One of the amazing things about the Bible is
that you can have read a passage several times, and then you read it again, and
something jumps out at you that you never really thought about before.
That happened when I looked at our passage for today. The things that
jumped out at me was verse four. “In all my prayers for all of you, I
always pray with joy.”
I pray with joy. When’s the last time you prayed with
joy? I don’t know when it is for me. It’s probably been a long
time.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are times I thank God
in my prayers. There are times I express my gratitude to God. And
thankfulness and gratitude are good things to have in our prayers.
But that’s not the same thing as praying with joy.
Joy is defined as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” When’s the
last time you felt that when you prayed?
Now, every prayer is not going to be said with joy.
And it’s not supposed to be. We’ve talked before about how we can ask God
anything. We can tell God anything. We can express all our hopes,
all our dreams, all our fears, all our feelings to God. And that’s an
awesome thing. It’s wonderful that we can do that.
But sometimes, we should pray with joy. Sometimes, we
should feel great pleasure and happiness when we pray.
And in fact, when we really think about it, why would we
not pray with joy? We’ve talked about this before, but it is such a privilege
to be able to go to God in prayer. It is such an honor God gives us by
allowing to come to Him in prayer. God is so far above us, and yet God
not only allows us to come to Him, God encourages us to come to Him in
prayer. God is eager to hear from us, from you and me. As small and
weak and as insignificant as we are compared to God, God wants to hear from
us. That should give us great pleasure and happiness. That should
make us feel joy.
But you know, we hear that, and maybe we even agree with it.
But still, sometimes, that joy just is not there. After all, joy is a
feeling. And you cannot force yourself to feel something you don’t
feel. So how can we get to where, at least sometimes, we’re praying with
joy?
Well, what gave Paul the ability to pray with joy? He
tells us. He says he is praying with joy, “because
of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident
of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion
until the day of Christ Jesus.”
In other words, Paul prays with joy
because he can see what the people of Philippi are doing. He knows that
they are believers in Jesus Christ. And, he knows they are acting on
their belief. They are doing their best to follow God and serve God and
be faithful to God. They are allowing themselves to be led and guided by
God’s Holy Spirit, and they are following that leadership and guidance.
They are doing their best to do what followers of Jesus Christ should do and to
live as followers of Jesus Christ should live. And that fills Paul with
joy, and it allows him to pray for them with joy.
Now, Paul was not a man who was easily
fooled. He also was not some kind of cockeyed optimist who looked at the
world through rose-colored glasses. Paul also was not someone who was
afraid to chew people out if he thought that was what they needed. In
fact, in some of Paul’s letters, Paul does exactly that.
Paul did not think the people of Philippi
were perfect people. But he knew they were doing their best. And he
knew that what they needed was not to be told they were not good enough.
What they needed was encouragement. And Paul gave it to them.
Now, the things Paul said about them were
not phony or fake. And the feeling of joy he had was not phony or fake
either. Paul was truly happy to see what the people of Philippi were
doing. He was truly happy to see how faithful they were, how determined
they were to serve God, how they felt love for God and love for their neighbors.
Paul was filled with joy to see that. And that joy spilled over into his
prayers.
So, how can we use that? How can
Paul’s example help us pray with joy?
Well, look around you. Look at the
people of the churches of the Wheatland Parish. You know, we may not be
huge in numbers, but we have a lot of people who are really good at a lot of
things. And we have a lot of people who love God and are really faithful
to God and are really determined and even eager to serve God in a lot of
ways.
Look at all the things these churches have
done. Look at the children’s programs we have, the Sunday school in Onida
and Faith Builders in Gettysburg. Look at the number of people involved
in that and the number of kids they reach. Even after the shutdown, our
teachers found ways to get the materials to the kids so they could continue to
learn about God. Even now, with shutdowns continuing, we’re talking about
ways to give kids VBS materials in this summer.
And that’s just one example. I could
give a lot more. But look at the other ways we’ve responded to the
shutdown. On March 15th, we had Sunday church services. And I said
on that day that we would continue to have in-person services. Then Monday,
March 16th, the bishop said, uh, no, you’re probably not. On Tuesday,
March 17th, we said no, we guess we won’t. The next day, on Wednesday,
March 18th, we had our first livestreamed worship service. None of us had
any experience with that, and yet, we did it. It was not perfect--it’s
still not perfect--but we did it. To me, that was amazing.
And the things that went on during the
shutdown were amazing. The loyalty that people showed watching the
livestream every Sunday was amazing. I mean, when I started that, I wondered,
is anybody really going to watch this? And in fact, our viewing figures
were almost as high as our average Sunday morning attendance. In Onida,
people gathered in their cars in the parking lot a couple of times to watch the
service together. The people of these churches have been checking on each
other, looking out for each other, staying connected to each other. And
the giving to our churches was wonderful. It was not as high as a normal
Sunday, but it was a lot higher than I expected it to be. As we get back
to worship, we are in a lot better financial shape than a lot of churches our
size. And the way people have pitched in to clean and sanitize our
worship spaces as we reopen our churches is amazing, too.
And these are just a few recent examples.
We could talk about the incredible things our UMW does. We could talk
about the work of our trustees, keeping our buildings in good shape. We
could talk about the building projects we’ve done. We could talk the
outreach events we’ve held. We could talk about all the mission work
we’ve done. We could talk about how Agar has grown in attendance in
recent years. We could talk about the Sunday night service. For the
number of people we have, the churches of the Wheatland Parish have done
amazing, incredible things. And they’ve done them because we have
people--you--who are faithful to God. We have people who are determined,
even eager, to spread God’s word. We have people who are incredibly
dedicated to serving God and serving these churches.
Those same things that filled Paul with
joy should fill us with joy. And when we think of those things, when we
think of the people of our churches, we should pray with joy, just like Paul
did.
At the end of our passage today, Paul says
this: “this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in
knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what
is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with
the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and
praise of God.”
In other words, Paul says that, even
though he’s filled with joy at how well they’re doing, he knows they can do
better. He prays that they will do more. He prays that they will
feel even more love for God and even more love for others. He prays that
God will give them even more knowledge and wisdom. He prays that they
will know more and more about Jesus Christ, and that they will live lives that
give even more glory and honor to God. He prays that, because he knows
they can do it! He prays that because he knows that, as well as these
people are doing, he knows that with God’s help they can do even better!
What a joyful prayer that is! Think
about it. What could be more joyful than that? To be filled with
joy at how wonderful the people of the church are, to know that with God’s help
they can be even better, and to pray that God will help them reach that
potential and really be better.
Yes, there are a lot of bad things going
on in the world right now. And we should pray about them. But when
we think of our churches, let’s pray with joy. Let’s be filled with joy
at the faithfulness and love shown by the people of our churches. And
then, let’s pray that God will help us do even better. Let’s pray that
God will help us feel more love for God and for others. Let’s pray that
God will give us more knowledge and wisdom. Let’s pray that God will help
us truly give honor and glory to God in everything we do.
No comments:
Post a Comment