Don't Stop Praying - Pastor Tom Loghry

Jesus teaches his disciples through a series of parables the importance of prayer and how to pray. Pastor Tom addresses some questions brought up by these teachings.

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Transcript:

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable, parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said, in a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, Grant me justice against my adversary.

For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come and attack me. Luke 18 1 through 6.

My first year of college had some adventures. And as I was thinking about this, I can't remember if I've told you this story, uh, before or not. If you stick around here long enough, you'll probably hear the same story a couple times. But, one of those adventures was when I lost my keys in the snow. Um, I was studying at the Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies in Lennox, Mass., which was over two hours away from my parents home in Burrillville. I don't know how I lost my keys in the snow, but I did. Now, as I did most weekends, I had planned to go back home to see Sara. Without my keys, though, I wasn't going anywhere. But I was determined. I didn't want to tell my dad. I didn't want to suffer the embarrassment of telling him I lost my keys and that he needed to come all that way to help me.

And so, I turned to YouTube for solutions. Uh, piece by piece, I managed to take apart the key tumbler in my Camry, and before you know it, I had started my car with a screwdriver. Um, I was quickly disappointed when I learned that though the car was running, I couldn't take it anywhere, because the anti theft mechanism had locked up my steering wheel.

So, I reconciled myself to the reality that I needed my dad. And, I made the call. Turns out, in his fatherly wisdom, he had hidden a spare key in my trumpet case, which I had brought with me. He was somehow anticipating this might happen. So all my trouble taking the car apart could have been avoided if I just called him in the first place.

I think it's often the case that we try to do things ourselves, refusing to seek help from others. We can go so far that we fail to call upon God when He is the best help. And in many cases, the only help we truly have, but praying to God doesn't always manifest instantaneous results. There are times when we must persevere in prayer.

And prayer is a practice that can raise numerous questions in our minds as to why we're doing this. Why God has us wait. I'm hoping this morning that I can help answer those questions as we consider Jesus' teaching here on prayer. So first, looking at verses 1 through 6.

Jesus, very helpfully at the very outset of this chapter, I, rather I should say Luke tells us, the meaning behind what Jesus is doing here right at the outset of this parable. He says that the purpose of this parable is this, to show his disciples that they should always pray and not give up. Now, if you just wrote that down, you could walk out of here. You say, that's the sermon.

You should always pray and not give up. But there are some questions that we should reckon with here that are raised by this direction that we're given to always pray and not give up. Now, Jesus communicates this lesson to his disciples by use of this parable. And he tells the story of this judge who doesn't fear God, and honestly doesn't really care about people.

It just seems like he's kind of in it for the position. As it so happens, there was a widow who was within the jurisdiction of this judge who had experienced some sort of injustice. And she was pleading with this judge that he would hear her case and grant her justice against her adversary. Now again, this judge doesn't really care about people.

He might care if, uh, maybe the woman had some money to give him or something like that. Um, but she's just a widow. She doesn't really matter. She's not an important person. So he just keeps putting her off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the widow's not taking no for an answer. And some of you know, when you're dealing with government or some company, they don't want to help you.

But if you just keep bugging them enough, eventually they'll tend to your problem. And that's exactly what happens here. This woman just keeps nagging and bugging this judge so much that eventually he says, Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come and attack me.

Apparently the judge was getting so frightened by the insistence of this woman that maybe he was afraid she was going to come after him with her purse or something. I don't know what this widow could have done to him, but he was like, enough's enough. I'll just deal with this. Now once again, the point of this parable is that we should always pray and not give up.

We should keep pressing in. In many ways, we should be audacious. And It's interesting because Jesus has another parable in which he illustrates this. In Luke 11, verses 5 through 13, he tells a parable of, he says, suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight and say, friend, lend me three loaves of bread.

A friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have no food to offer him. And suppose the one inside answers, don't bother me. The door is already locked and my children and I are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity, he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. One who seeks, finds. And to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Now the point in Jesus telling this parable is not to give you instructions as to how you should treat your friends.

He's not saying it's a good idea for you to show up at your friend's house at midnight asking if you could borrow some bread. The point is, is that Jesus says that this friend of yours would give you this bread, not because of friendship, just because you're just so shameless. You have such audacity to come in the middle of the night.

And Jesus is using this example to say, as we relate to God, we should be so bold, we should be so audacious, that we would ask with expectation that God would answer, that we would seek, expecting to find, that we should knock, expecting that the door will be opened. Now, on the surface, these seem like, kind of, some strange examples, because God is not heartless.

He is just. He does care about us. But the reason why Jesus is using this example of an unjust judge is to just underscore even more powerful the reality is that we have to, this invitation that we have to come before God in prayer, bringing our needs, pressing in. Jesus is trying to encourage us on the basis of who we know God to be. Because who God is, makes all the difference in why we especially keep on praying. So going on into verses six through eight.

It says, And the Lord said, Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you, He will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?

Now, in light of the parable that Jesus just told about this unjust judge, we would have grounds for persevering in prayer, even if God was unjust, with the idea of maybe if we just bug him enough, eventually he'll give in. But the thing is, God is just, and he does care about us. So how much more, if we come to him with our needs, will he answer our prayers?

For this reason that Jesus can say, will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he'll see that they get justice and quickly. Now, he says that they will get justice. I think here, Jesus is especially addressing those circumstances when we are suffering injustice.

Kind of anticipating the persecution that Christians would face in the years to come. Because we have this assurance that God is just, and he will bring justice, we are able to bring our case before God knowing that. And so he's saying that he will eventually, ultimately set things right. And for this reason, we don't have to seek vengeance.

But I do think that justice includes other things beyond just you've been wronged, and God basically judging the person that has wronged you. I think it also includes the goodness that God would desire for those who are his chosen ones, for those who are his children.

But this raises some questions, as I mentioned in the beginning. This idea of having to persevere in prayer, praying itself. The first question that you might ask as you, as you're thinking about this is, you know, why does God want us to pray? Why does God want us to pray? Why doesn't he just do the things?

Why doesn't he just meet our needs? Why doesn't he just give us justice?

Well, I think it's because there's more things going on in prayer than simply bringing our needs to God. I think several things, at least, are going on when we pray. One is, when we pray, We confess who we are, who God is, and we accept God's invitation to participate in the work that he's doing. So, in what way do we confess who we are when we come to God in prayer?

We confess who we are when we pray, insofar as when we pray, we're basically confessing we are not God. If you think you have all the power, if you think you have things under control, then you wouldn't feel the need to go to God in prayer. When you come before God in prayer, you're implicitly confessing, I don't have things under control.

There are so many things that are beyond my control, and that we need God to intervene. And so by the same token, we're confessing who God is, that he is truly God, that he is truly sovereign, that we can reliably go to him for help. I mean, I wouldn't pray to any one of you because you couldn't help me any more than I could help myself.

But we pray to God because he's God, because he holds all things in his hands, and because he's all wise and all powerful.

I also believe that God wants us to pray because he's inviting us to participate in the work that he is doing. Now we see this in other ways. We see in other ways how God wants to include us in the work that he's doing. Think about the gospel message, how God has commissioned us to bring the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ at the ends of the earth.

Now, you could just as easily ask in that set, set of circumstances, why doesn't God just do a vision to everybody? Why does he use us? Why does he send us out? The reason why he sends us out, the reason why he asks us to pray is because he wants to involve us in the work that he's doing. Now, it's not a perfect analogy, but I think.

The best analogy I can think up of is it's almost like you think back when you're a kid and your father or mother might try to include you in the work that they were doing. Maybe your dad's working in the car. He'd have you come and give him a hand. Your mother's in the kitchen baking something. Come help me bake this pie.

Now your parents were completely capable of doing those things without your help. But they want to include you for a few reasons. One, just so that you can share in the joy of the work, of a job well done, fixing this car. Enjoy the reward of baking a delicious pie. But also so that you become the sort of person that is capable of doing these things.

Of working on cars, of baking pies. Now in the case of prayer, I think it's that God wants us to be able to share in the joy of answered prayer. He included us in the work that he's doing. It's all God's power, but he included us in it, so that we might have the joy of interceding on behalf of others or for our own needs and seeing God answer, and also so that we might be aligned with God's own heart.

And we're going to talk about that a little bit more, but it's in the same way with evangelism. Why does God send us out to others? It's because he wants us to have his same love, the love of Christ, for other people. Not to just sit back. He wants us to have the same love. And so in the same way with prayer, he wants us to have the same love and care for others that we would go to him in prayer.

This leads us to another question, though. There's a bunch of questions that are raised when we think about prayer. Next question is, why doesn't God seem to answer prayer immediately? Why doesn't God seem to answer prayer immediately? It can be a little bit frustrating. You're going to God in faith, you're saying, God, I am bringing this need, I believe you can answer.

But then he doesn't answer right away. And maybe you pray for years, and the prayer is not answered, at least in the way that you're anticipating. I think all of us have had experience with this. We've shared before how, in our own family, we've experienced this, in terms of the desires that we have for our own family.

If we study the scriptures, we come to understand why it is that God doesn't always answer prayers immediately, or in the ways that we would expect. Paul says this in Romans 8, verses 28 through 29. He says, And we know then all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.

For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. So what Paul is telling us here in this passage is that God works through all the troublesome things. He can work through all circumstances in order to bring about the good that he intends for us.

And so as we go to him in prayer, we may be praying for something in particular, but it may be that God has something better in store for us. And I think, I love this other parable that Jesus gives because I think it kind of helps drive it home. In Matthew 7, verses 7 through 11. Again, picking up on this theme, theme of pressing in.

He says, Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. The one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. And then he says this, Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him? Now it may be that as you come to God in prayer and you're praying for some specific good that you have in mind, that may in fact be the good that God intends for you.

And He may actually supply that good.

Now, perhaps he may make you wait because there's other goods that he intends for you along the way. Namely, increasing your faith. Increasing your dependence upon him. I know that's what God's done the most in my life when I've prayed, I haven't received what I've prayed for. It's increased my, my trust in God.

Rather than trusting in my own wisdom of what I think is best right here, right now. But there's also this, you think about this imagery of a child asking their father for some bread and the father saying, well, if he's a good father, he's not going to give him a stone. I think sometimes we ask God for things that we think are going to be good for us, but in the end would only be a stone or scorpion or snake.

And so God does not answer that prayer in the way that we're hoping, but he's answering it as far as he's giving us what is actually good for us. And so to this question, I would say God answers prayer according to his wisdom and his perfect timing. He's all wise, and he knows what's best, and when to give it.

A third question that is raised when we think about prayer, is why does God want us to keep praying again and again? Why is it that we can't just simply just pray once and say, Okay, well I prayed for that once, and that should cover it. Why does he want us to be like this widow? Going again and again to him.

I believe that he wants us to come to him continually in prayer. Because he wants us to align our will with his. Now, I think we see this in the life of Jesus. Jesus is constantly in prayer and we'll see some verses demonstrating this. But kind of that culminating moment of prayer we see this demonstrated in Mark 14 verses 32 and 35. Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, He said tells his disciples sit here while I pray, and then verse 35 and 36 says going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible, the hour might pass from him. Abba Father, he said everything is possible for you.

Take this cup for me, yet not what I will but what you will. What Jesus is doing in that moment is demonstrating, really, the heart of prayer. Which is, not that we would come to God with our will, so that we would bend His will to our own, but that we would submit our will to His will. And to seek to pray in accordance with His will.

Now, as I just mentioned, Jesus prayed. He's praying all the time through his ministry. You think, well, Jesus is the son of God. Why would he need to pray? He does. He's praying all the time. He's taking time to get away from the disciples, come before the father, and pray. And in so doing, he's doing that because it is good and necessary in his humanity to do that.

He's also doing it because he's setting forth an example for us.

So we ask, why does God want us to keep praying again and again? And I believe the answer to this is that God has purposed that through prayer, our hearts would become aligned with His. And I've experienced this personally in my, my life. I remember several years ago, I went through a significant season of doubt.

I had questions that I wanted answered, and I asked God to just give me clarity so that I could perfectly understand the answers to these questions. And what God did instead was he said, he told me, he was, what you need is not clarity. What you need is trust. It's not that you should be able to understand everything and have all your questions answered.

It's that what you really need to do is trust me with those things that you don't understand. And he showed me how that goes right back to the very beginning with Adam and Eve, that that's their fundamental problem, is their unwillingness to trust God. And so I had been praying a bunch, and then at a particular point, God said, you're not quite praying the right way.

And I think as we go to God in prayer again and again, he teaches us to pray in accordance with His will. Now, there's another question that may come up, a very practical question that may have occurred to some of you, is, how can I pray for so many needs? There's so many things to pray for, it can often feel overwhelming.

Well, I do think we get some guidance from scripture in this. Um, Paul talks about, In Ephesians 6 and 1 Thessalonians 5, about how we can be praying at all times, he says in Ephesians, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, he says, pray continually. Now you're like, what does that mean? Are you talking about like, literal, like, non stop prayer during your day? No, you're not, we're not talking about every single second. What we're talking about is that, as you go through this day, you have this impulse to pray.

So that as some anxiety or concern arises, you go to prayer. Doesn't mean you have, prayer doesn't always have to be super formal. It's not like you got to kneel down on the ground, close your eyes. Your eyes can be open. And you can just pray, God, this concern has just come up. Please, I ask you to intervene in this situation.

The people that I've been most inspired by are those who, when in conversation with someone and a need arises, a concern comes into the conversation. They just say, can we just stop for a second and just pray for this? It's what they're demonstrating is that impulse to prayer. Is that being their first resort rather than what we tend to do on our own and what we tend to do with others, which is we either just obsessively think about something.

It's like, OK, I'm going to figure this out. I'm just going to keep thinking. Eventually we'll sort this out. Or when we're with other people, we just go round and round and round in conversation about it as though together, we could just figure it out in our own wisdom. I'm not saying it's point, it's not pointless to think about things.

It's not pointless to have conversation with others. But we should have this impulse that before all that, why don't we just simply pray about it? Why don't we go to God in prayer about it? So when we ask this question of how can we pray for so many needs, I think part of it is, well, when a need arises, just pray for it.

It's not like you have to keep it all up in a reservoir before you pray for it. Um, and then there's also just some practical things I think I could recommend, which is, um, you know, organizing our daily prayer life. So, you know, have a piece of paper, put Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you know, through the rest of the week.

And maybe just each day, just say, I'm going to pray for these three people on Monday, these three people on Tuesday. Pray for these three needs on Wednesday. So that way you don't feel overwhelmed by the prayer burdens. Also, you can share prayer burdens. It's not as though you have to pray for everything.

As we share our prayer needs with each other, we ensure that others are praying for these needs, even when we're possibly not praying for them. And it's true, I think, that on time, at times, we do have to practice triage. There is almost endless need in this world. But some of us are situated to pray for situations that others aren't.

Because we don't all know what's going on in each other's lives. So you might know a situation going on in someone's life that others don't. Or maybe it's just something going on in your own life that you're not comfortable sharing about. Well, you certainly want to be praying about those things. You might prioritize those things above other things that you know other people will be praying for, maybe big global catastrophes.

It's good to pray for those things, but you also know that there's going to be other people that are praying for those things as well. So just take ownership of the prayer needs that God has placed in your own life. The fifth question, and this is especially one that I think is kind of weighs upon people that are new to the faith, is what am I supposed to say when I pray? It's like you go to prayer and you feel like, all right, now what?

Like, I, I don't know what to say here. Well, we do have a model of prayer that most of you here are familiar with. The Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, 9 through 13. I know you know it, but I'm going to read it. It says, Jesus gives this model of prayer to his disciples. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Now in giving us that prayer, Jesus isn't saying you're to repeat this as a magical incantation It's always like a magical prayer.

If you just say it just the right way like you're going to have all the fortune in the world. That's not his purpose. His purpose is to give us a framework for prayer. And it's good to pray this prayer as it's, as it's written. I, I often pray it daily and try to meditate on each piece. But the point is, is that it's laying out for us how we should pray.

Praising God, saying, hallowed be your name. Praying for God's will to be done. That's looking right to the example that Jesus just gave us in Gethsemane. Praying for our daily needs, talking about the daily bread, and then also pleading for forgiveness, reckoning with the sin in our lives. And then also praying that God would protect us from temptation.

That's something that Jesus is constantly warning his disciples about. Be on the watch, be on the lookout, because the devil is trying to find all sorts of ways to lead you astray. He tries to find ways to lead you astray. to create division in the church. We have to be praying that God would protect us.

Now you have a model of prayer there, but still you may feel though, when you go to prayer, that you're supposed to fill it up with a bunch of very nice sounding words and you might feel like, Oh, I'm not a very articulate person. Have no fear. This is, this is what Augustine says. St. Augustine, um, one of the most influential church fathers for the first few hundred years of the church.

He says, When praying, say little, yet pray much so long as your attention is fervent. For to say much in prayer is to discuss your need in too many words, whereas to pray much is to knock the door of him we pray. By the continuous and devout clamor of the heart. Indeed, this business is frequently done with groans rather than words, with tears, than with speech.

So what Augustine is saying there is that when we go to God in prayer, our primary aim is that we would be attentive. And this can be difficult. When you go to prayer, sometimes it's easy for you to start thinking about mowing the lawn or what the Patriots are doing, or like all these other things going on in your life. Our primary work in prayer is to attend to God, to attend to these needs.

But you don't need to fill it up with a bunch of words. Sometimes, there's going to be such great need in your life, you don't know how to pray for it properly. Nevertheless, you come to God in prayer, and you can know that God hears your prayer. Because we have the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us.

Paul says this in Romans 8: 26, it says, in the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. So I just want to encourage you, if you just are feeling like, I don't really know what I'm supposed to say here, God.

Maybe you don't even know what's going wrong with you. I've, I've been in that place before. I was like, I'm just feeling really anxious, or down, I don't even know how to properly pray for myself. All the same, pray, and know that God is going to hear your prayer.

So to the question, what am I supposed to say?

I would say we should follow the model of the Lord's Prayer, but again, this is no magical incantation because God's not seeking a fountain of words. We can trust that with few words, attentive hearts, and the intercession of the Holy Spirit, God hears us. Now, we have examples throughout scripture of how God answers prayer.

We think about Abraham, we think about Moses, we think about the prophets, and God continues to answer prayer today. And hopefully it works out. Hopefully the audio works out. I wanted to give you a more modern example of answered prayer from the life of my, my grandfather. I, uh, I've been doing this project with him where I sit down and I ask him about his life and I make recordings and early in his life, um, he experienced a miraculous healing that changed the whole course of his life.

And so I wanted to share that story with you. It's just five, just five minutes.

I was getting worse and feeling terrible. So my folks said, well, why don't you go down? They went, they had a chiropractor they went to, see if he can help you.

And, uh, I went down to this chiropractor and the first thing he did when I described my problem was to take my blood pressure. He said, I'm sorry, I can't. I can't work on you. He says, Your blood pressure's over 200 on the upside. And I don't know, I can't remember the bottom, but it was up too. And he was, he said, How did you get down here?

I, I said, I walked. He said, You shouldn't walk back. I said, I don't have any other way. I, I walked home. I'm glad I got home. But I know I did, um, something was really wrong. I told my parents what the deal was. And they said to me, well, we, uh, we better take you, uh, uh, that didn't happen right away, but, uh, they, they, we tried a local doctor.

I think I went to another doctor and he thought that I, um, would probably need some kind of surgery or something.

So we went on a bit that it was after this, that the spiritual, the physical healing took place in my life because when I started going to the doctor and wasn't getting anywhere, really, um, I, I went one day to visit. A man named, uh, what was, he was an elder, well anyway, he was a well, an elder in the, in the Napa church, maybe I'll think of it as I go on.

And he, he, he talked to me one day, I went to see him, he said, James, he said, how are you feeling? I said, um, oh, fair. You know, but I'm not any better.

A few minutes later, same question, same answer. A few minutes later, same question. But this time I answered, I said,

Ira, it was, his name was Ira. I said, where, why are you asking me this question over and over? And he said, because I have been praying for you, that you would be healed.

I, of course, I had shared with the church and so forth, and the pastor had prayed for me and, uh, and Ira Wilson was praying for me and he believed God that God was going to do it. He said, I believe he said, I've been fast. I said, then he told me he'd been fasting and praying. He wasn't a young man. He was probably in his eighties at the time.

And he, but he really believed God. And he, so it wasn't long before I was feeling a lot better.

And so, I said to my folks, I said, I think I'll look for, a job, or maybe I'll sign up for the Air Force or something, or for the military. Anyway, they said to me, well, let us, we're gonna take you over to San Francisco to the hospital, a major hospital over there. I think it was called Stanford or something.

Anyway, they, they examined me and more than one doctor, that there was a couple of doctors looked at me but one in particular and they found no problem.

I was feeling better and I was feeling better for the really I Believe God had healed me. I still believe that.

And he goes on and says that, uh, all he had left was just a little murmur left, but it wasn't, it didn't affect him at all. Before this point, it's like he couldn't work, he couldn't have joined the Air Force. And it's just interesting because if he hadn't joined the Air Force, I don't know if he would have ended up in pastoral ministry here on the East Coast because he entered into school after the Air Force.

I might not be standing before you today. And, um, it's just a powerful testimony of the church being devoted to prayer. And just thinking about the example of that man, Ira Wilson, devoting himself to prayer and fasting, believing that God could heal my grandfather. And God still does that work today. And it's for this reason that we are called to, as Paul says in Colossians 4, devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

But the question is, is that Jesus asks at the end of this parable is, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? You see, faith acts. If you have faith, it will bear itself out in your actions. I think many of us recognize how much trouble is going on around us. The world has been a troublesome place for a while, but I don't think you're crazy if you feel like it's picked up lately.

Our trouble is very real. Our God is also very real. But how often do we live in light of both realities? I can't think of anyone who denies the reality of life's troubles. We respond to that reality with fear, anxiety, our minds and even our bodies pacing back and forth.

Will Jesus find faith on the earth when he returns? Or will he find people paralyzed with anxiety? If we have faith in God and the reality of his goodness and power, then our faith should break our paralysis and act out in prayer. Not just occasionally, not just periodically, but constantly, persistently.

We can scream into the void, tantruming about our trouble, or we can call upon the God who will hear us and who will answer our prayers. This is true for your personal life. I don't know God's plans for you and those you love, but if you pray and humbly obey his commands for your life, then he will guide your steps as you trust in him.

He will lead you to the best end possible, even if the outcome exceeds our understanding for the time being. I'm not claiming we're not going to be left sometimes with a bit of a mystery on our hands.

This is also true for the life of the church. God will answer our prayers. It is my wholehearted conviction that God has mercifully sustained this church for 182 years, not because of human genius or finances, but because of those who have faithfully prayed for our congregation. If we will continue, it will be by prayer and prayer alone.

If you love your life, if you love others, if you love this church, then pray, pray, pray. He has promised. He will give justice to His chosen ones. Let us pray.

Father,

We pray that You would impress upon us our foolishness if we failed to come to You in prayer.

Because Father, You are a loving Father who is ready to meet our needs. You invite us to cast our cares upon you, to give us your, our anxiety, knowing that you are so wise and powerful that you can work out things for our good.

Father, as necessary, humble us. So insofar as we can recognize that we do need you. That we don't have control.

Lead us, Father, to bring everything to you in prayer. At all times of the day.

And that we would go to prayer believing that you will answer.

And as we wait for your answer, Father, I pray that you would increase our faith. So that we would persevere in prayer. Amen. And that as we persevere in prayer, Father, that you would align our will with your will. So that we would pray that your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. Father, we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we celebrate Vision Sunday. It's our joy to welcome you into our community.

Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)