Preached in Markham Baptist Church, May 16, 2004.

CELEBRATING THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES:
Part 1 - A CALL TO PRAYER

Acts 13:1-3

My what a spring we have had. What a busy place. Doesn’t there always seem to be something going on? We came out of the Easter celebrations running with mission month and what a great number of weeks that was, we have much to thank God for and the committee that put that time together for us.

Markham Baptist Church is a busy place - there are worship opportunities, there are cleanup days, fundraisers and all sorts of ministry opportunities. The Church Family Picnic is coming up, Kids' Kamp, and after that a Sports Camp with Athletes in Action in August. And our fall plans are beginning to shape up as we have dreams to strengthen and expand our small group ministries. Dreams to continue for Alpha to strengthen our reaching out to the community. Did you know there are three ministries in our church that are already speaking of Christmas programs? This is a busy place.

There are so many wonderful ideas, ideas for ministry and sharing the gospel, and so many talented and gifted people involved. All with a love for Jesus Christ and a deep desire to see His Kingdom grow. And the inclination is to run full-steam ahead; we’ve got a plan, we’ve got the people, let’s run with it.

I think we find ourselves in a similar situation as a church a long time ago, in an ancient city of Antioch. This was a great church; it was filled with some great people, gifted, intelligent, God loving, Christ honoring people. And they are given a clear direction by the Holy Spirit as they are worshipping. We read about it in Acts 13 – verse 1-2.

“Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers.” This was a good church. It was filled with prophets, people who spoke the word of God, - I believe that these prophets were not so much foretellers, but forth tellers - people who proclaimed God’s words. And there were teachers, people who explained the word of God.

The text then goes on to name these people – Barnabas, we learn earlier in the book of Acts (4:36) that this was his nickname - it means Son of Encouragement - his real name is Joseph, from Cyprus. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to be part of this church, an encourager?

Then there’s Simeon called Niger – Niger is a Latin nickname and it suggests that Simeon was a black man. Some scholars believe that he was the same Simeon who was forced to carry the cross of Christ. If it was the same man, you can imagine that he never grew tired of telling of that unforgettable day in his life.

Then there is Lucius of Cryene. In Romans 16:21 Paul speaks of Lucius my kinsman, it could be one in the same, Lucius was like a brother to Paul.

Then there is Manaen, a member of the court of Herod the ruler. This Herod we know is the same Herod who condemned John the Baptist to death and later mocked Jesus. It means that Manaen was a royal prince just as Herod was. But unlike Herod he (Manaen) discovered the reality of Jesus Christ and served Him in His church.

The last to be named is Saul, who we know to be Paul.

What a board of deacons! And verse 2 tells us that “while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' "

So the picture we have is of the church in Antioch worshiping God and looking for His direction and the Holy Spirit clearly saying, "I have a special work for Saul and Barnabas to accomplish” We don’t know how the Holy Spirit spoke to the church – maybe through one of the prophets, or maybe He gave them an inward affirmation of what He wanted done. It is clear that they received direction from the Holy Spirit.

Now, wouldn’t you think – after all that I have said, they have this great group of gifted leaders. They have a clear direction from the Holy Spirit that they would get up and immediately do what the Holy Spirit has told them to do? I would. It seems pretty clear.

But that’s not what they do. Read verse 3: “Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.”

Do you see that? After they have received clear direction from the Holy Spirit what do they do? They fast and pray.

My friends this is where we find ourselves. We too have been given a vision for the future. We too have been clearly guided by the Holy Spirit what God wants us to do in the future. We have been given a great plan. We too have many gifted leaders, we too have prophets and teachers, encouragers and men and women who have been to the cross of Christ and love to tell the story of what Christ has done in them and for them. We too have educated men and women in leadership. So what are we to do?

I believe that we are being called to fast and pray.

Why? Why fast and pray if the direction is clearly given by the Holy Spirit why fast and pray?

Well I plan to talk about the spiritual discipline of fasting next week, so let me ask why pray if the direction is clearly given by the Holy Spirit?

There are three reasons.

First, in prayer we demonstrate our dependence on God. You will often hear me in prayer, asking God to help us complete ministry not in our own strength but in God’s strength.

For you see it is a temptation after being given a clear direction, being given all the resources we think, “We can do this” and we rally the troops and give the call to march forward. But the Church at Antioch shows us that while we may have all that in place – and indeed the Church in Antioch did have all that, the leadership, the skill, the ability - what is of utmost importance is that we have dependence on God. For it is only God who can do God’s work, it is only God’s power at work in us that He can accomplish His work through us.

So one of my favorite verses is Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty”. God is saying there that He will accomplish His work not by our striving, not by our ability, not by the power of our word, not by the might of our intellect but "by My Spirit says the Lord Almighty."

To be sure He will use our abilities, He will use our intellect, He will use all the resources we bring to Him, but the cautionary word to us is don’t depend on those things and abilities to get the work done. God will get the work done.

You see, when we come to God in prayer we empty ourselves of our own resources and recognize that all the resources we need are in God’s hands.

The less we are filled with ourselves the more we are filled with Jesus. I think it was St. Augustine of Hippo who said, “God has so much to give us, he wants to bless us in so many ways, but there is no place for him to give these blessings because our hands are completely full."

We need to empty our hands, come before the Lord humbly and receive what He has to offer.

So when we come to God in prayer we are recognizing His power, we are submitting to His authority and we are calling out to Him to give the strength and the ability to do what He has called us to do.

The second reason we need to come to God in prayer is that in prayer we communicate with God. My friends, there are great mysteries in our faith. There are some things I cannot explain to you – and prayer is one of them. But I do know that it is the way we communicate with God and when we are seeking to do His work we need to be in constant communication with Him so that He can tell us how it is to be done!

This past week I drove through Chicago on the way to Wisconsin. As I drove by that beautiful city I was reminded of one of my favorite stories of Chicago

It was a while ago now; that some bureaucrats got together and decided they’d like to connect Chicago City Hall and the State of Illinois Center in the heart of downtown Chicago with an underground pedestrian tunnel. It is a space of only a hundred feet. Now the plan seemed straight forward enough. The city was to start at one end and the state of Illinois was to start at the other end. All they had to do was to meet in the middle. Well the trouble was that they didn’t. After four years of construction work and seven hundred and seventy dollars in expense the city built its half of the one hundred foot tunnel eight inches higher and three inches to the right than the state's half.

Now, it doesn’t sound like much but as a result of this error the taxpayers had to pay an extra two hundred and forty thousand dollars! Now if there was an annual prize for understatement I think it should go to the city’s first deputy commissioner of the department of public works, this is what he said in a press release, “This has not been one of the better projects. I would say that there were communication break downs between our two sets of architects.”

I believe he is right. And the truth is the church is in partnership with God. We are in partnership with God. The Church in Antioch knew this and so we see them in this attitude of prayer connecting with God, receiving direction from the head of the church.

We need to do what the architects of Illinois and the city of Chicago failed to do; we need to be in communication with the architect, the one architect.

There is a third reason we need to come to God in prayer. I suppose you could summarize the first two points - in prayer we join with God, we demonstrate our dependence on Him, we remain in communication with Him.

So if that is joining with God, then prayer also joins us together. I don’t know what it is about a prayer meeting that so few people are attracted to it, whether the whole idea intimidates, bores, and fails to capture our imagination. I don’t know – I do know that we can get more people to a potluck supper than a prayer meeting.

And don’t get me wrong - potluck suppers are great and I will often say that potluck suppers and the like are great ways to experience the church family and get to know one another. Certainly there is that important element of informality but nothing joins the body of Christ together like prayer. Can you imagine the encouragement Saul, later to be called Paul, and Barnabas received as the Christians at Antioch prayed?

To be sure they prayed to depend on God. To be sure they prayed to connect with God, but you can be sure they prayed to support Paul and Barnabas. Think of the prayers that were probably offered. "O Lord, guide Paul and Barnabas on their way, strengthen them that they may speak the good news of Jesus Christ fearlessly. Keep them steadfast in affliction” and so on. The prayers of the people. And do you know the encouragement of that?

Many of you do, for you have been the benefactors of such praying. I know it is a great encouragement to me. When I go to see Mrytle Milligan, a woman many of you don’t know, but she is a 99-year-old saint who always reminds me at the end of a visit that she is praying for our church. And there is some degree in which we will never discover the strength of those prayers until we get to heaven. But I can tell you whenever I leave Myrtle I feel encouraged and strengthened because she tells me that she is praying for us.

It joins us to God, but it also joins us together.

Don’t you miss our time of prayer together, when we don’t have a sharing time and a time of prayer for one another? Don’t you miss that? I do. Why? Because it joins us together as no potluck dinner can.

I suppose that’s the mystery of prayer.

Why do we need to pray? My friends through it we depend on God, we communicate with God, we join together in unity.

It was late March of this year that I was in my quiet time and I was thinking of all that we needed to do in our congregation. I was thinking of our busy summer programs and our dreams for the fall and I felt God calling us to pray.

We need to depend on God to get the work done, we need to empty ourselves of ourselves and we need to depend on him. So the deacons have purposed that we have four weeks of prayer in four months.

During the four months of June, July, August and September we are hosting four weeks of prayer. In June the week of prayer will be June 6-to June 11. Every night of the week, for one hour at 7:30pm.

What is the purpose? The purpose is to depend on God, to communicate with Him, to join together and support those in our congregation who doing ministry and who are in need. I trust that you will plan to attend as we seek to give ourselves the ministry of Markham Baptist Church to God.