Series on Prayer at Fairlawn CRC, Session V,

The Apostles on Prayer

I. A Praying Church
As part of my research for this presentation, I went to BibleGateway.com and searched for “pray.” I could remember some prayers in Acts, and that Paul and other apostles mentioned their prayers in the epistles, but it was amazing to see the number of times that “pray” and “prayer” showed up in the New Testament: nearly 150 times, with 93 of those instances being in Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation. The early church was characterized by being a praying community. Acts 1:14 says, “All these (the eleven loyal apostles) with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.” Verse 15 lets us know that there were some 120 people who were waiting for the power of the Lord to come, as Jesus had promised at his Ascension. They waited in prayer – not in chatting, or playing cards, or whatever, but in prayer.
That same spirit of prayer continued. Acts 2:42 characterizes the life of the early Church with these words: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Later on, when the need for deacons arose because of the concerns between the Aramaic-speaking and the Greek-speaking Jews, the apostles described their need to give this job to others more gifted in what it required, they said, “Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
The early Church in Jerusalem was a praying Church. They met at the Temple for the morning and evening prayers, and they prayed as a body in the upper room. Their leaders saw prayer as one of the most important things that they could do. As we read later on in Acts, God directed them as they prayed, and missionaries were sent out to evangelize the world. The authors of the epistles spoke of their own prayers for those who received the letters, and told the new Christians in various areas to pray. James, the brother of Jesus, who wrote the Epistle of James, had an interesting nickname, according to some ancient traditions that have been handed down. He was known as “Old Camel Knees,” because of the calluses on his knees due to the hours he spent in prayer. He may have been extraordinary, but it does seem that the early Church was filled with prayer and with praying people. Later on, I am going to look at some of the prayers recorded in the New Testament, but today, I want to look at the instructions on prayer that the Apostles gave to the Christians under their care.

II. “Pray Without Ceasing”
1 Thess. 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” That second command from Paul tells us more about the importance of prayer: it is to done “without ceasing.” This idea of continual prayer is repeated in a number of other places. Rom. 12:12 says, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Eph 6:17-19 says, “Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel…”
Does anyone have an idea of how to “pray without ceasing”?
I suspect, although I do not know for sure, that verses like this were part of the reason behind the monastic movement that began in the 4th Century, with men, and later women, going off into the desert to escape the distraction of life in cities and towns, and to pray. Although they began as hermits, eventually they banded together. In due course, there were many orders of monks and nuns, each following a specific discipline of life. But one feature of monastic life was common to them all: the hours of prayer. The monastic community gathered seven times a day to pray together.
Is that what the apostles wanted for Christians to do when we are told to pray without ceasing? I do not think so. If you gather seven times a day for fifteen or thirty minutes of prayer, you are engaged in prayer a great deal – but that is still not prayer unceasing!
In the mid-Seventeenth Century, there was a humble monk named Brother Lawrence. We know of him because someone collected his letters and talked with him, and published a book that is called The Practice of the Presence of God. Brother Lawrence was someone whose faith was better than his theology as a Roman Catholic. He simply trusted Jesus for everything – and regarded his day as time to spend in conversation with God. As I said in my first presentation, prayer at its heart is communion with God. Br. Lawrence spoke of regarding even the simplest and most humble of activities as a way to glorify God. Even picking up a straw while tending the chickens could be done to honor God, conscious of the Lord’s presence.
Praying without ceasing is a matter of cultivating a sense of God’s presence and of conversing with him throughout the day. It is not the same as finding a quiet spot in your home and lifting formal prayers to the Lord, because it can be done as you drive, or in the midst of work, or while conversing with someone. Praying without ceasing is a matter of establishing a habit of the heart – a heart aware of God, aware of our constant need for mercy, aware of his providential action, and thankful that there is nothing too large or too small to be beyond the Lord’s care.
Developing an awareness of God’s presence and talking with him in the midst of daily activities – often about those activities – is different from those more formal, special times of prayer that we may have in the morning or evening. But an awareness of God is dependent upon those disciplined times of Bible study and prayer. God’s Word and deliberate, disciplined prayer is the root that nourishes the flower of conversing with God throughout the day, offering up to him each opportunity and activity, and giving every concern to him as a request for help.
I have yet to reach the experience that constant sense of God’s presence that Brother Lawrence reported, but in God’s mercy, I have been able to develop the habit of talking to the Lord in bits and pieces throughout the day, and of pondering his greatness and his glory as I go through his creation. I believe that this habit of talking with God can be developed by anyone who knows the Lord, perhaps starting with simple thanksgivings on the spot for the little blessings that come each day.
As an interesting historical footnote, when the English Book of Common Prayer was compiled by Abp Cranmer in the late 1540’s, it contained an Order for Daily Morning Prayer and an Order for Daily Evening Prayer. Cranmer’s intention was to enable each parish church to serve as center for prayer in its village. In this way, the people of each village or town could frame their day in prayer together, morning and evening, and, it was hoped, pray individually throughout the day. Cranmer knew the apostle’s injunction to ‘pray without ceasing,” and he wanted to enable that spirit of prayer throughout the nation.

III. Some Warnings Concerning Prayer
The apostles also had some warnings concerning prayer. In James 4:1-3, James says, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
Verse three is a warning against selfishness in prayer. There are those in the “health and wealth” movement who teach that you can have everything you want, if you pray in faith – and usually that also involves sending them a contribution. Such teaching is wrong on a number of counts, but one way in which it is contrary to God’s desire for us is that it encourages selfishness. God promises that he will care for us when he teaches us to pray for our daily bread – but he does not promise to underwrite “the American Dream” for us, or to insulate us from the various shifts in the economic climate. It is not wrong to have a large house or a big bank account – but it is wrong to set our hearts on such things as the foundation of happiness. To pray for material blessings simply because we think that they are essential to our happiness is to treat prayer as a form of magic and to regard God as a grandfather who wants to spoil us rather than a Father who wants us to grow into maturity, into the image of Christ. In addition, to pray for material blessings and the like selfishly is, as James warns, to set in motion the forces of competition among Christians, so that there are fights and quarrels.
There are also some interesting comments about marriage and prayer in the epistles. In 1 Cor 7:4-5, Paul says, “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” These verses come from a part of 1 Cor where Paul is discussing marriage, and I am sure that a lot could be said about these two verses. For our purposes, however, I want to note two things.
The first is that it seems that times of protracted prayer were not at all uncommon in the early Church. When Paul speaks of “a limited time,” he seems to be speaking in terms of days, not hours (which would make no sense) or weeks. In those days, most people were self-employed and they could, if they wished, take two or three days for personal purposes, including prayer. Our lives are much more controlled by the clock and it is difficult for ordinary people to take days at a stretch for anything personal simply because they want to.
The other thing that I get from this passage is that it is wrong to use spiritual activities as a weapon in personal relationships. Paul says that refraining from marital relations was to be by mutual consent, not because one spouse said to the other, “If you were as spiritual as I am, you would take days at a time to pray. I am going to pray, and you will just have to put up with it.” In my years as a pastor, I have seen that dynamic at work in a few relationships, and it was always a sad thing. At times, it looked to me that the person who regarded themselves as “more spiritual” was actually less spiritually mature. If the other partner were not a Christian, such statements did nothing to make Jesus Christ more attractive. We should make it a matter of prayer that all Christian couples should mutually encourage each other in spiritual growth, and not fall into the trap of using supposed Christian maturity as a tool to feel superior or to get one’s own way.
There is another passage that talks of marriage and prayer. 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” Peter, who was a married man, was telling his brothers in Christ to honor their wives and to regard them as spiritual partners. It is tempting for a man to use his superior size and strength, and perhaps the weight of societal pressure, to get his own way in the home. Men and women are spiritual equals. It took the blood of Christ to redeem both men and women; we all stand before God on the same basis. The Bible does say that the husband is the head of the home – but from what I can see in Ephesians 5, the husband as the head of the wife is a position of responsibility, not a position of privilege and selfishness.
Peter seems to picture marriage between Christians as a relationship that involves prayer together as well as individually. For years, Mary and I had our individual “Quiet Times” with the Lord, but did not pray together except for remarkable circumstances. Then a few years ago, we started taking about ten minutes each morning to pray together for one another, for our children, and for various things we knew about. It was not a huge amount of time, but it was a blessed time – and we have had better communication and have seen some great answers to our requests. Two weeks ago, I spoke of three ways to put prayer more fully into your lives, and one way was for married couples to pray together for a few minutes each day, if they were not already doing so. It can be a simple as one thanksgiving and one request each, but something is much better than nothing. (The other two things I suggested were to pray daily for your major occupation of the day and for your major “enemy” or to take a few minutes each day to record a blessing and a challenge that you had experienced.)
Marriage is a “one flesh” relationship, and it both affects our prayers and is affected by our prayers. The apostles warned us of the dangers of selfishness in prayer and marriage, and they tell us that married couples need to take care of how they relate to one another and of how they pray individually and as a couple.

IV. Two Major Passages on Prayer
While prayer is frequently mentioned in the New Testament, many of the passages after the Gospels that touch on prayer are simply notes about prayers that were said or comments on prayer in relation to other things. There are two passages that talk about prayer itself, and do so for more than one verse. These two passages are 1 Tim 2:1-4, 8, and Ph 4:4-7.
Here is what 1 Tim 2:1-4 & 8 say, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth… I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.” One of the phrases I have heard about living as Christians is that, while we may live in the world, we are not to be of the world. Paul puts it this way in Phil 3:20, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Our primary identity is that of subjects of the King of Kings. We are indeed citizens of nations here on earth as well, but that citizenship is not to take precedence over our loyalty to the Lord.
But even though our highest loyalty is to be to the Lord, that does not mean that we are to ignore or demean the nation in which we live. Paul says that we are to pray for those who govern us. When he wrote, the Emperor and his governors were not believers in the Lord. Some of those leaders were perfectly dreadful and unjust, persecuting Christians and reigning out of selfishness and the love of power. But Paul said that we are to pray for our government and its officials. The aim of such prayers is that we would have a society that is orderly enough so that people are able to think of more than simply where they might be able to get food for the day and how to avoid being killed by lawless mobs, which would be the case if there were no organized society. If people are able to think of more than simply where their next meal might come from, they are able to consider the claims of the Lord Jesus. Those who are believers are able to use the calm to grow in faith and character. To pray for one’s nation and one’s leaders has a spiritual aim, not merely a physical one of it being more pleasant to live in a well-run society than in a chaotic one.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke of our heavenly Father having the grace to send rain to both the just and the unjust. To pray for our nation and our leaders is to pray for God’s common grace to continue not only in the natural realm but in the sphere of human society. God is under no obligation to continue such grace, and indeed sometimes he withdraws such grace to an extent as a reminder of how bad things would be if he did not restrain human sinfulness. Paul tells us to pray for our government as an appeal to God to maintain his common grace towards all humanity, not only for their blessing in this life, but also so that they may have the opportunity to consider Christ. Of course, that also means that we have the responsibility to share the Gospel with those around us who do not yet know the Lord.
The other passage in the epistles that teaches about prayer directly is Phil 4:4-7: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
One of my seminary professors called this passage the assurance of the convertibility of worry into prayer. It tells us not to be anxious, but rather to pray for our concerns. Paul makes it plain that anxiety is opposed by three things: rejoicing, thanksgiving, and requests. A few weeks ago, I said that thanksgiving was a very important part of prayer and of Christian living. But rejoicing and giving thanks are very difficult things to do when one is in the midst of some personal crisis or watching someone about whom we care deeply go through hard times. How can we rejoice when a job is lost, business is faltering, cancer has been diagnosed, or a child is going astray? For what can we give thanks?
Such events are indeed painful and can be the source of great anxiety. If they are all that we can think about, we will indeed be consumed by the situation. What we can rejoice in is that God is God and God is good. The first question in the Heidelberg Catechism is “What is thy only comfort in life and death?” and its answer is, “That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.”
It is not always easy to take great theological truth and apply it to our psychological reality. Perhaps the first prayer in painful circumstances could be, “Lord, I know what you say, and I know what I feel, and the two do not line up. Your Word says that you will never fail me or forsake me. My heart tells me that I am in agony. Speak to my heart and remind me that you are in control and that you are good.”
There are three aspects to a living faith: knowledge of the truth, assent that the truth is indeed true, and reliance upon the truth as reality. In order to pray as Paul teaches in Philippians 4, we need to rely upon the truth of God. When we rely upon his Word, we can rejoice that God is God. We can rejoice and give thanks that he is more powerful than all the dreadful things that have happened to us or could happen to us. We can rejoice and give thanks that he is so powerful that even deliberate evil done to us can be turned into a blessing. The book of Genesis closes with the story of Joseph, who was betrayed by his brothers, yet that very betrayal became the means of the salvation of Israel from death in a great famine. Joseph speaks to his brothers when they are reunited in Egypt, saying, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”
During the last year that I was Rector of Trinity, I was tortured by watching the events in the Episcopal Church. Each week seemed to bring a new horror of apostasy. I was not sure of what to do or when to do it. I had three Christian songs I listened to in order to remind myself of what was really real: “In Christ Alone” and “Blessed be Your Name” by the Newsboys, and “God is in Control” by Twila Paris. They all spoke of God’s faithfulness regardless of outer circumstances, and they helped me to both remember and to rely upon God and his promises. I was also meeting with a group of other pastors for mutual support, and with Raymond about once a month, as well as praying with Mary regularly. It can take that kind of support to keep one focused on God and his promises when the circumstances are painful and puzzling.
I suspect that we in America tend to be “Lone Ranger Christians,” expecting to find everything we need within ourselves. While it is true that we need to rely upon Jesus and Jesus alone for salvation, and that no one else can have faith for us, it is also true that being a Christian is personal but never private. We are linked to fellow believers, and God gives us the gift of one another to support and encourage. I think that we are more aware of how we need each other than we were a few decades ago, but it is still tempting to think of the Christian life as “me and Jesus.”
If we want to pray with rejoicing and thanksgiving, we may well need others around us to help us remember that God is God and God is good. We may also need to make ourselves available to others to encourage them. It is easier to pray when we know others are praying too.
When we pray with thanksgiving, rejoicing that God is God, we can lift our petitions with assurance that God will respond. He may not give us what we ask for when we ask for it – but we can be sure that he will give us the best. We belong to him body and soul, and he is using everything to work toward our full salvation. We are not only freed from the guilt of our sins, but we are also being freed from the power of our sinful nature and we are being conformed more and more to the image of Christ. Paul’s comments in Phil 4 tell us that the result of prayer with thanksgiving is a transcendent peace that rises above our circumstances. Verse 7 tells us, “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” God’s peace will enable us to trust Christ ever more fully – and as we trust ever more fully, we will have a greater peace. It is a wonderful ascending spiral of blessing and growth.
We do not need to worry. Worrying assumes that merely by considering all the dreadful things that may occur, we can prevent them from occurring – which is, of course, perfect nonsense. Worry only gives us more to worry about. But when we choose to remember that God is God and that he is good, relying upon his goodness, we gain peace. We may also gain some fresh insights that will help us to deal with our concerns – but even if our outer circumstances do not change, our attitudes, and our hearts, will grow better. Our faith will deepen, and we will know God better.
I want to conclude with a brief look at two more verses that touch on prayer. In Rom 8:26-27, Paul says, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Whenever we pray, the Holy Spirit is there, deepening our prayers, purifying them, and interceding before the Father for us. This truth is a profound comfort. We do not need to ask for exactly the correct thing, or praise God in some exacting way, or else the Lord will not hear us. A young child learning to speak may make sounds that no one else can make sense of – but that child’s mother knows what is on the heart of the child. In the same way, the Holy Spirit takes our halting, unsure speech, and understands what it is we are lifting up to God. We may not be all too sure ourselves, but God knows.
Then in 2 Cor 1:11, Paul makes this request of the mistake-ridden Corinthian Church: “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” The great apostle Paul tells the weak Christians of Corinth that he wants their help. He wants them to pray for him and for his ministry. There is no individual or organization so greatly gifted or so well-organized that it does not need prayer.
The early Church knew that, from its days in the Upper Room to its spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. No progress is made without prayer. The early Church was a praying Church. Whenever there has been a great revival, there has been prayer. The great English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon never preached without a group of people praying for him both before and during the worship service. I read a story once of how a visitor to the church where Spurgeon was pastor was asked if he would like to see “the furnace room.” He thought it was an odd request, but said that he would. He was taken to the lower level, and saw several hundred people gathered there, praying for the services that would be held later that morning. Their prayers “heated up” the worship. I know of churches and ministries today in which no event is held without prayer beforehand – and also during the course of the event itself.
God wants us to use our skills and abilities to their fullest. He wants us to offer him gifts from our treasure and our time. But he wants us to do so in the context of prayer, as we acknowledge that our skills, our time, and our money are not sufficient, but are made useful and effective through his presence and his power. In ourselves, we are unable to do what God plans to do – but through prayer and trust, God takes our best efforts and uses them to increase his Kingdom and to bring to himself the honor due his name.