Luke 19:45-46
What is a house of prayer, really? Do we too
easily assume that it is any place where people worship God? Can it be a house
of prayer if there is no prayer in it? Can it be a house of prayer if there is
just a little prayer in it? The Pharisees thought they were doing a pretty good
job of worshipping God in the Jewish Temple, but Jesus said, no. “You have made
it a den of robbers.”
Is this place where we gather for worship a
house of prayer? Do we assume too easily that it is so? Does it depend upon how
much prayer happens here? Or should it be said that it is only a house of
prayer if all we do in it is pray?
God’s Word in Psalm 127 says, “Unless the Lord
builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” So is the Lord building this
house that we call our congregation? And if He is building the house, isn’t He
going to be intent on building a house of prayer? How much prayer does it take
to make this place a house of prayer? Can it be called a house of prayer if
most of the people here do most of their praying in their own homes separated
from everybody else? What kind of praying will God accept? Are there right and
wrong ways to pray? Are there more effective or less effective ways to pray?
We already spent some time last year with the
Lord’s Prayer that we learned is really the Christian’s prayer. It is the model
for how we should pray. It includes the kinds of things God wants to hear from
us: praise, thanksgiving and petitions. Today we embark on a new series about
prayer. In it I will try to answer the questions I have raised today and I pray
that as good disciples of Christ you will be interested to explore with me
whether or not we really already know and do everything there is to know and do
about prayer.
This series will take us through Pentecost Sunday
on May 24. Along the way, on May 15 and 16 we will host a prayer seminar
provided by our denomination. Then we will enjoy a week of prayer, every
evening gathered to pray, hopefully in someone else’s house each evening, May
17 – 23. It is my prayer that through these experiences God will build us into
a community that is even more fully a house of prayer than that which we
currently enjoy.
But you may ask, with everything else that is
going on in the world around us, why are we turning inward to prayer? Why
aren’t we talking about marriage and morality, and the Muslim threat and the
possibility that we are living in the end times? What about how we as
Christians ought to live out our faith in response to the changes in the
culture around us that are making it harder and harder for us to stand up for
the gospel and express our convictions without public opposition and
persecution?
If someone were to say to me. “Pastor we need
practical help, and you want to talk more about prayer?” My answer would be, prayer
is the most practical thing we can do. It is the foundation of our life in
faith and the fountain from which the Spirit will enable us to respond
appropriately, with Godly love and wisdom, to the world in which we live.
True prayer forms Christian character. As we
spend time with God He changes us to live out our days more and more the ways
he would if he were here. In fact through us he us here, if we pray. When you
first become a Christian many things may change but you are not automatically
fully mature in Christ. Spiritual growth happens through prayer. I am convinced
that a lack of prayer results in the kind of church so many people in our world
see today. I am in dialog with a new friend through Facebook who quit organized
religion some years ago. He left the church when he was 14 years old and what
he saw in them then and what he still believes he sees now hasn’t changed. He
told me that his belief system hasn’t changed.
Here is what he believes about the organized
Church: “I'm afraid that I will come off as overly offensive and stereotypical
to lay it all out but just to summarize: I quickly discovered and identified
the inequities, (I think he may have meant iniquities.) - cruelty, jealousy,
covetousness, inferiority, hypocrisy, bigotry and most of all, fear... in my
peers. Most people are there just to participate in the community or are
"just in case" Christians. For 1 or 2 hours a week they pretend to be
someone else in the eyes of God and their neighbors. I don't want to make a
definitive statement but most of America is terrified of dying...either from
old age or disease or murder or whatever. This is completely puzzling to me as
they claim to be saved and obviously act like they are not prepared... They
profess the marvels of the next life while clinging to this one. They are
afraid they aren't as ready as they pretend to be. They were still trying to be
saved from themselves and they weren't learning anything.”
That is a pretty serious indictment of
American Christianity, or should I say American churchianity. But is it
accurate? I mean, we could say that his views are skewed because he doesn't
believe and so doesn't understand true Christianity. But, in spite of that, is
it true of much of our current population that identifies as Christian?
Personally, I decided to agree with him on that point and I said, “I am not
offended at all. Your assessment of modern day cultural American Christianity
is largely accurate. Most people who fit the description you gave do not have
an adequate faith at all. This is because they were not discipled correctly by
the so called churches they belong to.”
That’s all I said to him for now. To you I
add, it is not that I think every Christian suffers that badly from that kind
of deficiency in discipleship. Yet I think I would have to agree that perhaps
the majority of so called Christians make that impression on the world in which
we live. I know none of us is perfect and so we all are deficient to some
extent. But must we say that it can’t be helped? Do we have to admit defeat and
imagine that the situation cannot be improved? And whether or not anyone in
this room thinks I am talking about them, I cannot say, nor would I. I am judge
of no person. I would rather judge myself and hold myself accountable to the
task of discipling believers correctly to the best of my ability and in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
To that end, I say, it is my belief that
prayer is our first responsibility. God himself said in our text this morning,
“My house should be a house of prayer.” So I say that if God’s house is not a
house of prayer, it will be a house of cards, a fragile thing that cannot stand
up to the opposition and the persecution that the world would throw at us.
Psalm 119:147-148 is one place where we get the message to make prayer of first
importance. It says there, “I rise before the dawning of the morning, and cry
for help; I hope in Your word. My eyes are awake through the night watches,
that I may meditate on Your word.”
Spiritual leader A.W. Tozer follows that up
with this, and you will notice that it is really addressed first to pastors:
“Briefly, the way to escape religion as a front is to make it a fount. See to
it that we pray more than we preach and we will never preach ourselves out.
Stay with God in the secret place longer than we are with men in the public
place and the fountain of our wisdom will never dry up. Keep our hearts open to
the inflowing Spirit and we will not become exhausted by the outflow. Cultivate
the acquaintance of God more than the friendship of men and we will always have
abundance of bread to give to the hungry. Our first responsibility is not to
the public but to God and our own souls.”1
While that is addressed primarily to pastors,
it must also be seen as applicable to every Christian who is in earnest about
serving the Lord. And beyond the personal prayer times Christians have always
been encouraged to engage in privately, we still have a responsibility to God
that his house should be a house of prayer. So earlier I raised this question:
“If the Lord is building the house, isn’t he going to be intent on building a
house of prayer?” The answer must be yes because Jesus expressly quoted the
prophet Isaiah so we have both an Old Testament and a New Testament affirmation
that the Lord’s house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
Now we know that unless the Lord builds the
house, the builders labor in vain. So is the Lord building this house that we
call our congregation? If so, it should be known and seen as a house of prayer.
Is that what you think of when you think of this place where we meet? Is this a
house of prayer? Could the Lord build it up to be even more of a house of
prayer than it currently looks to be? Of course he can. And how will we
participate in and cooperate with God’s desire for this place to be a house of
prayer? That is the big question that we will be pursuing as we continue on in
this series.
Acts 1:14 says. “They all joined together
constantly in prayer.” Then came the day of Pentecost. Once again they were all
together in one place. And even after that, Acts 2: 46-47 says, “Every day they
continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their
homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying
the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who
were being saved.”
Because of the Apostles, disciples and all the
believers, the temple became a house of prayer once again after Pentecost. But
soon the church was meeting in people’s houses, and these also became the house
of prayer. This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 56:7 where we read, “My house
will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Faithful saints down through
the ages then, must continue to maintain God’s house as a house of prayer.
Then in Acts chapter 4 there is the incident
where Peter and John were arrested by the Sanhedrin and were threatened and
commanded to stop preaching about Jesus. We pick up at 4:23 and read that “On
their release, Peter and John went back to their own people” [and reported all
that had happened.] “When they heard this they raised their voices together in
prayer to God.”
They prayed together often. There is so much
privacy and individualism in our lives today. We are so busy with so much that
we barely have time to pray in our own homes. How can we meet together more
often to pray together? How can we possibly change our schedules around to give
God more of our time? It will never change if we don’t make prayer together a
top priority commitment with faith that it is what God wants us to do so that
this place becomes more fully a house of prayer. The truth is, we are too busy
to not pray.
Do we realize that for all the challenges
facing us today there is only one way that we can be prepared and able to face
the challenges with any hope of victory and bear a fruitful witness to the
world that is changing so quickly all around us? Martin Luther once said, “If I
fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory
through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three
hours daily in prayer.” What did the
church do when it was first born? We have already looked there. They prayed!
That is how the early believers responded to the Lord’s call and even how they
responded to persecution.
Prayer is the source of strength and wisdom
that comes from God. Prayer is the correct response to everything that happens
to us as we do our work for the Lord. Prayer is the channel through which God’s
people are filled with the Holy Spirit and strengthened to serve God and preach
with boldness. The Church must be a house of prayer because that is the means
by which God equips, empowers us and enables us to be strong, holy, loving and
everything that is the opposite of the criticisms that currently afflict so
much of the church. The church must be a house of prayer because it is the only
way that we can ever be effective in ministry. We need the supernatural power
of God at work among us and that happens when we pray. A church that is not a
house of prayer is only a house of cards.
A house of prayer is powerhouse for preaching
and sharing the gospel that saves souls from eternal destruction. What Christ
has done on the cross for us is only the beginning of life in Christ. It is
only the beginning of eternal life. It is only through prayer that we will be
able to take up our cross and follow him, just as it was through prayer that
Jesus prepared himself to face his murderers and let them crucify him for our
salvation. Prayer is really only possible because of the gospel, the good news
that God actually wants to hear from us, loves to hear from us, and Jesus has
made a way for us to approach the throne of grace boldly.
It is only through prayer that people’s hearts
can be moved or opened to receive this gospel, believe the message and invite
Jesus to be their Lord and Savior so that He sends his Holy Spirit into them
also and they join us in this great work that we are doing for the sake of the
lost. It is the Lord that adds to our number. All that we must do is pray. Then
God will answer our prayers for his wisdom and guidance. We will know what we
are supposed to do and how best to do it today so that our ministry is
effective and fruitful.
For right now, the decision to be made is do
we want to be a house of prayer? Do we agree with God that his house should be
a house of prayer? Are we willing to commit to seeking God’s face in prayer so
that He can build us into the kind of community that he wants to see and that
he wants us to be in this world? If we say yes, then we can be sure that we are
in the center of God’s will. And He will show us how to arrange our schedules
to make prayer a priority and learn to pray together more and better. Let us
pray!
1 Tozer, A. W., God Tells the Man Who Cares,
115-116.
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