Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2007 : September 30, 2007

Theme: Pick Up Your Prayer Palette

Church year occasion: Pentecost 18

A little boy was playing in his sandbox with his cars and trucks, and in the process of creating roads and tunnels in the soft sand he discovered a large rock in the middle of the sandbox. But that rock just didn't fit into his plan for the roads, so the boy dug around the rock and tried pushing the rock across the sandbox. But it was a large rock and he was a small boy, so it wasn't easy. He used his hands; he put his back against the wall of the sandbox and used his feet, and after much effort was able to get the rock finally to the edge of the sandbox. But try as he might, he found that he couldn't roll it up and over the little wall. He pushed and pried, but every time he thought he had made some progress, the rock tipped and then fell back into the sandbox. After minutes of trying this, he did it one more time, only to have the rock slide back and smash his fingers. Finally he burst into tears of frustration.

All this time the boy's father watched from the window as the drama unfolded. At the moment the tears fell, his father went out and said, "Son, why didn't you use all the strength that you had available?" Defeated, the boy sobbed, "But I did, Daddy, I used all the strength that I had!" "No, you didn't use all the strength you had. You didn't ask me." With that the father reached down, picked up the rock, and removed it from the sandbox without much effort.

That story reminds us about the importance of prayer in our lives. God, our heavenly Father, is always near to listen and act for our good. The question is, do we remember that, or do we try to get through life on our own? Do we use the gift of prayer that each of us as Christians have? Or if we do pray, do we find ourselves only praying for ourselves or only for certain things.

Let's look at what the apostle Paul has to say regarding prayer in 1 Timothy 2:1-6.

As we look at prayer from God's perspective, we see that he wants us to offer up all kinds of prayers for all kinds of people. It's like a painter picking up his painting palette. If we only use a few colors, the picture will not be as full or lifelike. But if we use all the colors at our disposal, the picture will be beautiful and vibrant. That's how God wants our prayer life to be. He wants us to pick up our prayer palette and start painting.

But before we can pick up our prayer palette and pray for everyone and for all kinds of things, we need to know why. I think a little prayer might help us. It was offered by someone within the past decade. It's really a beautiful prayer:

God, I trust in you.
I lay myself in your hands.
Allow me to glorify you in every possible way.
Purify my heart and clean it from all earthly matters.
If God supports you, no one will be able to defeat you.

Such a beautiful prayer. But God never heard it because it was prayed by an unbeliever, and he, as far as we can tell, is now suffering damnation in hell. How can I say that? Because it was a prayer prayed by one of the most evil men we can think of, the lead hijacker of 9/11, Mohammad Atta. It was later found in his diary. Knowing that, go back and read that prayer again.

Why to I bring this up? Well, we might think it strange for the Apostle Paul, right in the middle of talking about the importance of prayer for our everyday lives, should go into the fact that God wants everyone to be saved and then talk about Jesus being true man in order to be our Savior and the Savior of all people. After all, Jesus is the Savior of Mohammad Atta just as he is the Savior of you and me. And that's Paul's point. Our prayer lives will always be intimately linked to our realization of the astounding and miraculous fact that Jesus saved us from our sins and that he saved everyone else as well from theirs. We need to realize that in our natural sinful state before we came to faith, we were no better than Mohammad Atta. We were dead in our sins. We were evil because of our sins. We were enemies of the Almighty God. We were without true faith in God and true fear of God and would have been justly condemned to eternal punishment in hell for our horrible sins. The mass murder of thousands of Americans was no worse in God's eyes than any of us being mean to someone, or even thinking of being mean to someone, or holding a grudge against someone. We are, by nature, as evil and deserving of hell as anyone.

That is why we treasure Paul's wonderful words to Timothy. We were in the same boat as the most evil person you can think of. But God still loved us. God loved us so much, in fact, that Paul can tell us that God "wants all men [people] to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." That means that in spite of the evil in our hearts that shows itself even now in our lives, God still wanted us in heaven, because we are part of all people. And God did something about it. Paul says, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men." As much as our world wants to say that there are all kinds of gods in this world and each is just as legitimate as any other and adherence to any religion is equally valid as a path to God, God himself says the world is wrong. Dead wrong. There is only one true God. If people die not knowing that true God and trusting that only God as their only Savior from sin and hell, then hell is the very place they will go when they die.

That includes us. We will go to hell if we don't believe in the true God. So how do we know about that true God? "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (John 1:18) The "One and Only" who is at the Father's side is Jesus. He is at God the Father's side now because he has completed his work of saving the world and the one and only mediator between God and human beings. He "gave himself as a ransom for all men." He paid the horrible price for all our hatred and anger and grudges and unkind words and unkind thoughts. He paid for the world's sins when he died on the cross. That sacrifice, made once and for all, is for all people, including, amazingly enough, you and me.

But it would be worth nothing to us if God hadn't also called us to faith to believe in Jesus as our Savior. The Bible tells us plainly, "No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:3) So our salvation was -- from beginning to end -- God's doing. Our coming to faith and staying in faith to the end of our lives is -- from beginning to end -- God's doing. So, as Paul says, there is no reason to boast that we are any better than Muhammad Atta or any other unbeliever. It is simply by the grace of God that we are saved through faith in Jesus.

And that is where prayer comes in. Remember about 10 minutes ago I said that we might think it strange for the Apostle Paul, right in the middle of talking about the importance of prayer for our everyday lives, should go into the fact that God wants everyone to be saved and then talk about Jesus being true man in order to be our Savior and the Savior of all people? Now you know why. My prayer life, my Christian life, should always flow from the amazing fact that I am a child of God by his grace alone. Only when I understand that will my life show it in how I treat Jesus as my greatest treasure. Only when I realize how God could save me and give me life now and forever will I think about loving others and putting other people and their interests above my own. Only when I begin to grasp the enormity of God's blessings to me as a redeemed child of God, only when I know that there is now true and lasting peace between me and my holy God all because of Jesus' sacrifice and the Holy Spirit's working the gift of faith in my heart, then and only then will my prayer life reflect it.

Then I will understand Paul's words and make them my own: "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone -- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." So I will pray because God wants me to do so. He wants me everyday to understand the connection I have to him through faith and to use that connection to do everything to please him. And one of those things is praying all kinds of prayers to God, knowing that he hears and will answer in his time and way. I will boldly make requests of my God for my own life for particular physical and spiritual blessings, knowing that, whatever God's answer, it will serve my eternal good. I will pray for others so they also come to know the good news of salvation and become a child of God just as I am. And I will pray for all kinds of other physical blessings and spiritual blessings for all people as well, knowing that my good and gracious God has the power to hear and fulfill my request. And in doing so I will give thanks to my God for all the marvelous things he has done for me and continues to do for me and for all people, especially for the fact that I now have been given a message to share with everyone I know and, through my offerings, even with people I don't know and probably will never see, unless it is in our heavenly home.

So, knowing your sins are forgiven, pick up your prayer palette. Don't just color your life with one or two favorite colors. Use all the colors God has given you. Offer bold prayers to God for anything and everything that is on your heart. Do it regularly as God wants of all of us. And then wait to see how God will bless it, as he has promised. Amen.