Sin & Prayer

There are times in ministry that you sense and know that God's leading in a certain direction. This, I believe, is the case as we begin our journey into a deeper intimacy with our Savior through the study of prayer. I want to share some of the circumstances that have led me to begin a teaching a series on this important relationship aspect with the Father.

Primarily, I would have to admit that the greatest reason for the upcoming study comes from the impact our last study on sin had on me. The overall thesis was to see sin as God does.  So we began to unpack sin and the effects of sin in individuals, the church and its leadership. This quite frankly, drove me to a time of deep confession and more intense prayer. During all of this, I felt a definite need for a week of fasting and prayer where Psalm 139:23-24 was the focal point of this week and much was revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Prayer is something that I strive to always do better and do it with regularity but prayer and fasting is another matter altogether.  It is a discipline I had infrequently done in the past but not with much fervor or desperation behind it. That has begun to change as I realized how desensitized I had become on sin and the need to experience the fullness of God in my life. This is where I understood that my initial focus was wrong.  I initially was focusing on myself and knew that I had to refocus and start with Him.  Jesus, in teaching His disciples how to pray said start with "Our Father...Hallowed by thy name" (Matt6:9). There I came face to face with His holiness and His holiness is what uncovers us. When you come to that point, there is nothing that can be said or done. Just like every example we have in Scripture - you fall on your face before God and begin to confess your unworthiness. 

Ultimately what I came to know is that my view of God became my view and not His complete revealed truth as He has given us in Scripture. I had an unbalanced focus that concentrated on the God of mercy, forgiveness, love and acceptance. I still worshiped God, I still prayed to the Jehovah (Yahweh) but I worshiped Him through a golden calf that I had conjured up in my mind of who I wanted Him to be. The delivered people of Israel were still worshiping God too (Exodus 34), however, the golden calf allowed them to worship Him in a way that made them feel comfortable. You must understand, the golden calf never would condemn or bring about any conviction into their lives. In all reality, it was where they could worship however they wanted, which is nothing more than man-centered worship.

God's intent is that believers - both individually and collectively, remain in close communication with Him. Prayer is our path to receive understanding from God through Scripture. Only then can we move forward in radical obedience. Radical obedience that will cause us to give our very lives to pierce the darkness with the glorious light of the Gospel. A radical passion to see the holiness of God that causes us to hate sin - hate sin in our lives, in our churches and in our leadership. I truly believe if we as individuals fail in our prayers we fail everywhere.

I praise God for His atonement and covering of our sin. Although the nation of Israel sinned against God by worshiping through a golden calf, God had provided a provision for forgiveness. Yom Kippur is a special holiday that commemorates the forgiveness God provided to the children of Israel after they worshipped the golden calf. No, God doesn't overlook sin and their is always a cost for it, a cost that God willing paid (Rom 6:23). Praise God, for the Son, who is our Yom Kippur, our atonement (John 14:6).

The Journey of Prayer

We are starting a series on prayer this week at Mt Zion Baptist Church, and it’s a subject I enter with much fear and trepidation. On the one hand, it’s a subject that has been talked about, preached on and countless books have been written on the many different facets of prayer. 

Nevertheless, as I have begun to evaluate my own prayer life in light of the prayer life of Christ and His apostles, I find myself far away from the place of prayer where my Savior was at.  In other words, I have fallen into the trap of a theology of prayer that has been developed over the years based on clichés rather than sound doctrine.  Clichés like “pray this prayer, and you can be saved” or “prayer is just talking to God”.  Another good one is “prayer will change God’s mind”.  We even can support that one with Scripture (John 3:10, 1 Ch 21:15, etc.). Although I will agree that some of these clichés do have merit and are based on sound doctrine, I feel it’s time for me to know what prayer is all about and to look at the Biblical theology of prayer.  

So begins my journey, although, I understand right from the start that many of my questions and interest will not be satisfied as with most of my studies in Scripture. Rather as I study and practice what I will learn, I will soon realize that the more I know about this subject the more I will realize how far I have yet to go.  However, this is not disappointing for me, but often fuels my interest and brings me great satisfaction to know just a little more of an infinite God.  

The journey, as they say, is many times, sweeter  than the destination.  Especially if you are traveling with good company. Besides, with the things of God the journey can never end. You only rise and arrive at a place of breathtaking beauty, and there you sit to enjoy the vista and the exhilaration and satisfaction of reaching the top.

Nonetheless, you find it’s not the final destination, but a resting place.  Even so, while you sit in awesome wonder of a knowable God, you come to realize that there is yet another challenge – a greater challenge.  For what you could not see before is another mountain peak to climb, this one is a little higher and will require navigating through some tougher obstacles.  But your confidence, trust and faith in God has grown, and you know that the difficult journey will be good.  In reality, you begin to better understand it's all about the journey because this journey in knowing God will be a never ending journey that will just keep getting better.

Sin & Redemption

We at Mt Zion Baptist are shortly going to finish two studies. We have been unpacking the book of Ruth on Sunday evenings and looking at the doctrine of sin during the morning worship service. In these studies, we are at opposite ends of the infinite spectrum of God. What I mean by that is, Ruth is a book where you see God's sovereignty, protection, care and love as The Kinsman Redeemer. You see God in the background of every verse and in all the characters in the story. In the end, we are also surprised to know that we too are also part of that story in our own redemption. Then, on the opposite end of the continuum on Sunday mornings, we have looked at how God sees and judges sin. We see God's wrath and the cost of sin that requires death and how the perfect God/Man Christ Jesus has taken our wrath and atoned for our sins. A very heavy subject is the doctrine of sin. However, a doctrine that needs to once again be heralded from the pulpits of America that has grown apathetic and comfortable with its sin.

In looking at both sin and redemption like this has taken me on a roller coaster ride if emotions that no words can quite describe. I have literally fallen down on my face before a holy, holy, holy God as I have seen my sin more clearly in the light of seeing Him more clearly. Then as I look and understand more of the truth about God revealed in the book of Ruth, I have thrown up my hands and praised Him for the righteousness of His son, who was imputed onto me His righteousness and allows me to hidden and protected under His wing. Glory to God! Alleluia, praise the Lord! Blessed be His name!

This has driven me to seek with a passion to know God more. Like Paul said in Philippians 3:10 "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;" I find that the more I understand of the truth that God has revealed of Himself the more I hunger and thirst to see His face and  to live a life that would bring glory to His name.

This lead me to read a small book by Tozer called The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life, which I would recommend to put on your reading list. In the very first chapter Tozer says a striking statement: "What comes to our when we think about God is the most important thing about us." Today, I would submit to you that for most in the Christian church there are very few thoughts of God and the thoughts we have are thoughts of a "god" that we have made up in our own minds. It's a god we have made up to suite our own spiritual needs. We have redefined God into who we want Him to be - a god that is okay with our nominal lukewarm Christianity and pet sins. The result has been a church that gathers together to worship an image that we've created.

George Whitefield

I believe it is crucial that we learn about our Christian heritage. We are blessed to be able to stand on the shoulders of great people who have uncompromisingly preached the Word of God and have given us the great doctrines of the Bible.

Below is an article by Kevin Miller that appeared in the Christian History Magazine.

When George Whitefield preached his first sermon, at age 21, someone complained to the bishop that Whitefield (pronounced WlT-field) had driven 15 people insane.

Anglican ministers of the day were controlled, dignified, even stuffy in preaching. Whitefield, though, was intense, emotional, and dramatic. “I could hardly bear such unreserved use of tears,” wrote one observer, for Whitefield was “frequently so overcome, that, for a few seconds, you would suspect he never could recover.” Whitefield explained, “You blame me for weeping, but how can I help it when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction?”

In America, Whitefield was a sensation. His impassioned preaching on the “New Birth” in 1739 helped spark what historians have called The Great Awakening. It’s easy to “underestimate the effect of the Awakening on eighteenth-century society,” writes Richard Bushman in The Great Awakening, 1740–1745. “The Awakening was more like the civil-rights demonstrations, the campus disturbances, and the urban riots of the 1960s combined.”

But in colonial America, the social upheaval was caused chiefly by one young British field preacher who considered himself “less than the least of all.” Whitefield traveled from New Hampshire to Georgia (where he founded America’s first charity) and unified the colonies as no one had before. Thousands discovered, as one Connecticut farmer put it, “my righteousness would not save me.”

Bibliography:
Christian History Magazine-Issue 38: George Whitefield: 17th C. Preacher & Revivalist (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, 1993).