Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You. Will you pray with me?
Gracious God, give us humble, teachable and obedient hearts that we may receive what you have revealed and do what you have commanded. Since we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from your mouth, make us hunger for this heavenly food, that it may nourish us today in the ways of eternal life, through Jesus Christ, the bread of heaven. Amen.
Our first reading is from the book of Daniel.
So the presidents and satreps conspired and came to the king and said to him, o king Darius, live forever. All the presidents of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the councillors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce and interdict that whoever prays to anyone, divine or human, for 30 days, except to you, o king. O king, shall be thrown into a den of lions. Now, o king, establish the interdict and sign the document so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the medes and the Persians, and this law cannot be revoked. Therefore, King Darius signed the document and the interdict.
Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open toward Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him just as he had done previously.
Our second reading from the book of Luke, speaking of Jesus, he was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us and do not bring us to the time of trial.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: And thanks be to you.
As you might imagine, even though the announcement about today's worship said Matt was preaching, I have known for several weeks that tagged eye was it.
So I have been thinking about prayer.
Let's pray.
Gracious God, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight and lead us to love you more and serve others in Jesus name. Amen.
So I have been thinking about prayer and praise as habits of our hearts. And so I wonder if you look back this week as I have, and think about when you might have prayed and how you might have prayed.
As I looked back, mostly I was praying prayers for others, for my family who were traveling by planes and by cars and by buses for those who have been recently diagnosed and are ill and need healing. Prayers as I watch and read the news for what is happening in the Middle east, in Ukraine, in Sudan and South Sudan, in the DRC, I realize that mostly I've been praying also for myself.
And thanks to Matt's sermon early in this series that encouraged us to use the app of daily prayer, I think I have been more structured in my prayers of intercession, which is a part of those daily readings. I would commend that to you also.
And although there are always two psalms at the beginning of that one, a psalm that deals with kind of heavy stuff, and always a psalm of praise, when I just read that psalm of praise, it's kind of like I've checked off the box, but nothing really happens inside me or through me.
So I've realized that actually over the last several months, I've been kind of dragging not my sort of extroverted, energetic self.
And I have realized that along with that, I really haven't been praising the Lord from the inside out. I haven't had that music on in my car or in my place.
I haven't been getting up off the sofa or off the stool where I drink my morning smoothie and look at the daily prayer.
So as we deal with these two texts this morning, my focus is hallowed be your name.
Hallowed be your name.
There will be a time in May in adult education when I'll have the privilege of talking with whoever wants to come about other aspects of prayer.
So what is to hallow? What is praise, and why do we emphasize it?
Luke eleven two says, hallowed be your name. Holy reverenced are you. The name in biblical times is not just a title. It encapsulates the whole being, the character of who is named.
And Leon Morris says that God shall be God, that humans shall not whittle God down to a manageable size and shape. We hear around now that God is being made in our image. When we praise God, that turns it back the way it should be.
So what is praise? The Westminster shorter catechism says the chief end of humans, the chief goal for living, is to glorify God and enjoy God forever. Forever starts when we respond in faith to Jesus Christ, and we are to be glorifying, extolling God and enjoying being in joy with God.
Prayer and praise mean coming into God's presence, expressing to God that I know that God is worthy of my worship and that God alone is the one who is most worthy of our allegiance. We see that in Daniel, he is the one that is responsible for leading these satraps and principals and presidents, but they're jealous of him. And get King Darius to sign this interdict, and then does that make a difference to Daniel? It doesn't. He goes home every day, three times a day, opens his windows toward Jerusalem, focusing on the holy city, kneels down and prays, and everybody knows it. And so there is a high price to pay when the trial comes.
In Daniel's life, if he did not have that regular pattern, that discipline, that habit of his heart and his life to go home and to pray, he might have bailed, but he would have betrayed not only himself but also God.
But he was disciplined and had that pattern.
We'll get to hear about what some of the early and reformed church fathers have said about how often and when to pray.
And as we focus on God in praise, we can worship and praise God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, God the creator and sustainer, Jesus Christ the Son, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Holy Spirit, God in us and with us, the counselor and comforter.
And in celebration of God's character, G. K. Chesterton said, let your religion be less a theory and more a love affair.
And we realize that and express that when we focus and praise God.
Praise is a response to God's invitation to be in communion. To believe. And praise is different from thanksgiving, which, as you know, is in gratitude, a song that I'd hoped we were going to be able to find the music for, but we couldn't. By Bannister and Hudson says, and I think this is a helpful distinction between thanksgiving and praise.
You spoke the word and all the worlds came into order. You waved your hand and planets filled the empty skies. You placed a woman and a man inside the garden, and though they fell, they saw compassion in your eyes. Lord, we stand amazed at the wonder of it all. Yet a greater wonder brings us to our knees. Lord, we praise you because of who you are, not only for all the mighty deeds that you have done. Lord, we praise you because of who you are, the word incarnate.
So what about enjoying God?
If we're created to glorify God and praise and enjoy God as we praise God, we find ourselves in the joy of God's presence. This joy does not depend on our circumstances or our happenings. It's not happiness.
Praising God keeps the fountain of joy bubbling at deep levels at the core of our beings, as Jesus promised. The woman at the well in John four, if she asked him, he would give her living water welling up to eternal life, the joy of the Lord flowing through us, through her and out to others as we love them, as we serve them, as we come down from the mountaintop, as Amy Grant sang, and live in the valley below.
So where, when, how do we praise God in solitude? I meant to set my timer and I haven't give me a sign.
Solitude is essential for our spiritual life. That's a hard one for me as an extrovert. And having a time and a place is important.
In Matthew six, Jesus tells go into a private room, a prayer closet, shut the door, and pray to your father who is in heaven. We see that in Daniel six. He went home, he opened the windows, he knelt down.
And when do we do that?
Luther said, having more times of short quality prayer is best be brief, frequent, intense. Doesn't that sound like Martin Aquinas talked also about frequency and quality, not length. Calvin recommended, pray when you arise, pray before work, pray before and after you eat and at bedtime.
One of the things I wish I had learned from my swedish grandmother, my Mormore, is that she said some kind of a little swedish prayer after every meal. I wish I knew that prayer in Swedish or in English. And so for us, it's important to experiment with the day, the time where. And you think, well, I don't really have time. Well, don't we each have a calendar of some kind, that we have appointments? And if we calendar our time of personal, private praise and prayer and put it on the calendar and somebody said, I'm really eager to meet with you at such and such a time. You know, I'm sorry, I already have another appointment. You don't have to say, well, that's my quiet time.
So we schedule it, then we keep it going, and then it's part of what is helping us to prepare for when the challenges, the trials of life come upon us.
The place.
As Jason and joy were growing up, I often said that the place that I found for personal, private prayer and praise was where there was less clutter, not laundry to be folded, not toys strewn. Maybe it's the bathroom. I do have a good friend who, many of you would know, does his quiet time in that small water closet.
It's important to shut out the outer chaos. And then as we praise God, we can deal with the inner chaos and the destruction, the distractions. For me, starting personal, private prayer time with praise is very, very helpful.
And I love, and I didn't have permission to ask you this, Darlene, but I love when we sing Darlene and others are lifting their hands in praise and worship.
And as we sing and pray aloud and read the psalms aloud, it involves more of us, and that can be so very, very helpful. So we must decide how to do it and where. So what does this do for God? It really restores the creator creature relationship, the parent child relationship, if you feel comfortable with that worship. God's God initiates, God chooses, God calls, gossip, God invites, and we glorify, we extol, we exalt, and oftentimes it's helpful. You think, well, what do I say? Well, think of attributes of God.
Use some of the many, many. About a quarter of the psalms are really focused on praise and focus and lift up God's goodness. Love and justice have already been mentioned this morning. God's mercy, God's holiness, God's forgiving us. And to focus on the titles of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the Alpha and the Omega, the anointed one, the Holy one, Jesus the Christ, the pascal lamb, the lamb who was slain.
One of the places that there are small, short, accessible stanzas of praise are in about five or six of the chapters in revelation after the letters to the seven churches. And you'll see them. Open your bibles and you'll see and say those aloud. They glorify God. They extol, make them your own.
And worship. For me gets me out of myself, helps me look at things from a different angle, above the human angle vantage point. It's an antidote to pride. We realize again that all of life is a gift. When we praise in difficulties, in the challenges, as Daniel did, as each one of us has, we acknowledge that God is in control and we come into God's presence. And even though we are lifted, it's very humbling. And so, as we are drawn to the pinnacle of relationship, it also prompts us moving into our time of confession. Augustine said, the heart is restless till it finds its rest in thee. And so we need to be worshiping. George MacDonald, who preceded C. S. Lewis, said, it's not what God can give us, but it's God that we want.
There are so many positive side effects of praising God. As we turn to God and exalt and lift up the Lord, pressures can fall.
You know, probably every time that Daniel had his time, morning, noon and night, it wasn't a glorious, uplifting experience. And in fact, later in the book of Daniel, as an old man, he is asking God, are you still listening? Do you care?
And God needs then to assure him, this author says, was he tempted to feel at times that God must be deaf or sleepy or careless. We know that on one occasion in his old age, he became almost desperate to know whether he was being heard. And God had to give him a special visit through an angel, telling him, this is in Daniel ten, one through three and twelve. Not to fear, because God was really taking note of everything Daniel said.
Unless he had deliberately disciplined himself to keep on praying when it became such a matter of routine, he would not have maintained the reality and the strength of his communion with God. So it is so important. It's not always going to be a supercharging experience, but indeed it is going to be helpful, hopeful, encouraging, and it keeps our perspective in a way that we realize who is the highest authority where our ultimate allegiance belongs.
For Daniel, it was not King Darius set in Babylon after the persian conquest, but God was faithful. As Daniel persevered and loyally lived the habits of his heart and his experience, God allowed and sent divine aid and kept those lions mouths shut and allowed victory over those who were his enemies. And they and their families were all thrown into the lion's den.
So I encourage us all to, on a regular basis, can we do what Calvin said when we arise before work, before and after we eat and at bedtime be praying, specifically focusing on the character of God?
