have been looking to me with his trust, but I was looking to God with mine. Please Lord, deliver us today from all that afflicts us. You are the only one that can do it. You are the only one I can put my trust in. And God was faithful to my trust, and we were delivered.
Listen to the words of the ancient prophet again as he calls his people back to prayer. Hosea describes what happens when we pray. He describes what happens when we put our trust in God and go after Him in prayer... there’s even some “trembling language” that will always remind me of my son and me on the water.
"They will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes," declares the LORD."
My friends, what happens when we pray? We trust.
If your prayer life needs a little jump-start, then maybe start with trust. In whom do you truly put your trust?
I would suggest that when we realize the only one truly worthy of our trust, then prayer is just what follows. We can’t do it alone. When we pray we invite the roar of the lion, and we will be settled in our homes.
Thanks be to God for what happens when we pray.
Amen.
Categories: None
Post a Comment
Oops!
The words you entered did not match the given text. Please try again.
0 Comments
Recent Sermons
by wpcbradenton | 1 comment
by wpcbradenton | 0 comments
by wpcbradenton | 0 comments
by wpcbradenton | 0 comments
Oops!
Oops, you forgot something.