P T 4 K |

“Praying Together For The Kingdom”

“Lord, teach us to pray…”

So He said to them:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

Together Praying

The pattern of prayer Jesus taught His disciples is first and foremost a “together prayer”: He taught us to pray: “Our Father.”

It is good – indeed, essential – we give ourselves to personal prayer.
In fact, much of our weakness in corporate prayer arises from weakness in personal prayer. Mark Jones (in my post last week), suggested a reason that corporate prayer meetings are not as popular today is because “people have not known the holiness and goodness of God in personal prayer.”
He adds: “Satan hates private prayer. But I suspect he hates even more corporate prayer. It seems he might be winning many battles in the church today that he has no business winning. One of those is keeping the godly from praying with each other.”

Yet, the early church was born and bred in corporate prayer.

Just forty days after He rose from the dead Jesus has left His disciples on their own.
Before He departed He told them:

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

In the meantime:

He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father. (Acts 1:4-8)

“Wait”. Jesus didn’t tell them to hold a prayer meeting; He told them to wait.
But Jesus didn’t have to tell them what to do while they were waiting.
The people of God – the thoughtful people of God – have always known what to do, as they wait upon the Lord: they meet to pray!
For the next ten days they met to pray.

I have been struck by how much prayer in the Bible is corporate prayer.

Consider the many references to corporate prayer in the Book of Acts

1) During that ten day prayer meeting they chose a replacement for Judas.
They met together.
They searched the Scriptures.
They considered possible candidates.
Then they prayed (Acts 1:24).

2) After ten days of prayer, the New Testament Church was born: 3,000 were gathered into the church.
How was this fledgling church nurtured?
“They continued steadfastly in [lit. “they were strong towards”] … prayers” (Acts 2:42).
The context of “prayers” here means corporate prayer – just as their “continuing steadfastly” in “the apostles’ doctrine, and fellowship, and the breaking of bread” were corporate activities.

3) In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested, hauled before the authorities, and threatened not to continue preaching.
Immediately after being threatened, then let go, they seek out “their own” to pray.
They prayed, not to be spared, but that “with all boldness they may speak Your word”.
And “when they had prayed, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.”
Wouldn’t we love to have boldness like that to speak the word of God!
Is it a case (as James says): “You have not, because you ask not” ?

4) When Peter was arrested (again) in ch 12, “constant [or “fervent”] prayer was offered to God for him by the church” ( v 5).
Then, when Peter is miraculously released, he knows right away where they will be meeting together; he knows they regularly meet to pray at “the house of Mary, the mother of Mark” (v 12).

5) When the Lord determined to mobilize the church, for its great work of missionary outreach to the Gentiles (ch 13), why did He choose the church in Antioch ?
The Lord sought them out “as they ministered to the Lord…”; literally, “as they religiously-served (Greek: leitourgeo) the Lord…”
Their “ministry” certainly included prayer, as we see from the parallel between their service beforehand (“ministering and fasting”) and afterwards (“fasted and prayed”). (vv 2,3)
The Lord chose this church, that He found at prayer, to be the church that would spearhead the New Testament missionary movement.
What kind of church would the Lord choose to spearhead (genuine) evangelism today?

6) On their return trip on their 1^st Missionary Journey, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in all the churches they visited.
Then they joined together with those in each church to pray together. (14:23)

7) In Philippi, Paul and Silas were thrown into prison. There they were, the only two members of the church present – broken and bleeding, cold and shivering.
What did they do?
We all remember they sang hymns together.
But, before that, it says they “were praying” together. (16:25, cf Matt 18:19)

8) In Acts 20, Paul, returning from his 3^rd Missionary Journey, catches up with the elders from the church in Ephesus.
Before he departs, “he knelt down and he prayed with them all” (v 36)

9) Later Paul arrives in Tyre.
There he met with the believers.
And again, before he departed: “they all accompanied us, with wives and children… and we knelt down on the shore and prayed” (21:5)

Consider also the many exhortations to corporate prayer in Paul’s epistles

Most of Paul’s epistles were written to churches.
Most of his exhortations to prayer are therefore, first and foremost, to churches as they meet to pray together.

To the church in Thessalonica, he writes: “Pray without ceasing”.
To the church in Philippi: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”.
To the church in Ephesus: “Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints…”
To the church in Colosse: “Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving…”

Paul depended on these churches to pray for him and his work:

“Pray for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.” (Eph 6:19)
“Pray for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.” (Col 4:3)

When Paul despaired of life in Ephesus, God used the prayers of the Christians as they met together in Corinth (on the other side of the Aegean) to deliver him and his companions.
Paul attributed his deliverance to the prayers of the church and thanked the church for their prayers. (2 Cor 1:8-11)

Corporate prayer is vital to the life of the church; always has been. A live church will meet together to pray.
A church that doesn’t care to meet together for prayer bears silent witness that it doesn’t really believe there is a God – at least, this God! – that really hears prayer !

I love a church that commits themselves to prayer.
I am even more encouraged when a church commits themselves, in word and in deed, to praying together.

Kingdom Praying

What shall we pray for?

Mark Jones lamented that many prayer meetings “invariably turn into an ‘organ donation’ gathering (e.g., my aunt is going in to hospital for an ingrown toenail).”
Not that it is wrong to be praying about such. It is good to commit even the least of our cares to the Lord in prayer, for He cares for us. (1 Pet 5:7, cf Phil 4:6-7)
Our Lord Himself taught us to pray each day for our daily bread.

But before we pray for such, and even more importantly, let us pray: “Your kingdom come”.

Paul Tripp calls this, “the most needed, yet the most dangerous, prayer you could ever pray.” He adds:

“It is the one prayer that takes you beyond the small-picture hopes and dreams that kidnap so much of your prayer. It is all right to pray about your job, marriage, family, finances, house, children, retirement, vacation, investments, church, health, government, and the weather , but it is not enough… Yes, God cares about your present life. He gives you grace for this moment. Right now he is with, for, and in you. But he calls you to view yourself and your life from a perspective that goes far beyond this moment and extends far beyond your ability to diagnose what you truly need.”

What does it mean to pray, “Your kingdom come”?

I am constantly challenged by the response of the early church in the face of persecution, in Acts 4:23-31 (see 3) above); it is a great example of “seeking first the kingdom of God”.

But in the words of the Shorter Catechism:

1. We pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed

Some Christians seem averse to praying against Satan’s kingdom.

I was dismayed at the apparent reluctance on the part of some Christians to pray against the downhill slide of our nation into approving same sex “marriage” (SSM).
As Mark Jones has also noted: “It is amazing how much energy is spent posting on Facebook about a certain social crisis, but how little effort is spent praying together about that specific social crisis (e.g., abortion, gay marriage, etc.).”

Of course, some excused themselves by saying they were only focusing on “gospel opportunities”; and they did not see what opposing SSM had to do with the gospel.
But our Lord taught us to pray for His kingdom to come, which requires us to pray against the onslaught of Satan’s kingdom. You cannot seriously pray for the one, if you won’t pray against the other.
One reason given (in Heb 1:9) that the Christ Himself was “anointed” is that He not only “loved righteousness” but also “hated lawlessness”.

Even worse, though, are those who don’t even recognise Satan’s kingdom at work in such areas as abortion, gay marriage etc.

2. We pray that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it

1) We pray specifically for the conversion (i.e. repentance and faith) of unbelievers, especially those the Lord has laid upon our hearts.
The kingdom comes as we “make disciples of all the nations”, as they come through Christ to faith in the triune God, “the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19)

2) We pray for growth in obedience and holiness in ourselves and others.
The gospel of the kingdom we preach must include “teaching them to observe all things that Christ has commanded us” (Matt 28:19)
This will include teaching on the importance of meeting to pray together.

3) We pray for ongoing revival for Christ’s kingdom.
Sadly this aspect seems to be neglected in much church life today.
How many blessed seasons of prayer we once enjoyed when, not only as congregations, but as teaching (and ruling) elders, we regularly met to pray for the revival of Christ’s church.

It is good for leaders to meet together regularly to pray with the congregation and also with each other.
The apostles saw this as a priority: “But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
And the result: “Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly” (Acts 6:4,7)

3. We pray that the kingdom of glory may be hastened

O MY LORD,
May I arrive where means of grace cease
and I need no more to fast, pray,
weep, watch,
be tempted, attend preaching and sacrament;
where nothing defiles,
where is no grief, sorrow, sin, death,
separation, tears, pale face, languid body,
aching joints, feeble infancy, decrepit age,
peccant humours, pining sickness,
griping fears, consuming cares;
…
But there I shall be near thee,
dwell with my family,
stand in thy presence chamber,
be an heir of thy kingdom,
as the spouse of Christ,
as a member of his body,
one with him who is with thee,
and exercise all my powers of body and soul
in the enjoyment of thee.
. Valley of Vision Banner of Truth