We Praise and Pray
Introduction
Last week we learned that God’s people are a people who worship the living God. Worship is the goal of mission. “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” Many people in this world are not worshipping and enjoying the living God. Our mission is to call them to love, worship, enjoy, and glorify God. Our worship is one way of bringing people to worship God. How? We are a people who praise and pray. We praise and pray to witness to the living God, to proclaim Jesus Christ, and invite the nations to worship God. We engage in missional praise and missional prayer.
1. Missional Praise — Declare the praise of God to the nations
We declare the praise God before the nations so that they will come to praise and worship God, and find their greatest joy and fulfillment in God.
1.1. Created for Praise
We are created to praise God. Isaiah 43:6b-7, 20b-21 — “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth — everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. … because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.”
Do you remember Jeremiah 13:11? “‘For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah to me,’ declares the Lord, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor.’”
God wants to wear his people like beautiful clothing so that they will bring God renown, praise, and honor. We are the clothes that God is wearing to display his glory and beauty, so that nations will admire God.
When people see us what do they see? Do they see God’s love, glory and beauty? Are we belts, clothing that points to God, that honor God, praise God?
Psalm 100 also explains our purpose — “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
God created us, and we belong to him. We are called to worship and praise God with joyful shouts, songs and with thanksgiving. Because the Lord is good, his love endures forever, and his faithfulness never ends.
1.2. Redeemed for Praise
In Ephesians 1:3-14 Paul repeatedly states that we have been redeemed for praise — “to the praise of his glorious grace” (v6); “that we … might be for the praise of his glory” (v12); and again in verse 14, “to the praise of his glory.”
Peter confirms that God redeemed us, saved us, to declare his praises — “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (Vv9-10) And then in verse 12 he says, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
Live such good lives, offer ourselves as living sacrifices. We must praise God’s glory in our words and deeds so that others may see and praise him too. What do people see when they look at us? Lives filled with joy and thanksgiving? Lives of praise?
1.3 Witnessing through Praise
Through our praise and worship we witness to the living God. We proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, and call others into this new, redeemed life.
Psalm 96:1-3 — “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.”
We praise God when we remember and celebrate his salvation, his marvelous deeds, his mighty acts, in history and in our lives. We declare God’s praises with our public worship, our songs and music, the reading and teaching of God’s Word. We proclaim his acts of salvation when we celebrate baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Advent, Lent and Pentecost. Our individual and public worship praise the Name of the Lord, proclaim the salvation of the Lord, and declare the glory of the Lord.
We do this before the world. Our praises spill over into the public square, into our work places, into our communities. The world sees our worship, overhears our praises. And so our praise becomes proclamation and witness calling and inviting others to come and worship God.
What happens when strangers or nonbelievers walk into our public worship? What will they see? Hear? Experience? Feel? I hope it will be what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:25 — “So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’”
2. Missional Prayer — Pray for the Harvest
Prayer is the primary work of God’s people. Our prayer life must demonstrate the nearness and presence of God with us. Our prayer life must witness to the reality of the living God. Our obedient living in the ways of the Lord, our prayers and worship must show our “wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” (Deut. 4:6-7)
2.1. We pray for the blessing of the nations
Are we praying for the nations? Are we praying for missions and missionaries? Perhaps not enough.
When King Solomon dedicated the temple he prayed for the nations. He prayed that they will come to the temple and pray to God. He prayed that God will answer their prayers for his Name’s sake (1 Kings 8:43). When God’s people were in exile in Babylon, God told them to pray for their captors. They were to seek and pray for the peace and prosperity of their enemies (Jer. 29:7). This is also what Jesus tells us — “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28)
Prayer is the one powerful means through which we bring the blessing of God, the presence and power of God into the world and to the nations.
2.2. We pray for the work of missions
Jesus’ own life and ministry was filled with prayer. Do you know that the Lord’s Prayer is not the only prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray? Matthew 9:36-38: ‘When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”’
I wonder why we are not praying this prayer more? “Lord, send workers into your harvest field.” Of course, this is a dangerous prayer. The Lord may just answer by sending you! He may call and send you to be a witness in your workplace, to plant a church, to give more, or even to go overseas.
The harvest is plentiful. Let’s be persistent in asking the Lord to send out workers.
2.3. We pray to overturn the idolatry of nations
We must pray against all the idols that deceive the nations and keep them blind. We must pray against the idols in our own lives that threaten to take over the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
In Acts 4:19 and 5:29 we see the apostles taking a stand against the authorities, saying, “We must obey God rather than human beings.” In Acts 4:23-31, after Peter and John were released, they went back to the other believers, they gathered and “raised their voices together in prayer to God.” They prayed that the Lord would enable them to speak his Word with great boldness. “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” Perhaps we need to pray this more.
With our prayers we affirm the sovereignty of God over heaven and earth and over all nations and their rulers. Prayer says, ‘There is no higher throne.’ With our prayers we affirm that Jesus alone is Lord of our lives.
2.4 Prayer is Spiritual Warfare
God’s mission, God’s story, is the story of war. God is pushing back the forces of evil and darkness. The battle is the Lord’s. We as God’s people are in his army. In this battle it is crucial for us to stay in constant intimate communication with our commander, our Lord.
Prayer is how we participate in this struggle. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Eph. 6:12-13)
Prayer is the key in the armor of God. After Paul explained the armor of God, he said, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” (Eph. 6:18) I want to paraphrase Paul’s request for prayer in verses 19-20 and change the first person to all of God’s people.
“Pray also for all God’s people, that whenever we speak, words may be given to us so that we will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which we are ambassadors in chains. Pray that we may declare it fearlessly, as we should.” We are all called to be witnesses, to proclaim the gospel, and to make disciples.
Is our prayers merely habit, a ritual? Prayers we recite and mumble through quickly? Do our prayers consist only of requests, asking? Are we sometimes silent and listening to God? How much praise and thanksgiving is there in your prayers compared to the long list of requests? Jesus at our tables?
Conclusion
At the end of this series, let us reflect on these questions. Are we living as God’s people in his world? Are we taking God’s mission seriously? Are we taking seriously our calling to be a blessing to the nations and to make disciples of all peoples? Are we devoting our lives to God as living sacrifices? Are we devoted to praise and pray? Are we living such lives of worship that we are calling and inviting others to love, enjoy, worship and glorify God?
If not, we better repent and return to our Lord. We should recommit and devote ourselves to make disciples of everyone everywhere for the praise and glory of our God.