Lewis Memorial
08-30-09 Website
The Great Divide
Sonny Sellers

Last week Eddie told you his favorite John Wesley, quote on prayer is “Prayer is where the action is!” I sat down with Eddie this week to look at The Warehouse service. The mission team will be out here in two weeks, but they are with Eddie in the sanctuary this morning. So what do we focus on today? Well, Eddie said we spent the month talking about HOW to pray, but did not spend a lot of time talking about WHY we pray. So please review the four sermons and lead their thoughts to WHY we pray.

I looked at the scriptures for this Sunday and found the focus in John Wesley’s quote. Prayer translates into action! Today we’ll remember a few highlights from this month and then put the WHY with the HOW of prayer. Let’s hear Matthew’s version of today’s scripture as we bring the light of Christ into our worship today.

Matthew 15: 16-20

My favorite quote from last week’s sermon was by Corrie ten Boom:
“Is prayer your spare tire or your steering wheel?”
You see our “Y” in P.R.A.Y. is for year round – praying all the time and if prayer is just a spare tire, then you only think about it when you need something! But one reason WHY we should pray is to seek God’s guidance – God’s control over every part of our day. Now that sounds more like a steering wheel. Some of us might pray more in this one hour on Sunday than we pray all week at home or school or on the job. We put God in a BOX just for church. (pick up “church” box and take out the card that reads GOD) But look at these other boxes – there’s a great divide between our homes and God – between our work or school and God. Shouldn’t God be in our family? Shouldn’t God be with us a school and work? (Split the card into three cards). So be sure to place God in every part of our day and in every day of our week. In other words, pray all the time.

Do you need more of God in your family or work? Then as an act of faith, put your offering in that box this morning.

The HOW of prayer is in the word: The P is for (praise), the R is for (results), the A is for (attitude) and Y stands for (Year-Round)! The WHY of prayer is in us! Not what we eat or drink, but what comes out of us! If I squeeze an orange we all expect orange juice. If we observe a Christian getting squeezed we should expect the Spirit to come out. There should not be such a great divide between what comes out of us on Sunday and what comes out of us the rest of the week. Listen to our scripture again but this time from Mark’s gospel.
Mark 7:1-8, 14-23
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
14Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

When divine law (mercy, justice, and even care for parents) are given less value than human teachings and practices, it means that we have chosen to determine for our own selves what makes us righteous (that’s called self-righteousness), so washing the fruit we buy becomes more important than giving fruit to the hungry.

Yet, we know Jesus was talking about meaningless human rituals such as hand washing because any recovering addict would say that what they take into their bodies does affect the formation of their hearts. In our culture we use food and mood-altering substances to self-medicate for spiritual issues—emptiness, pain, boredom, anxiety. That is a good argument for the WHY of prayer. We need God’s power and God’s control.

Let’s look at another reading for today from James 1: 19-24 from “The Message:”
Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

So I propose you need prayer because that’s where the action is! Prayer will bridge the great divide between the sacred in heaven and redeem our secular here on earth. You can’t PUT God in a church box when God wants every moment of each day.

People can’t confine their faith to their heads or their words. For James, this is inadequate. Throughout the letter of James, the faith that counts is the faith that actually operates in a person's life. How do you define a person who says they believe one thing and yet they do something completely different? (hypocrite) True faith is whatever is in action in your life. Faith that is not active is not faith at all. Control from God and connected to God is the WHY of prayer. It’s where the action is!

There’s one more scripture in today’s reading – I didn’t know that any part of this book was ever read in church unless it was a wedding. Listen:
Song of Songs 2:8-13
8The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. 9My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. 10My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; 11for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. 12The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. 13The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Believe it or not, the early church saw this text as a description of the mutual love of God and Israel or Christ and the Church. That’s my final point today – stay in touch with your first love – that WHY we pray, to connect to our creator. As we think on that now – listen to the words of this song.

Praise the Lord in your prayers! Wait patiently for the results of your prayers! Have the right attitude as you pray! Be a year-round pray-er! And make prayer where the action is! May we all feel God’s presence with us as we have a little talk with our Lord throughout every day. As long as we stay connected to God through our prayers then we know without a doubt that God is always with us. He’s just a prayer away!