 Rev. Matthew J. Hook |
Do
You Believe In Shoes?
Sermon:
Scripture: |
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In Hugh Price Hughes’ story, "City of Everywhere," a man arrived in a city one cold morning. As he got off the train, the station was like any other station with the crowds and redcaps, except that everybody was barefooted. They wore no shoes. He noticed the cab driver was barefooted. "Pardon me," he asked the driver, "I was just wondering why you don’t wear shoes. Don’t you believe in shoes?" "Sure we do," said the driver. "Why don’t you wear them?" "Ah, that’s the question," came the reply. "Why don’t we wear shoes? Why don’t we?" At the hotel it was the same. The clerk, bellboys, everybody was barefooted. In the coffee shop he noticed a nice-looking fellow at the table opposite him who was also barefooted. He said, "I notice you aren’t wearing any shoes. I wonder why? Don’t you know about shoes?" The man replied, "Of course I know about shoes." "Then why don’t you wear them?" "Ah, that’s the question. Why don’t we? Why don’t we?" After breakfast he walked out on the street in the snow but every person he saw was barefooted. He asked another man about it, and pointed out how shoes protect the feet from cold. The man said, "We know about shoes. See that building over there? That is a shoe factory. We are proud of that plant and every week we gather there to hear the man in charge tell about shoes and how wonderful they are." "Then why don’t you wear shoes?" "Ah, that’s the question." Don’t we believe in prayer? Don’t we know what it could mean in our lives? Then why don’t we pray? Ah, that’s the question…Why don’t we? I believe we don’t pray because we don’t understand what prayer is really about, and we haven’t claimed this promise of joy and thanksgiving that is available to us through prayer. Church, it is time to talk about prayer, because prayer is central to our Christian faith. Dr. Stephen Olford, a right-hand man for Billy Graham, says "No one can claim to be a man or woman of God without a life of prayer." As Christians, we know that prayer is vitally important. But for many of us, our prayer lives are more disorganized than the rest of our lives. Why is our prayer life so haphazard? I believe we fall for the basic time management issue. We believe prayer is important, but prayer is never urgent. Unless we are called on to pray in public for some occasion like a wedding or banquet, we don’t take any time to prepare ourselves for prayer. Prayer is never pressing on us unless we are totally out of control, facing a job dilemma or a life-and-death situation. Then, when we wait until we’re out of control to pray, we don’t seem to have the tools or the experience to make it meaningful. Henry Blackaby and Claude King, in their workbook Experiencing God, say:
When God speaks to you through prayer, you will come to know that that is God. Sometimes in prayer you will have a new idea, a new hope about a situation, or a new attitude toward a person. Through prayer, you and I bring divine resources to bear on our situation. Without prayer, you and I cut ourselves off from those resources God wants to offer to us. Those ideas, those thoughts, those new attitudes are your encounter with God. God, by his Holy Spirit, reveals truth. Truth is not just some concept to be studied. Truth is a person. Jesus did not say, "I will teach you the truth." He said, "I am…the truth." (John 14:6) When God gives us eternal life, he gives us himself. He does not hold anything back. When he reveals truth, he is not teaching us a concept to think about. He is leading us to a relationship with a person. Jesus is our life! Prayer is a relationship. Prayer is a two-way fellowship and communication with God. You speak to God and God speaks to you. It is not a one-way conversation. Your personal prayer life may be primarily one-way communication—you talking to God. If that were all prayer was, it would make Paul’s admonishment to "Pray without ceasing" a dreadful duty. But prayer is more than that. Prayer includes listening as well, just as in a human relationship. Prayer is a relationship, not just a religious activity. Prayer is designed more to adjust you to God than to adjust God to you. God doesn’t need your prayers, but he wants you to pray. And there are things God cannot or will not do unless God’s people pray. You need to pray because of what God wants to do in and through your life during your praying. Prayer is an encounter with God? All that is contained in prayer? God is speaking to me? Now that may seem a tall order, especially if lately you haven’t experienced your prayers going any further than your ceiling. We tend to reserve it for last place, when we don’t have anything left on our schedules, don’t we? When we’re totally exhausted is when we say: "Oh well, I guess I’d better pray." Imagine if your best friend called you up on the phone 30 seconds before they fell asleep every night. But isn’t that what we do to God? And yet God loves us and is crazy about us still. The hope for our prayer lives is found in Romans 8:26-27: "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows that mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the believers in accordance with God’s will." What a promise! When you run out of words, maybe that’s when the Holy Spirit becomes freed up to pray on your behalf to the Father. The Holy Spirit has an advantage over us—he already knows the will of God. How do you know when the Holy Spirit is speaking to you? I can’t give you a formula. But if you are growing in your relationship with Christ, I can tell you that you will know his voice, just as Jesus said. "The sheep follow him because they know his voice." (John 10:4) There may be lots of other shepherds calling for their sheep, but the sheep of God know him by his voice. Imagine coming to know God better and better throughout your life. Nothing could be more exciting than to come to know God more and more, as you grow in life and in relationship to him! And if you are experiencing silence from God, it could mean you have sin in your life that is so interfering with your relationship that you can’t hear God’s voice or you can’t understand what he is saying to you. We generally know if that is us. You know the sin that you hold onto, that you cling to so tightly, that does nothing but build up the wall between you and God. No wonder we can’t hear God’s voice. No wonder we can’t understand him. It’s because of that sin that we’ve allowed. It may be something so minor that you don’t think about it. If you are hearing silence, pray that God would reveal this to you. Is there something in my life that I need to totally hand over to God? We know what it is that we’re choosing to hold onto that is keeping us from God. My prayer for you would be to let it go. Give it to God and let God deal with that sin. In our weakness he is strong. You don’t have to fight that battle by yourself. Let God do it for you. If you don’t know what to pray, just empty yourself and let the groaning of the Holy Spirit take over your prayers. However, silence from God could also mean that God is ready to bring into your life a greater revelation of himself than you have ever known. Prayer involves watching and waiting and watching and waiting. So now we come to our verse from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians: "Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." The church Paul had started there was facing persecution. They were facing internal conflicts within the church. In the previous verses, Paul was telling them how they were to get along with one another. He seems to imply that it is impossible to live that way on the outside unless you are in communion with God. These are Paul’s admonitions for living inwardly the life that will in turn impact your life outwardly. "Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." Graham Scroggie, an old professor of homiletics (preaching), used to tell his students: "Pray when you feel like it. Pray when you don’t feel like it. Pray until you feel like it." Pray without ceasing. This kind of prayer calls for obedience and reliance. The fact that we fail so often in our prayer times shows us the cost of obedience. If there were no cost for following Christ, we would have no problem with prayer. Nevertheless, we are to "pray without ceasing." This kind of prayer calls for dependence. It is the opposite of being self-sufficient (which we are all taught to be), but spiritually we are to be fully dependent on him. Many people discover God only when they feel bankrupt in their lives. As a parent, I want for and cherish the times when my kids really need me, when they can’t do something on their own. But how much more of a blessing it is when my kids include me in their daily lives. How much more I can help them when they check in, or stop to ask, or spend time with me daily. Jesus said God is not like a father, but God is our Father. Unceasing prayer takes obedience and dependence. Paul calls us to pray right in the middle of telling us to "rejoice always" and to "give thanks in everything." Remember Paul and Silas, locked in a Roman jail. Despite being beaten with rods and locked in stocks, they were joyful, singing hymns of prayer to God until the foundations of the prison were shaken. They were outwardly chained, but inwardly free in their spirit, and no amount of bondage could take that away from them. The most miserable people are those who cannot be grateful for anything. Paul, who lost loved ones because of persecution, was shipwrecked, beaten, whipped, stoned and arrested, tells the Thessalonians to "give thanks in all things." Apart from Christ, that makes no sense. If all people have to go on is devoid of faith, if all people have to go on is devoid of the greater calling of God in their lives, then life is like playing roulette. If you win, you’re happy. If you lose, you’re sad. It is a very fatalist world view, and it is a hugely popular one. It’s what leads people to ridiculous things like psychics, and fate, and a false sense of reality. But together with Christ, we have this hope. We may not understand what is happening in our lives, but we know that God is faithful. And for that we can be grateful, even in the midst of great tragedy. God has not left us alone. But Paul writes: "Give thanks in all things." All things? Does this mean we have to be thankful for the deaths of thousands on September 11? Of course not. In their anguish, many people ask: "Why doesn’t God intervene for all those people who die prematurely?" But the truth is God did intervene. He died for them long before they were born. He died even for those who would never believe in him. God does not hide in times of trouble. He proved that 2000 years ago on a cross. In that critical moment that spelled the difference between life and death for everyone in the whole world, through all of time, God intervened. He could have remained safely in heaven instead of taking on human form. But instead he put himself directly in harm’s way. "There is no greater love than the one who lays down his life for another." (John 15:13) Because of this hope, we can be thankful "in all things," because God has already taken care of us. God has already loved us. Jesus already died in our place. We can enter into prayer thankfully for all that Jesus has already done. When you have that under your belt, prayer can become thankful, even joyful. Though we don’t understand everything, we can know that God’s plan can never be thwarted. That is why we must "pray without ceasing." Prayer is a life struggle. Prayer is also a lifestyle. In Memphis one year, I was working with a group of high school kids on a home in the inner city. One group of kids was working on making a railing for Miss Hortence’s porch. They cut the vertical pieces to go around the railing. They cut the first piece the height it needed to be, then they used that one to cut the second, then they used that one to cut the third. If they would have ever put up that side of the porch railing, poor Miss Hortence would have had vertigo from standing on her porch, trying to hang on to the slanted railing! If you have a room full of pianos that need tuning, you don’t tune the first piano and then tune the second one to it, then tune the third to the second. You would wind up with a cacophony. Instead, you measure each piece you cut to the correctness of the measuring tape. You tune each piano to the same tuning fork. Prayer is like that. It is a constant and readily available measure and guide to your life. Tune it to the right thing. Don’t tune it to what everybody else is saying. Don’t go through just anybody. Measure your life constantly to God’s plan. Tune your life constantly to Jesus. Pray. It’s as basic to our Christian life as shoes are to walking. Pray. Consistently, joyfully, full of thanksgiving. Don’t worry about the words. Remember the Holy Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t know what to do. Do it with joy. Do it with thanksgiving. Because of prayer, as a Christian, you can no longer say: "There’s nothing I can do." You can always pray. Prayer does something in us. Prayer does something for us. Prayer does something through us. God is that ready and that available. Won’t you take time? Won’t you make time—to pray? Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you that you have not left us alone. We thank you for this promise and this guide. We hear your command to rejoice always, and to pray unceasingly, and to give thanks in all things, for this is your will for us in Christ Jesus. Lord, many of us are coming from difficult times. Many of us walked in here heavy laden, troubled with cares and anxiety. We have a sense of being lost and alone. So Lord, right now we take all those things and give them to you. We don’t want them back. Help us even as we breathe, in and out, in and out, to be in prayer: speaking and listening, speaking and listening. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, trusting that your Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t have the words. Amen.
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