The Practice of Praying For Others.
I sat
down in front of our house, laying my bicycle to the side. My dad
sat beside me. We were tired and sweaty. We smiled and laughed
about all the days gone by as I learned to ride that bike. Today had
been the day where it all came together! And then I looked at my
dad’s hands. Forever in my mind, I will remember the scars and
blood. Every moment he reached out to balance the bike and got cut
by the chain, every time he tried to catch me as I fell learning to
ride were marked in his hands.
There is
a word for what my dad did: Intercession.
To
begin our series on Committed To Christ, intercessory prayer is a
good place to begin. Any Commitment we make to Christ, ought to keep
in perspective that it was Jesus who first interceded for us.
Christianity isn't a self-help faith but a “God Help!” faith.
Before we take any step on this journey, it needs to start with the
knowledge that it is Jesus Christ who was, is and will always be,
committed to us. That also has a word – grace.
In the
guide for our series, in the first paragraph it states, “If you are
going to have a personal relationship with the Lord, it is going to
begin with prayer.” So before we gloss over this, we need to
consider that before Jesus began his ministry in earnest, before he
stepped out and took the first steps of healing and preaching, he too
began with prayer.
Read today's passage here: Luke 6:12-19
We
know little of the exact prayers Jesus prayed. Obviously, here,
Jesus went off by himself. But it is clearly implied by what
follows, that in his prayer it was a time of interceding, of stepping
up to talk with God, the Father, about those first disciples, about
those who would be coming to be healed and for the words that Jesus
would be preaching.
If you
haven’t used the words, “I’ll pray for you,” certainly
someone has said to you, “I will be in prayer for you.” If we
trust that person to be a person in prayer, then those words become
very powerful. The Christian who intercedes for others, is actually
doing something Jesus did. And it it is the first step of
Commitment.
To the
church at Ephesus, Paul wrote, “Pray in the Spirit at all times and
in every prayer...always persevere in supplication for all saints
(6:18).” To the church at Philippi he wrote, “...in everything
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known to God.” To pray for others, to intercede is an act
that brings us in-line with Jesus Christ.
And
being in-line with Jesus is what many people often wonder about and
they express it in wondering what God’s will is. I have lots of
people ask me about it or question it. I hope you’ll find it
helpful to know that It is always God’s will to pray for others. To
pray for others and to be prayed for are two sides of this coin too.
At
Cumming FUMC we have over 300 people who are part of the Intercessory
Prayer Team. Nearly 1/3 of our church’s Sunday morning attendance
is praying for others. I put my own name on that list when I lost
vision in my eye this year and I have prayed for others on this list.
Your
decision to live a more committed life for Christ will begin with
prayer, but you must not forget, you’re not the one beginning the
conversation, you're finally joining it. Jesus has been trying to get
your attention and has been praying for you even before that day on
the mountain when he prayed for the disciples.
My
invitation for you is to join this conversation. It maybe you have someone or a situation
where you need to intercede or you are in need of someone to intercede
for you. We’re making that time today. Will you make that time in your own life?
In the weeks ahead, I'll continue to explore what it means to be Committed to Christ at Cumming First United Methodist Church.
NOTE: If you're looking at doing a sermon from this theme or using this series, I used the Five Finger Prayer from Sermons4Kids