{"id":9104,"date":"2023-07-17T14:55:36","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T21:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9104"},"modified":"2023-07-17T14:56:36","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T21:56:36","slug":"prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9104","title":{"rendered":"
Prayer<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romans 8:26-27<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may have heard of the Templeton Foundation. It was started by John Templeton, who was famous in the world of finance for being a contrarian investor. He was also a faithful Presbyterian layman. He gave a lot of money to Princeton Seminary. The unfortunate thing is that he thought he knew enough about religion to write books and set up a Foundation, giving a prize every year for religion that was larger than a Nobel Prize. His Foundation once funded a multi-year study on prayer. Does it work? Is it effective? They had a control group that was not prayed for and a group that was. It was a totally mistaken project for several reasons. First, sometimes the answer to prayer is \u201cNo.\u201d Second, how could you be sure that in the control group that was not prayed for someone didn\u2019t sneak in prayers anyway from loved ones or friends? They couldn\u2019t know for sure. Was the prayer the right prayer? Of course, a lot of people get well anyway. After two to three years the results of the study was that it was inconclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we pray, who prays, and how does it work? We know that Muslims pray five times a day. In Hinduism there are about 330 million gods. We may have seen a news report about the ceremony for the elephant god, or the ceremony for the monkey god. A news report may show the Hindus praying, all decked out in special garb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t see as much in Buddhism because it is so much more fractured. You have probably seen or heard about Buddhist prayer wheels driven by wind or water. The prayers are going automatically, and there are a lot of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Judaism, depending on what branch of Judaism, there is that remarkable funeral service where the oldest surviving male relative prays that remarkable prayer, the Kadesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent survey reported that in this country 58% of people pray every day. That\u2019s far more than those who go to church regularly.  Another survey says 90% of the people believe in God but 95% of them pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is prayer and how does it work? We recall the famous account in 1 Kings 18:20-40 about the contest between Baal worshipers over against Elijah. The Baal worshipers circle the altar, beat themselves, cut themselves, and yell out to their god. In contrast the prophet simply says: \u201cLord, show who you are.\u201d That settles it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We think we have to pray hard and long. We mistakenly think that is the message of that parable in Luke 18:1-8 of the importunate widow. Remember she pounds on the door of the judge. Finally he gives in. That\u2019s not the point of the parable but that is what people remember and think it\u2019s about. If we turn up the voltage and pray harder and longer, then the Lord will listen. Of course there is a promise in Matt 18:20: \u201cWhere two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.\u201d There is something important about praying together. We ask ourselves: How does prayer work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today there are all kinds of people who say: \u201cI\u2019m not religious but I have my own spirituality.\u201d They don\u2019t want to be tied to any system or organization. What they end up doing is falling into some kind of Eastern religion, usually some kind of meditation that is found all over Hinduism and Buddhism. And there is also the practice of silence so that you can empty yourself, or you can hear the voice of God, or hear an inner voice. The practice of silence goes back into all kinds of pagan mysticism. Christians have claimed it too, but it gets all mixed up because God and I end up being the same thing. Really what people are looking for in spirituality is an experience, a feeling, their own private miracle. Then I have proof, some kind of verification. Something has really happened. We continually forget that important verse in 1 Cor 11:14: \u201cEven Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.\u201d That never occurs to people that they might be being deceived. After all they are doing it. We have this lack of knowledge of our own lostness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Chistian prayer? To Whom do we pray? We pray in the name of the Father and in Jesus\u2019 name as the basis for what we pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we pray? As the hymn, \u201cWhat a friend we have in Jesus\u201d says: \u201cWe bring everything to God in prayer.\u201d As we know, all the psalms are prayers, some complaining bitterly. There are all kinds of things that the people in the psalms are saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his Large Catechism Luther writes that if you don\u2019t know how to pray, there\u2019s the Lord\u2019s Prayer and all it takes is a whole lifetime to use it and use it up because there is so much in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We wonder about where to pray. We pray in church, of course. Some people have pointed out that it works well to pray while you are walking, or doing dishes, or mowing the lawn. There are all kinds of times and places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When should you pray? There is that famous place in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: \u201cPray without ceasing.\u201d That\u2019s 24\/7. Someone has said you should pray an hour a day, but how can we do that? Someone said if you pray five minutes of every hour, in 24 hours you would have an hour of prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That raises the question: What is prayer about? A nurse upon completing an eight- hour shift was asked to take another eight-hour shift. And she did. After that she went home and fell into bed exhausted. She could not think or pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of all we come to the question of why? Why do we pray? In Matthew 18:20 there is the basic promise. John 15:7 states: \u201cIf you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what you will, and it will be done for you.\u201d That\u2019s an amazing promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Matthew 7:7-11 says: \u201cAsk, and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.\u201d The text goes on: \u201cIf your child asks for bread, will you give him a stone. If he asks for a fish, will you give him a snake? Finally, if you who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more, will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!\u201d There is a parallel in Romans 8:32: \u201cHe who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all [good] things with him?\u201d Obviously, the answer is yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Luther\u2019s Small Catechism on the Third Petition of the Lord\u2019s Prayer it says: \u201cThy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. . . . To be sure God\u2019s good and gracious will is done without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may also be done by us.\u201d There is that. God\u2019s will is done because it is his will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ask ourselves why pray if God\u2019s will is going to be done anyway? We get to Luther in the Large Catechism where he is more able to spell it out. There in the Preface to this discussion he says: \u201cWhy do we pray? We pray because we\u2019re commanded to pray. It is as if it were the Eleventh Commandment, which is that this is a work that we are called upon to do. We are called to bring everything to God in prayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n

Romans 8:26-27<\/p>\n

You may have heard of the Templeton Foundation. It was started by John Templeton, who was famous in the world of finance for being a contrarian investor. He was also a faithful Presbyterian layman. He gave a lot of money to Princeton Seminary. The unfortunate thing is that he thought he knew enough about religion to write books and set up a Foundation, giving a prize every year for religion that was larger than a Nobel Prize. His Foundation once funded a multi-year study on prayer. Does it work? Is it effective? They had a control group that was not prayed for and a group that was. It was a totally mistaken project for several reasons. First, sometimes the answer to prayer is \u201cNo.\u201d Second, how could you be sure that in the control group that was not prayed for someone didn\u2019t sneak in prayers anyway from loved ones or friends? They couldn\u2019t know for sure. Was the prayer the right prayer? Of course, a lot of people get well anyway. After two to three years the results of the study was that it was inconclusive.<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9104"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9109,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9104\/revisions\/9109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}