THOUGHTS & PRAYERS | Prayer | Isaac Perkins

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning. Welcome to church. It's good to be with you. It's Pastor Ben just said my name is Isaac Perkins, and I'm one of the pastoral interns, as well as the modern worship director here at Redeemer. Normally I'm about right here, actually, strumming my guitar. And so I'm just super excited to share what the Lord's put on my heart this morning. We're in a three-week series called Thoughts and Prayers, and we're in week two of that series, uh, where we're looking at this phrase, thoughts and prayers. Oftentimes it's used as a response to something tragic. Or when somebody loses somebody in their life, that's the response people say. I know I've said it. Maybe you've said it, maybe you've received it, you know, thoughts and prayers with you, something like that. But if you've been keeping track of what's going on, maybe on the news, online, on social media, you've seen that this has been a topic of conversation. People are asking this question are do thoughts and prayers really matter? Are thoughts and prayers enough? Do thoughts and prayers really work? And so that's what we're taking a look at and seeing what scripture has to say about that. And uh last week Pastor Ben kicked it off and talked about the thoughts portion of that. And do thoughts really matter? Do they really add value? And uh, spoiler alert, if you weren't here, you can watch it online. But yes, thoughts matter. Thoughts totally matter, right? It's caring for somebody, thinking about somebody. And we even made the connection last week on uh Pentecost Sunday, right? That all who believe in Jesus Christ have the Holy Spirit inside of them. And the Holy Spirit goes on our behalf and intercedes for us and brings those thoughts to the Lord. And so, yes, thoughts do have value. And today we're gonna be looking closer at the prayer portion of that and asking this question: Does prayer really work? Does prayer really work? Does it do anything? Is it a is it is prayer a waste of time? And so does prayer work, and especially we're gonna be taking a closer look at how to respond to tragedy and loss that we may face through prayer. I don't know about you, but sometimes I have a hard time responding to certain situations in my life. Uh my wife Mallory and I have been at Redeemer. It'll be four years in August and have loved every second of it. But we also got married a year ago, just about a year ago on June 8th. And so next week will be our one-year anniversary. We got married on Pentecost Sunday last year. And I've been learning lots of lessons about marriage this year. Uh lots of things. For example, uh well, Matlery's uh she's a first-grade teacher. Uh, she teaches, I don't know, 25, 30 little seven-year-olds. And I just want to pause really quick before I even say the story and say this, teachers, thank you for what you do. God bless you, you're amazing. There's a reason I'm not a teacher. It's a reason I'm not in the kids' ministry either. Uh, like it's just right, thank you for all that you do you do. But there was one one day after work, Matt Larry came home. She was telling me about the students, they're getting a little antsy, getting a little excited for summer break, ready to get out of the classroom. I mean, I remember that feeling, right? You're like, I don't want to learn anymore, I don't want to study anymore. Get me out of here. And she's telling me this, and she's explaining some of the difficult parts of her job. And I'm just thinking to myself, man, your job sounds so easy. You get three to four months off every summer, you get Christmas break, you get spring break, and you just have to hang out with some kids all day. The only issue with this was is I said it out loud. I said it out loud. And I anybody that's married will know this. I I received the look. Right? You know, that look that requires no words, doesn't need don't need to say anything, I got the look. And you know, you don't you don't even have to be married to know what the look looks like. You know, you know, you didn't clean your room as a kid, mom's giving you the look, right? You know, you you spoke up when you're supposed to be quiet in class, teacher's giving you the look. It was that kind of thing. But I've just been I've just found this to be true in my life. It's hard to know how to respond to certain situations, and I think this is incredibly true when it comes to responding to loss and tragedy. And so the good news is in the Bible, there's this great, we're gonna be in Nehemiah chapter one. God lays this out really well about how to respond to tragedy through prayer. And so that's what we're gonna take a closer look at today. If uh if you weren't here last week, seriously I encourage you to go check it back out online. Pastor Ben did a little more setup, but I'll catch you up to speed. So in Nehemiah chapter one, it's all about this man named Nehemiah. And what we know about him is he's an authority figure. He's a powerful man, he can get things done. And so what happens and where we're picking up today is Nehemiah's brother comes to him with some other men with some really tragic news. The walls around Jerusalem have been torn down, they've been broken down, the gates have been set on fire. I can imagine maybe somebody lost their lives, you know, maybe somebody's you know property possessions have been broken. It was really tragic. This was this was this the security of the city, it was all gone. And so Nehemiah's brother and these other men are coming to Nehemiah and asking him for help, seeing how he's going to respond. And as I'm reading that and thinking about that, I don't know about you, but it it really sounds like some, you know, on a smaller scale, some situations that I've experienced in life. When somebody comes to you with something difficult and is looking for you to say something, looking for you to do something. You know, when somebody comes to you and says, My spouse is really sick and they're and they're I think they're dying of cancer. I lost my job, my kids really struggling. Right? And it and I've been in this situation too before. Like, how how how do we respond? What do we say? We're in that same situation as Nehemiah is, and so let's let's just jump into scripture and see how Nehemiah does respond to this tragic loss of the city that's not doing well. We're gonna pick up in Nehemiah chapter one, starting at uh verse 4b. You can turn there in your Bibles or it's on the screens. It was funny. Last week I was sitting in a row right about back there, and I watched the whole row try to find Nehemiah. Like literally, they could not where where is this book of the Bible we don't talk about all the time? They could not find it, right? It's uh, anyways, it's it's a great book. It's right in the Old Testament, it's gonna speak right to our situation today. Let's uh let's read Nehemiah chapter 1, verse B, which says, For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. What was Nehemiah's first response here? It says he mourned and then he fasted. Right? Fasting, maybe you're familiar with that word. It's a bit of a health trend today, a bit of a cure-all. You know, some people say that fasting can help uh cure diseases, cure cancer, whatever. And then, you know, maybe you've heard of this too, intermittent fasting, right? That's something I know I've practiced in my life, where you eat a set amount of hours out of the day, and then you then you fast and don't eat to like manage how much you you eat. But that's that's not what Nehemiah is talking about here. That's not that's not the kind of fasting. What Nehemiah is is doing here when it says he's fasting is he's removing food to focus on prayer. He's removing something in his life, in this case, food to focus on prayer. And I think it's important to highlight that he's fasting because it shows some intentionality behind the prayer. Right? This wasn't a quick two-minute prayer. It could have gone something like this: Dear Jesus, fixed the walls of Jerusalem. Amen. That's not what it was. It was an intentional, long process. It actually says there in the beginning of verse 4b, it says, for some days he mourned, fasted, and prayed. After doing some more research research, I found that when it's saying for some days, it's actually meaning four to six months. Nehemiah fasted and prayed for four to six months. Almost a half a year. I know when I when I say I'll pray for somebody, maybe I pray a couple days, you know, maybe I pray a week and then I kind of forget about it. No, that's not what's happening here. Nehemiah is, he's being intentional and he and he's fasting and praying, and he's doing this for four to six months. An easy way to kind of to hold on and think about what biblical fasting is this is fasting is removing something good to gain something better. That's exactly what he's doing. He's removing food to gain time of prayer, to gain focus on the Lord. Uh, this week, I in preparation for this message, I decided I'm gonna try fasting. And so uh Wednesday morning I woke up and I thought, today is the day. I walk out of my room, first thing I see is the fridge. It's right there, it's like it's like it's staring at me. It's the first thing I see. And I was like, nope, not today. I'm fasting today. I'm preparing a message for Sunday, I'm not gonna eat. So I stayed strong. I thought, okay, I'll just get ready, get in the car, I'll drive to a redeemer, I'll drive to the church office, and we'll be fine. So I did that, stayed strong, got in the car, drove to church, and then I walked into the church building, and I kid you not, there was probably a box this big full of cupcakes. Full of cupcakes, just ready for me to eat. Ready, it was you know, cupcakes for breakfast sounded kind of good that day. Uh, I was ready to eat it, but nope, I stayed strong. Not today, Satan. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm practicing fasting, right? So I make it down to my office, and but then you know, lunchtime came around. I'm kind of hungry, Lord. And so that kind of kept happening that day. But here's what I noticed and found to be true with fasting is our attention will always go somewhere. Right? When I stopped eating and removed food, I was thinking about food. I was thinking about those cupcakes in the church office. I was thinking about that fridge when I was walking out the door. But what I tried doing this week is every time that day when I felt hungry or wanted to eat, I redirected and started thinking about the Lord instead. Every time I was ready to go eat something, I'd pray instead. And that's and that's what Nehemiah is doing here. He's removing something good to gain something better. Okay, so that's the that's the fasting part. Now onto the onto the prayer part, right? We know that it's intentional. It took you know over four to six months he prayed. He prayed a long time. It wasn't just a two-minute quick prayer. Um, but when I saw this and I even and I've experienced this, when somebody comes to you with something difficult and asks for prayer, it's really hard to know the words to pray. It's hard to know how to pray. Maybe you even pray a lot, but some, you know, in some way it just slips your mind. It's hard to know how to pray. And so what's great here is Nehemiah, what he does next is he prays. And so we get to read that, we get to dive into it. But this reminded me too of I don't know if any of you grew up in, you know, in church in Sunday school or or you know, youth ministry or summer camp, but you know, at the end of small group time, the leader goes, Does anybody willing to close us in prayer? Raise your hand. And nobody raises their hand because prayer can be scary sometimes, prayer can be daunting. And so scripture here gives us a great example of how to pray and how to pray when we're responding to loss and tragedy. Okay, let's keep reading. We'll pick up at Nehemiah chapter 1, verse 5. Lord the God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenants of love with those who love him and keeps his commandments. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. The first way Nehemiah is praying here, my first point this morning is this he's he's worshiping God. And I just, I'll be honest, when I was reading that, I thought that's not often how I start my prayers. I don't start by worshiping God, I go straight to God with what I need, with what I want. It reminded me uh of a time when I was a kid, and many many of you know that I right, I play guitar, I play, and I've been playing guitar since I was seven years old. So it's been a like a lifelong you know hobby and passion of mine. And I remember one specific leading up to Christmas, that that time of year, that season, that I decided I wanted a brand new electric guitar. The holy grail, I decided I want it. More specifically, I wanted an Epiphone Les Paul Plus Top Pro in the color Cherry Sunburst. My goodness. It was the guitar, it's exactly what I wanted. But you know, it was kind of expensive, and so I decided mom and dad can't buy it for me for Christmas. Santa's gonna have to buy it for me. Or get it for me, excuse me. Santa's gonna have to bring it. Uh it's just funny, my mom's over there. And so I was like, uh, but right, I decided this. And so every single night after my parents talked to me in bed, said goodnight, shut the lights off, like the good Christian boy I was raised to be, I'd say a little prayer that went something like this. Dear Jesus, I pray for Christmas that I can get the Epiphone, Les Paul plus Top Pro and Cherry Sunburst. Amen. I did that like every night. I did that every night leading up to Christmas, and I and I and I did get the guitar if you want to hear the end of the story. But isn't that so true to how we pray? Isn't that how we often pray? We say, God, fix my situation. Amen. God help me with what I need. Lord, give me what I want. It's the opposite of what Nehemiah is doing here. He's going to the Lord and saying, I'm gonna worship you first. Let's keep reading, let's continue in Nehemiah verse 6. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We've not obeyed the commands, decrees, and laws you gave your servant Moses. Second way, Nehemiah is praying, and the second point this morning is confess your sins. Once again, as I was reading this, I I felt I felt this tension, this call out, if you will. I don't, I don't know about any of you, but I don't often start my prayers with confessing my sins. You know, I was thinking about it, I was like, I don't, Lord, I don't, when I pray to you, I don't want to I don't want to start with the ways I've fallen short or the the when you know to tell you that sins gotten in the way. But here's the truth and the good truth is that God knows all, he sees all, he is all. I mean, it's that's that's Nehemiah here is not confessing his sins to tell God. What he's doing here is he's confessing his sins so that he can so that sinking it out of the way. The distraction that's sinking it out of the way, and he can focus on what he's praying about. I reminded of James 5.16 that says this therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Our sin can get in the way of prayer. Our focus on our sin can get in the way, our fixation on it. And I think about some of the prayers that I've prayed in my life, some of maybe those those those larger prayers. I wouldn't want my sin to get in the way. I wouldn't want my focus on my sin to get in the way. And that's exactly what Nehemiah is doing. He's saying, God, I surrender this all to you. I give it all to you so that I can set it aside and focus on you. It's kind of like the fasting, same thing with the food, right? Removing that food to focus on prayer. That's similar to what's happening here. It's he's removing, he's confessing that sin so that he can focus and just focus on praying to God. And the good part about confessing is what it simply does, it simply says is, God, I need you. God, I need you. I can't do this on my own. I need to give all of this to you, everything in my life, all my sin. So I can pray and focus on you. Let's keep reading in verse 8. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, if you were unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands, then even your exiled people are at the farthest horizon. I will gather them from there and bring them to a place I've chosen as a dwelling for my name. Third way Nehemiah is praying, my third point is this hold on to God's promises. I just want to acknowledge this too. That's it's a lot easier said than done. It's hard to hold on to those promises, the small and big ones. I know, and you know, the fast-paced world we live in, where we're just on to the next thing. We just don't focus on things, we don't slow down. It's so easy to do that with God's promises, it's so easy to move on. It's easy to doubt them. There was a pastor in the early 1970s uh by the name of Jim Cymbala, and he was called to lead a church as a young pastor in Brooklyn, New York. And this this church, it was a small congregation, and it was it was quite honestly, it was it was a discouraged congregation. They didn't have a lot of financial resources, and they were in this difficult neighborhood uh in Brooklyn and New York City, and this this young pastor Jim, he felt completely unqualified. Felt overwhelmed thinking, why why why God am I here? You know, he didn't have the best strategies, he didn't have all the resources, he didn't have the highest level of education. He felt completely overwhelmed and unqualified, and he became convinced of something. He became convinced that the greatest need of this church was not the best programming, not the best preaching, the best worship ministry, youth ministry, kids ministry. What he became convinced of is that this church needed the power and presence of God through prayer. God just highlighted prayer for Jim. And one night when Jim was ministering, the Lord audibly spoke to him. He came to him with a message and said, This, if you and your wife will lead my people to call upon my name and pray, I will hear them and answer them in ways you cannot even imagine. You will see people come to Christ from every background, and I will supply all that is needed, both spiritually and financially. What did God do there? He promised Jim something. He promised that people from every background would come to know Christ, that the church that was struggling would be taken care of both financially and spiritually. And so he held on to God's promises. And a moment ago, I I know I highlighted that the Lord had put prayer on his heart. So what he did while holding on to God's promise is he started a every Tuesday night there was a prayer service. And quickly this prayer service became the heartbeat of the congregation. People started coming into the church, they didn't have enough seats. And you know what happened? People from every background came to know Christ. People from every background. People struggling with hopelessness, people struggling with depression, anxiety, people going through all these unimaginable things, people that didn't look like each other, all sorts of people came there and met Christ just as God had promised. God stayed true to his promise. And you just think about it, I think that's what God put Jim threw it. He held on to that promise. Here's a question I have for you today. What has God promised you? What does he promise to you? What promise is he calling you to hold on to this morning? Just keep reading. In verse 10, they are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. Fourth way, Nehemiah is praying. My fourth point this morning is this is make your big and small requests. A handful of years ago, I received a Phone call, kind of at an odd time. I saw it was my father calling me, and so I picked up and I said, Hey, what's going on? Is everything okay? Uh he said, Everything's not okay. Um, actually, your your grandma went to the doctor, your grandmother went to the doctor, and they found a tumor on our lung. The doctors are saying it's it's most likely a very high chance to be cancer. It was on our lung, and so it was gonna be a difficult removal process. They weren't sure what that was going to look like. And man, just fear of loss hit me. I'm sure some of you have received a phone call like that before. Or somebody you love, somebody you really care about, is struggling, is sick. It's the hardest thing in the world to receive. And my grandmother, I love her dearly. She's a faithful online redeemer attender. She lives out of state and has always just cheered me on and encouraged me to do God's work and to walk in his way. And I was just devastated. And in that moment, I had a choice to make. How am I going to respond to this tragedy? How am I going to respond to this fear of loss? So what I decided to do is I decided to make the largest request I've ever made in my entire life. And I went to the Lord and said, God, I don't know, I don't feel like this is even possible, God. But Lord, you're the only way. God, you need to make a way when there seems to be no way, because there feels like there's no way. Lord, I need you right now. Lord, I need you. And I made the largest request I'd ever made in my life. And the good news is God remained faithful. He heard my prayer, he answered it. That tumor that was highly cancerous ended up not being cancerous at all. They were able to remove it. And my grandmother today is cancer free and healthy. And God made a way. So back to that original question. Does prayer really work? I'm here to testify and say I've seen prayer work in my life. I've seen God work through prayer. But I want to acknowledge this too. I know that not everybody has maybe felt this way, or there's maybe been some prayers that you feel like have not been answered. Or even this, too. It's so easy to forget those prayers that God has answered. It's so easy to move on. We talked about that earlier. We live in such a fast-paced world that it's easy to forget. But here's the good news is God still answers the prayers anyway. Even when we doubt, even when we forget, even when we move on. God answers those prayers and God works through it. And so here's the charge, and here's the here's here's the action step, if you will, this morning. Would you try praying this week? Would you give it a shot? What is there to lose? Try praying by worshiping God, confessing your sins, holding on to his promise, and making your big and small requests. And see how God works. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the power of prayer. Thank you for giving us prayer, Lord, a way that we can speak to you, that we can approach you, God. A way that we can respond to crisis, respond to tragedy and loss. We thank you for that. And even as we were just talking about, Lord, we just want to worship you. Even to start our prayer right now, God, we want to give you praise and honor and glory. Because, Lord, you've been so good to us. You've been better to us than anything else has in this world. Lord, we confess that we have some doubt sometimes. That Lord, we get distracted, that we let that sin get in the way of making that prayer. That we let our focus on sin get in the way. But Lord, even right now we surrender that all to you. Lord, as I think about the promises that we can hold on to this worry, I think about how you sent your son Jesus to die on the cross for us so that we could have eternal life with you, that anybody who believes in you can spend the rest of eternity. And we thank you for that promise, God. You didn't have to, Lord, but you did it anyways. And Lord, even right now, even my request this morning is that anybody that's hearing my voice online or in the room this morning, the Lord, that you would meet them in a time of prayer this week. The God that you would show up and you would make a way. I can't imagine the amount of things that people are facing here. Lord, and I just invite you and just ask you, Lord, to just show up and show the power of prayer because prayer really works. Jesus, we love you. And all God's people said. Amen.