Wirksworth | 15/03/26 | Prayer | Andy Hassan

Wirksworth

Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/354059/episodes/18850058-wirksworth-15-03-26-prayer-andy-hassan.mp3

Andy continued our series on what church means, focussing this week on the importance of prayer. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Good morning, Worksworth.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

I've got a really easy topic this morning, my prayer. So Neil asked us all to think about what is church, what does church mean? And one of the things that came up was prayer. Quite clearly, or say now, we believe in a God who hears prayer and answers prayer. We believe in a God who gives prayer and answers prayer.

unknown 0:37

Well we've that's easy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 0:38

I've finished my preachers done. Very, very big topic. Hopefully, this will come up now.

SPEAKER_05 2:02

Oh, it's on ah, just needed your presence.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

There we go. Don't touch anything. Well, that's my friend. So prayer. So I'm thinking about this for a few weeks, and I thought, I don't know what everyone else's kind of um thoughts are about prayer as a church. And um this is my best attempt at AI. Everything's AI in my business at the moment. Get AI to do this, get AI to do that, get AI to do the other. So just take a couple of seconds just to focus on that screen and see if there's one particular word that might stand out for you when you think about church prayer. Brilliant. I'll now move on. We might come back to that, strangely. So it said massive topic, personal prayer, tussling in prayer. Where do we start? Where do I start? So I thought we've had a few book recommendations. You're gonna love the first one. So a few book recommendations. So this is actually the first book I was ever bought. Anyone know what it might be? It's the Book of Common Prayer, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, given to me at my christening when I was two months old. So that's the first ever book I was given. Strange title, isn't it? The Book of Common Prayer. Anyone know why it was written in 1662? Because up until that point, all the services have been led by priests speaking in Latin. So it's actually a book for commoners to encourage them to pray. So does anyone know how many, they call them collects, how many prayers there are in the Book of Common Prayer. Ooh. So there's 52, so there's one for every Sunday of the year, and then there's 31 additional ones for the special days. And they were all translated by Thomas Cramner in 1545 or 1550, and he translated them obviously from the Latin into the English, and obviously we got to the introduction of printing presses, but that's the first book that was ever bought for me. And it's an encouragement for all of us to pray and not just rely on the priest. So that's oh, that wasn't my book recommendation. Right. You're welcome to have a look at it, it's a beautiful book. Um, and then I thought, so what was Jesus' inspiration? So where did Jesus read about prayer? It's so obvious, isn't it? It's there in the Psalms. 150 prayers, or if you want to multiply it by the verses of each of the psalms. Not a question, I didn't even bother to do AI on that one. How many verses are there in the 150 book of art psalms? But that's what Jesus grew up in the synagogue knowing as prayers. Psalms or prayers or rhymes. So he knew the psalms really, really well. But think about the psalms. There's praise, there's worship, there's adoration, there's frustration, there's anger, there's petition. Everything you ever might think about, what do I want to pray about that maybe don't have the words? David and the other authors have put it there in the Psalms for us. That's a good recommendation. So if you ever don't know what to pray, have a look in the Psalms because they're there. But then this is my book that I think you're gonna do a tool, you have to buy a book, but is that what you meant to do? Go and buy a book? Might be something good in there. So I've never met Pete Gregg, a few people in the room have met Pete Gregg. Um Pete Gregg started the 24-7 prayer, was involved in starting the 24-7 um prayer movement. Um, but this is a brilliant book, How to Pray. And he actually writes in the introduction, there aren't very many books on prayer and how to pray. Uh, but this is a really, really good book, and um, it covers some difficult topics. The most difficult topic, which I'm probably not going to talk about this morning because that's another preacher's unanswered prayer. So if you ever want to hear what Pete Greg says about unanswered prayer, it's in there. He talks about traffic lights, he talks about red, amber, ring. As we said at the beginning, God hears our prayers and answers prayers. It may not always be a yes, it may not always be on the timing that we have in mind, but God hears our prayers and answers our prayers. And Pete Gregg kind of almost says the same thing in his book. Um He goes through the Lord's Prayer. So that's three book recommendations. I think I've covered that now, Neil. Is that okay? I've done it. Um I will put my Pete Gregg book at the back if you want to take it. Um so three books, three recommendations. So, who has a favourite prayer? Thank you. It's a brilliant evidence, Lord's prayer. It's brilliant. The Lord's Prayer. So, what do we know about the Lord's Prayer? Um twelve disciples woke to Jesus and they said, Can you teach us to pray? So, um, this is taken from Pete Greggs, it's not mine. Because he said it's just 30 words, it was a poem, it rhymed, just takes 30 seconds to recite in English. Every young people, young people know the Lord's Prayer. It's cool. And really, it fits into a tweet. Because tweets are meant to be limited by characters. I don't know. Anyway, it's one of these things that Pete Rex has highlighted the fact that the Lord's Prayer actually fits into a single tweet X, whatever they call it now. So, yeah, most people would say the Lord's Prayer is the prayer they learned as a child, and it's the prayer that they probably still would hold. And it teaches you, doesn't it, about adoration, asking for things for yourself, asking for things for others, remembers confessions, it takes you through all the different types of prayer and remembers that God is God. So, I have a passage. I found a new favourite prayer. It's been there all the time.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Now John 17.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

So it's towards the end of Jesus' life, and in John 17, Jesus prays for himself, and he prays for his disciples. And then at the very end, he prays for us. Wow, Jesus prayed for us in John 17. So I can read that out to you. So I pray not for my disciples, but for those who believe in me through their message. So that's disciples, the early church, all the way through the generations. I pray they will all be one, just as you and I are one, as you in me, the Father, and I'm in you, and maybe it's to us as the world we would believe that you sent me. I've given the glory that you gave me so they may be one, as we are one, I'm in them, and you're in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Jesus prayed that for all of us. So your favourite prayer? Now, Pete Greg suggests that actually this is one of the prayers that is still being answered. Yes, no, yeah, still to come. So, church unity. So that's an interesting one. So Jesus prayed that we would all be one, all churches would be one. As we know, Matt got this study, Revelation, and it says at the end times all the churches will be unified and there will be unity. But Peter Prayer does suggest this as one prayer that Jesus prayed that is still not yet fully answered. Oh, so then I went, oh, church prayer to meet prayer. Jesus obviously had prayer meetings, didn't he? Jesus had prayer meetings, didn't he? Another one. Again, Google helps a little bit on this. So in the Gospel of Matthew, are there any um prayer meetings that Jesus helps with his disciples? No, there aren't any. That must be a Mark thing. No, there aren't any. Luke. Oh Luke, yeah, Luke obviously wrote Acts. We know there's a lot of answers to prayer, a lot of prayer meetings in Acts that Luke wrote about. There's none in the Gospel. And um John, none. I did put a couple of caveats at the bottom, so we do know that Jesus did have his favourite disciples, and on a couple of occasions he did take them off up a mountain. They fell asleep. He took them into the Garden of Death, then he fell asleep. So there were a couple of occasions when he said to his favourite disciples, Come with me. But was it a prayer meeting? So, what do you feel now about prayer as a church and prayer meetings and community prayer? So I've got myself a bit stuck now, haven't I? So I'm looking at the gospels, I'm looking at what Jesus is trying to teach us, and I'm thinking, Oh, we're meant to be thinking about praying as a church and praying for others. And then I was kind of led to this passage, which is, I hope, for all of you, is very, very familiar. Some men. How many does it take to carry a paralyzed man? Tom, how many men do you think it would take to carry a paralyzed man? I think so, one on each corner. Stretcher has in mind. They tried to take him says inside to see Jesus, so they obviously got outside. They couldn't reach him in the crowd. So the massive greatly ground people around the house. So they went up onto the roof and took off some tiles. Then they loaded the sick man on his mat down into the crowd in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, Young man, your sins are forgiven. Now the Pharisees and then the religious leaders said, Who is they say this is blasphemy, only God can forgive sins. Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, Why do you question this in your hearts? It's easy to say your sins are forgiven, or stand up and walk. So I prayed to you, the Son of Man has authority and earth to forgive sins. Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, Stand, pick up your mat and go home. And immediately, as everyone watched, a man jumped up, picked up his mat, and went home, praising God. I think that's a brilliant illustration of how we can pray for others and pray for each other within the church. And we use this very posh word called intercession. Not sure where it comes from. Referred to, I think, everywhere I've ever read it again. Pete Gregg says it's about standing in the gap. And um, standing in the gap, when you relate it to that story, so we have four four men, we'll say they're four men, and a paralyzed man. And you kind of think, well, what about those four men? So obviously, one of them was the one who said, Well, I've heard Jesus is in town, or you know, we ought to do something about your your brother, or is it your uncle, or is it your son? So we don't really know much about who was paralysed, but quite clearly one of the four men was very, very close to this paralysed man and was probably their carer. So they probably had a caring responsibility for this paralysed man. Probably one was the best friend, which maybe had known them before they were paralysed, and they'll always be the fourth one. The fourth one is just going along for the ride. Sounds like a great idea, but nothing else to do. I'll grab hold and help carry this around. But we end up in a situation, don't we, where we feel as though we're to pray for something. We may not always have the best of motivations and the best of intentions, but we still feel in our hearts as though we're to pay for something. I don't know why. Said sometimes it is selfish motivation, sometimes they aren't the best of intentions, but we can still help pick up that man on his mat. No newspapers, no social media. We obviously know it by word of mouth. We don't even think of any posters at that time. And they wouldn't serve, wouldn't it be a poster saying Jesus is in the local house healing people or speaking? Um, it was purely by word of mouth that they heard that Jesus was near. Sorry, it says, call the Lord while he is near. And it's really, really important. It was their faith. There was something about what they heard, they believed. So they heard that Jesus is in town, they'd obviously heard that Jesus can heal people, and they just instantly grabbed that, they didn't question it, they just believed and had faith. And thought, let's get our friend to Jesus and let's get Jesus to heal him. Preparation. So, how did they know that they were going to get to a house and surrounded by people that they weren't necessarily going to be able to get to Jesus? How did they know that they might have to lower him? So, if you're going to lower your paralytic friend on a stretcher through a roof, you've certainly got to do a fair amount of preparation. And that's also true for us in intercession as well. You know, we get situations in the world, we don't really understand them, we maybe don't have all the knowledge, but we can get some preparation, we can read about things. Obviously, think about the source of information that you get, but we can learn about situations in the world and actually prepare ourselves before we pray for them. Hard work dragging somebody on the stretcher. I've never done it. Um I've seen obviously ambulance people carrying people up and down stairs. It's not easy. Really, really is hard work. But we learn that, don't we? And intercession isn't straightforward, it's not easy. As we said before, if we just got an immediate prey answer, it would just be like, you know, it's so easy, wouldn't it? But we know it's actually hard work. We know that we may have to actually be persistent, as it said later on. Messy? So it says they pulled apart the tiles on the roof. Now I don't know if any of you have ever done any kind of um re-roofing, but I've been in a Victorian house and I've taken the lathe and plaster off a roof, and in a Victorian house where they had coal fires, it's exceptionally messy. And I'm assuming here they're talking about a hole in the roof that they're making bigger. So it probably was the hole where the smoke came through from the house that they made larger, they pulled holes apart. And the reason why I thought they're about to be messy is sometimes when we're praying and we're praying for situations and we're praying for other people, actually, we might need to get our hands dirty. Sometimes we are the answer to that prayer. It isn't just a case of asking God to intercede and be supernatural. Sometimes we may actually then be called to get our hands dirty and actually get a little bit messy in terms of being the answer to prayer. And we saw opposition, didn't we? So the Pharisees and the religious leaders were very, very opposed to all of this that Jesus could even think to heal this man. How dare these friends bring him along and expect him to be healed? And how dare Jesus actually think about healing this man? So we will find opposition. We know that. We know it's hard to get on our knees and pray about a situation, and do it faithfully, that word afterwards, again, persistence, to actually keep praying for a situation. Well, we feel as though it may actually be getting worse. We could be praying for a situation, the situation is not improving, it may actually be getting worse, but we're still called to keep praying and praying and actually having persistence. And I think these guys, with their friends, showed persistence. They didn't just drop him at the door of the house and say, Well, if Jesus is leaving and stepping over him in a healing, they didn't say, Boy Pharisee, can you just put in a good word with Jesus and get him to come out and you know they really showed persistence, so they were not gonna leave that place until they'd actually put him in front of Jesus. And look at the answers they got. I think they probably just wanted him to be fit and well. As I said, one of them probably just didn't want to be caring for him any longer, they wanted their friend restored, but he got salvation as well as healing. And it said they all praised, it says about how they went away praising. And at the end, it wasn't just four of them, there was five of them. So we actually feel as though when we see answers to prayer within a church, we all get built up. We all benefit from it, we all feel stronger for it, we all are more joyful because we've actually seen answers to prayer. So this is from Pete Gregg's book. So he says, intercessors stand between the gap between God and the land. They mediate between heaven and earth, equal friends of both. They plead with God on behalf of the people, and with people on behalf of God. And the one that is always highlighted is the fact that Moses came down from the Mount Sinai and they made a golden calf, and God was going to completely destroy them. And Moses mediated and said, no, don't, don't, please don't destroy your people. You've led them out of Egypt. So there is a very, very powerful thing where sometimes, you know, God does have the right to be angry, and yet you can actually stand in that gap, as it says there, between heaven, what should be in heaven, and obviously what is on earth. So it is very, very powerful what we we do when we pray for situations. So, coming back to us as a praying church, a praying community, um, this is my other verse. One from Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 5.17. Again, a really, really well known verse. Rejoice always. So we've talked about thankfulness and praise. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. And this is fascinating because that's alone if. Thessalonica was a very young church community. Paul was writing to them to encourage them. And when you see a very, very short verse like that where it says, pray continually, ever crosses your minds. But when I see it laid out as that, pray continually, my mind it's it's a command. So Paul isn't just encouraging them, he's actually saying, This is coming, I want you to pray continually. And it's trying to think about those situations in history, as I've done here, is thinking about when has the church seen revival and been led to pray very, very earnestly. Um, the first one there is the Methodist Revival. We're here on Mother's Day, um, Artists and Alan Wesley had 19 children, and two of them, John and Charles, went on to form the Methodists. So we see the Methodist Revival in 1730, and it's believed it was their mother who prayed for them and nurtured them and looked after the whole family, and it's her steadfast praying that led to their work that they did. And then similarly looking at the Welsh Revival in 1904, it was groups of women that met regularly and prayed for the towns and the villages in which they lived. And then the final one, which is the one that Joe and I have some relationship with, um, Roger and Faith Forster, um, Ictus, when it first started, was apparently three ladies in a church that was about to close. And they prayed, they met together and prayed, but from that, in South East London and Kent, they saw 47 congregations. And if you ever read Faith's books, again, she really really focuses on the prayer that took place within the church and within the community, that they were always praying for their environment, for their towns, and for the parts and city in which they they lived in. And they saw real growth. And the personal thing for me is that every Wednesday afternoon at three o'clock, our living room door was shut. My mum met with her two friends every Wednesday afternoon, and you knew never ever to disturb them. I don't know what they prayed about, they never asked. I know they prayed for the world, I know they prayed for the church, I know they prayed for me, I know they prayed for Joe as well. But every Wednesday they faithfully shut the door and prayed. So that's my whatever memory of um Mother's Day. So we have a few minutes, don't we? Um, how? How do you pray continually? How do we encourage each other? How do we ensure that we don't lose that, in the big words for the middle enthusiasm, also how do we not lose that enthusiasm? So, what ideas would you have to have a praying community and a praying church? Oh well.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

And we pray for the world or situation and it is terribly something that we can do maybe for well now. And uh maybe that's something that we can talk to that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Anyone in the present.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Any other ideas?

SPEAKER_04 26:20

It's obviously not a new idea, but with Matlock, obviously having their prayer meeting every morning like 9.15. It's exciting, it's genuinely really, really fun to be there, and I do feel like I've not experienced a full meeting now that I've not been like there at 9.15, and then and then the things that they carry on through the meeting, like the worship that you didn't know, and then they, you know, and it's it's to be able to have that set and then regularly happens, it is really exciting. And I think anybody that's been for that prayer meeting can attest to that, but it's really an absolutely key element of the whole meeting.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Do you do you do a prayer chain or I do the prayer chain for the church, yeah. So urgent requests.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Yeah, important, urgent, how do you want to frame it for our church family? Yeah, that needs things that are going on that are really big that they need support, that they're struggling to carry on their own. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

Well, surprise, right? I've prepared one, aren't you? You know it's coming, didn't you? Um so these are some of the things, the prayer meetings before the service in MatBlock. Yeah. Um there is a virtual prayer meeting, so those are the login details. I've never done a Google meet, or done obviously Teams meeting, so virtual just for an hour, uh meeting with people online. Uh there is a prayer room now at Matlock, so every Wednesday morning there's a certain space that you can go to. I imagine again, if I've seen it laid out before, there'll be resources in there, there'll be ideas. So if you feel as though I'm coming into this prayer room and haven't got any ideas about what I'm going to pray about, there'll be ideas then. We've already heard about a prayer course that's happening.

SPEAKER_05 28:18

It's the the 12th of April.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

12th of April. Yeah, 7th of yeah. Uh Joe's mentioned about prayer triplets. Obviously, we're familiar with uh the Israelites getting attacked by the Amalekites and Moses standing with his stuff and getting very, very tired and getting very tired, and then sitting down and still getting very, very tired. So you've got Aaron and her to stand and pray with him and support him, so that's the idea. Um, I've definitely done prayer partnerships, so just praying one other person on a regular basis, as Philip said. Again, we know that's biblical. Um, Jesus sent disciples out in twos to support each other. Prayer breakfasts, men like that. Saturday morning prayer breakfasts, having a breakfast, a good old fry-up usually, and then spending some time in prayer. Um, but then the opposite, prayer and fasting, okay? But then you've got food. So um, half nights of prayer. I obviously have already mentioned about um Pete Greg's you know 24-7 prayer movement, but just having a half night dedicated a whole time. But you do need resources, you do need to do that preparation. You can't just go into a room, bank, and think, well, we're gonna pray for the next four or five hours. So prayer walls, prayer chains, prayer walks. Again, we've talked about spending when the weather gets better walking around Worksworth, and as we walk around, I'm sure we'll pray. And then a diary, you know, again, do we as a church keep answers to prayer? Do we are we aware of the answers to prayer that have been received? So a prayer is actually documenting and saying we've prayed for this, we've seen this answer, we've felt our spirit, we've felt our faith uplifted. You know, we can be like those five men that walked away from Jesus and feel as though we've really, really seen an answer to prayer and our faith has really, really been encouraged by that. So, how do you feel now? So I'll have a look at that one time. Word something rather than we think of this real gift to be able to pray for others within others within his church, others within the world. And it should fill us with excitement, that's why I kind of stopped that and left that there. And some of you may know this is how we're gonna end. So I thought we'd finish with a blessing. So if everyone would like to stand. Bless each other, with your eyes closed. Um Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all for evermore.

SPEAKER_05 31:45

Thanks, Andrew. So really, really good. So really good.