REFORMED CHURCH, BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2003: MORNING SERVICE

REFORMED CHURCH, BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2003: MORNING SERVICE

Our help is in the Name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Psalm of praise: Psalm 30:7.

The Apostles' Creed

1.        I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.
2.        And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord;
3.        Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary;
4.        Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried; He suffered all the pains of hell, even unto death;
5.        The third day He rose again from the dead;
6.        He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
7.        From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
8.        I believe in the Holy Spirit.
9.        I believe a holy catholic Church, the communion of saints;
10.      The forgiveness of sins;
11.    The resurrection of the body;
12. And the life everlasting. AMEN

The Law : Ex. 20:1-17.
Psalm 99:4,5.
Prayer.
Psalm 86:3.

Scripture reading: Psalm 145
Scripture text: Psalm 145:18 & Catechism Sunday 45

The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
He will fulfil the desire of those who fear Him;
He will also hear their cry and will save them.

In preparing for the Lord's Supper we need to pray a great deal. In this service we shall learn something new from the Lord regarding why prayer is so important.

How did people come to pray?
What is it that sends you to the Lord in prayer?
How do you know that the Lord is near to those who call on Him, and that He gives what they need to those who ask of Him?

This morning we shall attend especially to the following aspects of prayer:

1.        Why do we pray?
2.        The content of our prayer.

1.        Why do we pray?

It is the Holy Spirit who establishes faith in us, and then it is our faith in God which drives us to worship the Lord.

Without faith nobody can pray, because without faith nobody can know God.
It is also through faith that we are able to experience the guidance of the Holy Spirit and turn to our heavenly Father to ask for what we need.

The Bible underscores one very important matter: our faith gives power and life to our prayer.

I mention the word "life" specifically because this describes the relationship between us and the Lord.
The existence of doubt in our faith usually means the death of our prayer-life, because we cannot pray to Someone whom we do not know and trust.

Through faith we know of the power of God whereby He determines our lives.

Similarly we know, through faith, of His love and goodness which ensure that our prayers will be heard.
Our faith knows the fullness and the adequacy of God's grace, and arouses in us the desire to kneel and to thank God for this grace in which we share.

Prayer, however, does not consist only in thanking the Lord for the grace which He bestows and has in the past bestowed.

Prayer also contains an element of compulsion.

The Lord commands those who love Him to pray.
For that reason Jesus, when He gave us the Our Father prayer, also told us to pray as in that example.

To pray is therefore also a commandment, just like every one of the Ten Commandments, and we will be punished if we do not pray (sufficiently).

We must always remember that there are, in prayer, two factors which must meet:

The commandment of God that we must pray to Him,
must be united with our need to pray.

A prayer which is not born of need is powerless and empty, because it has no content.

The death of Jesus on the cross also has something to tell in respect of our prayer-life.

We are all undeserving sinners, who probably all struggle with prayer.

We often do not know what to pray.
We frequently forget very important matters for which we ought to pray.
Many of us cannot pray in public.

But through Christ's atoning death He gives us the confidence to approach the throne of God with our prayers.
We must now know that God will hear our prayers because Jesus bore the punishment for everything we may pray wrongly or inadequately - or for which we have even forgotten to pray.

That does not mean that our prayers will be answered immediately as soon as we have prayed.

The Lord does not answer our prayers in accordance with our expectation in respect of time and date.
He answers prayers in accordance with His own time-frame (cf. Daniel and the angel of the Persians - Daniel 10:10-21)
Nor does the Lord answer our prayers in accordance with our wishes, but indeed, through the grace which Christ accomplished for us, God answers our prayers in a manner which is to our greatest benefit.

You must not underestimate the power of prayer.

Remember only the occasion when Herod had Peter imprisoned after the death of James (Acts 12:1-19).
In prison Peter was guarded night and day by four squads of soldiers. The congregation prayed for him unceasingly during all that time.
On the night before he was to be taken before the judges, an angel appeared before Peter, telling him to get dressed and to follow him.
The angel led him past the guards and out of the prison. Peter then went to the house of Mary, the mother of John (also known as Mark), where the congregation were gathered to pray for him.
While they were still at prayer, Peter knocked at the door.

One could relate similar instances from the Bible and also from our own history to show how the Lord answered prayers and even provided what the faithful required, if need be by mighty miracles, in response to their prayers.

2. The content of our prayer.

For what must or may one pray? The Lord Jesus gave us the Our Father for that purpose.

In this prayer the Name and honour of God are in the foreground - just as in the Ten Commandments.
God's Name must, first of all, be hallowed, and His kingdom come.
Everything in heaven and on earth must obey Him without reservation.

Furthermore one's bodily welfare also forms part of the prayer.

We must pray daily for our bread - that means, for food and clothing.
These are things for this life, but they are not unimportant to God.

Our own spiritual welfare also falls within the scope of the prayer:

We pray that the Lord forgive us our sins, but we also wish to be enabled - through His grace - to forgive those who have sinned against us.
That is why we ask of the Lord -

Grant me the generosity of the spirit, Lord, that my Self may disappear
and Your kingly image, which reigns over my conceit, take possession of me.
Grant that I may let the sins committed against me pass me by,
so that I may, without distressing myself about them,
ever remain Your servant who seeks Your honour above all.

Prayer is, of course, not merely a matter of asking for something. When we pray we also praise the Lord. Think, for example, of Psalm 116, in which we sing that we love God, and that we call on him all the days of our lives.

This Psalm teaches us that the Lord hears our supplications and deals bountifully with us. The implication is clearly that this follows upon our prayers.
The Psalm teaches us that, when the cords of death encompass us, we must call upon the Lord in our distress.
Psalm 116 teaches us to pray that the Lord save us.

This is precisely what is conveyed by our text.

The privilege of praying is, in fact, so great that its full implications probably pass us by, because the Lord forgives us far more than just the sins we confess before Him.

This He does because Christ bore the punishment for our sins on the cross, and also because the cross of Jesus opened for us the way in prayer to the throne of God.

Let us now read together Catechism Sunday 45:

LORD'S DAY XLV

116.    QUESTION.    Why is prayer necessary for Christians?
       ANSWER.    Because it is the chief part of thankfulness which God requires of us¹, and because God will give His grace and Holy Spirit to those only who with hearty sighing unceasingly beg them of Him and thank Him for them².
    1.    Ps.50:14    2. Matt.7:7; Luke 11:9,13; 1 Thess.5:17

117.    QUESTION.    What belongs to such prayer as God is pleased with and will hear?
          ANSWER.    First, that from the heart¹ we call upon the one true God only, who has revealed Himself in His Word², for all He has commanded us to ask of Him³; second, that we right thoroughly know our need and misery⁴, in order to humble ourselves before the face of His majesty⁵; third, that we be firmly assured⁶ that, notwithstanding we are unworthy of it, He will, for the sake of Christ our Lord, certainly hear our prayer⁷, as He has promised us in His Word⁸.

    1.    John 4:24; Ps.145:18    2. Rev.19:10; John 4:22-24    3. Rom.8:26; 1 John 5:14; Jas.1:5
    4.    2 Chron.20:12;     5. Ps.2:11; 34:18; Isa.66:2      6. Rom.10:13; Jas.1:6
    7.    John 14:13; 16:23; Dan.9:18      8. Matt.7:8; Ps.27:8

118.    QUESTION.    What has God commanded us to ask of Him?
          ANSWER.    All things necessary for soul and body¹, which Christ our Lord has comprised in the prayer He Himself taught us.

    1.    Jas.1:17; Matt.6:33

119.    QUESTION.    What is the Lord's Prayer?
          ANSWER.    Our Father who art in heaven,
                    Hallowed be Thy name;
                    Thy kingdom come;
                    Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
                    Give us this day our daily bread;
                    And forgive us our debts,
                        as we also have forgiven our debtors;
                    And bring us not into temptation,
                        but deliver us from the evil one.
                    For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
                        for ever. Amen¹.

    1.    Matt.6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4

Closing prayer.
Closing Hymn 28B

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. AMEN.

Rev. Dr. M.J. du Plessis
Reformed Church, Bellville.
23 February 2003.
Scripture quoted from NASB.