Praying Together in 2024
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, those who are listening, checking out the podcast probably are having the experience of their church focusing on prayer. It's the beginning of a new year. Many of our churches do have a focus on prayer. We certainly do. In fact, we're spending the whole month of January focused on prayer. You guys at Covenant Fellowship are having a week of prayer including fasting, I believe. And so the beginning of the year seems to be a natural time to focus specifically on our prayer lives in the new year and throughout the coming year. You certainly have been thinking about the topic of prayer. Share your thoughts with us, please.
Mark Prater:
Yes, thanks Ben, and thanks for praying. I was in Knoxville last week and they're devoting a week of prayer next week, actually the week that this podcast ends up in your inbox. So just another example of churches in Sovereign Grace that do that at the beginning of the year, which is a good thing. And I'm so glad that we are a praying group of churches and want to continue to encourage us that way. Partly just because of what I've been talking about in previous podcast episodes where I've mentioned John 15:5 where Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, he it is that bears much fruit". And then he says this, "for apart from me, you can do nothing". And prayer is an expression of that; apart from him, we can do nothing. In fact, the text even says that, because two verses later in verse seven, Jesus says this, he says, "if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you". So one of the ways that we abide in Christ and one of the ways we express our dependence upon Christ is we ask. And so it's something I've been thinking about because I want us to be a family of churches that prays together and prays for one another.
So, these are things that folks already know, but are good reminders: when we pray, we want to pray in line with what Jesus taught us and how we approach God and our mindset towards God. Dale Ralph Davis says in his commentary on 2nd Kings, he says, "speaking truth about God to God may stir assurance in God". And it's a great quote because it really captures how Jesus teaches us to start to pray; "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name". So we're speaking truth about God, our father is in heaven. And from there he rules and he reigns and he moves forward His good sovereign plan for our lives as individual Christians, as local churches, and as a family of churches. And we are to go to God with our needs. I'm going to speak about that. Jesus teaches that in the Lord's prayer. But our motivation always should be for the glory of God, which is why we say hallowed be your name. May you answer all these prayers for your glory. And so as we pray, may our main motivation as a family of churches be the glory of God.
I came across this story about Martin Luther recently that really does capture that he seemed to understand that when he prayed for requests, he wanted God to answer them for his glory. So in 1540, Martin Luther's friend Friedrich Myconius became terribly ill and his friends thought he would shortly die. And one night with his trembling hand, he wrote a farewell note to Luther, whom he deeply loved. Upon receipt, Luther shot back his reply. He wrote back his reply, "I command thee in the name of God to live because I still have need of thee in the work of reforming the church. The Lord will not let me hear while I live that you are dead but will permit thee to survive me. For this I'm praying, this is my will and may my will be done because I seek only, seek only, to glorify the name of God." That's what he wrote back. And so Friedrich had already lost his faculty of speech when Luther's letter came, but he survived and he lived and he recovered and he actually outlived Luther by two months. So God answered Luther's prayer. Now, I'm not saying that God answers all prayers like that. The point of that story is that his motivation is that God would answer that prayer for the glory of God. And so whatever we pray individually, whatever we pray as a local church for our church, whatever we pray together as a family of churches, may it always be motivated by the glory of God.
Benjamin Kreps:
Amen. It is quite a promise that Jesus makes, that whatever you ask you will have it. And clearly the Apostle John whose gospel you're quoting from, applied that to his life. We read in 1 John where he talks about "we have confidence that if we pray anything according to the will of God, we will have it". And so one of the things we're doing in our sermon series is we're preaching through four of Paul's prayers because one way to be confident you're praying according to the will of God is to pray the words of scripture back to God, and the promises of God as well. So thoughts on us personally emulating Martin Luther's faith on bringing our requests and our needs to God. How exactly does that glorify God?
Mark Prater:
Yeah, exactly. I mean I think certainly it's what Jesus teaches in the Lord's prayer; we're to ask for daily bread, we're to ask for forgiveness. We're to ask that he would keep us from temptation, deliver us from temptation. Those are all needs that we have. And I think it glorifies God because when God answers those prayers, the only explanation is that the power of God has been at work within us. That's what it says in Ephesians 3:20, which is one of Paul's prayers. He's praying for the Ephesians that they may receive power, be strengthened by God's power by asking God to draw from the riches of his glory there in Ephesians 3 and give them power to live for him and to follow him and to give him glory. And when we do that, as the text says in verse 20, then the glory of God is really revealed because it reveals the power of God at work within us.
So we are not to be shy about bringing our requests to God. And so the question really is, where in your life or where in your church's life (I think about this when I write the prayer request for Sovereign Grace), where in our family of churches do we need God's power? And however you answer that question, wherever that need is for God's power, that's where God is calling you to pray. Where do you have a need? It might be growth in Christ, it might be a financial need. It might be a desire to see one of your adult children who's wandered away from the faith to come back to Christ, whatever that need might be. That's where God is calling us to pray. And I think that's a part of prayer. There's a man by the name of Ole Hallesby who wrote a book on prayer and he says this, he says, "helplessness becomes prayer the moment you go to Jesus and speak candidly and confidently with him about your needs". And that's what Jesus wants us to do, to come to him with our need to speak candidly and yet confidently that as he hears those needs, he's more than able to answer them.
So let us again be a family of churches that prays for the glory of God as we pray about our needs, asking him to meet those needs and to give us power where we need it all for his glory.
Benjamin Kreps:
Excellent. I was preaching from Colossians 1 last week and I was struck by one of Paul's burdens in prayer in chapter 1:11 where he prays that the Colossians be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. And you think, okay, what remarkable thing that will be the fruit and effect of all power of God at work in our lives and it's endurance and patience with joy. And so just even in the ordinary everyday experiences of our lives, we need that power simply to endure patiently and joyfully through the pressures of this world. So in ways big and small, expansively across the whole of our lives. We certainly need to pray and we want to be a family of churches that does pray in Sovereign Grace. Mark, you help us do that when you send out your quarterly prayer requests, prayer updates for prayer, to help us understand what's going on, which I think will drop the day after everyone receives this podcast in their email next week because we record a few days of course before it drops. Talk to us about your heart when it comes to us, as a denomination, a family of churches, and prayer.
Mark Prater:
Yeah, thank you. My heart would be that we could all get together regardless of where we're at in the world. I don't know where we would gather, but that we could all get together, all the members of our family of churches and just cry out to God together. Wouldn't that be sweet? That's what I really want. But that's not possible, obviously, practically, until that day when we go and see Jesus or when he returns, then it'll be possible. But until that day, I think the best we can do is just to purpose to pray together, and for one another, as a family of churches. And that's why for several years now, I've been writing and sending out quarterly prayer requests for our family of churches. I send them to the pastors asking them to consider praying for Sovereign Grace and praying about those needs in a Sunday meeting or maybe in a corporate prayer meeting you have at your church.
We also post those on the Sovereign Grace website on our blog every quarter. And so you can look for those. And if you want to pray for our family of churches, please do that. I'm writing the first quarter prayer requests this week. They'll be sent out next week and they'll be on the blog next week as well. The other thing that's just a recent initiative by one of our pastors, Joel Shorey, who's the lead pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Newark, Delaware, he's started at quarterly prayer Zoom meeting that any Sovereign Grace pastor can join. In fact, I think you told me he's got one scheduled for next week, the week of this podcast. So if somebody's interested, if you're a Sovereign Grace pastor and you're interested in joining that prayer meeting, contact Joel Shorey. He's in Newark, Delaware, and you can find his email in the directory. So there's just a couple of ways that we do pray together. And if you pray for our family of churches, thank you. Thank you for praying. And may God answer all those prayers for his glory.
Benjamin Kreps:
Excellent. Yes, I'm looking forward to that; my first time on that Zoom call, praying for Sovereign Grace. So grateful for Joel's leadership in that. Joel is a compelling model of a praying man, that I appreciate. So if guys want to join that, I'm sure Joel would love to have you if you email him.
In Philippians, which is probably one of the healthiest experiences Paul is having with the church in the New Testament, we see there clearly that partnership is nurtured by prayer, is nurtured in prayer. And so it is our joy, privilege, to pray for one another in Sovereign Grace and throughout Sovereign Grace and to strengthen and nurture that partnership that we enjoy in Sovereign Grace. So Mark, thank you for your encouragement. Thank you all for watching, reading or listening, and we'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.