Pray Unfailingly (Daniel 6.1-16 and Ephesians 6.18-20)

Introduction

A journalist got wind of a story about an old Jewish man who had been going to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to pray, twice a day, every day, for a very long time. So she went to check it out.

She watched him at prayer and after about 20 minutes, when he turned to leave, she approached him for an interview.

“Excuse me sir,” she said, “I'm from CNN. How long have you been coming to the Western Wall to pray?”

He said, “For about 60 years.”

“60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?”

“I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop. I pray for all our children to grow up as responsible adults and to love their neighbour. I pray that politicians will tell us the truth.”

“Wow,” she said. “And how do you feel after doing this for 60 years?”

“Like I'm talking to a brick wall.”

Is that how you feel when you pray? You might be surprised to hear this, especially if you think that all clergy enjoy blissful and effortless prayer lives – but I feel that way sometimes.

Quite honestly, my experience is that prayer is hard work. I’m easily distracted, frequently discouraged and I pray less than I think I should.

So I don’t speak with smug self-congratulation this morning when I say that over the next six weeks we’re going to be looking at prayer in these morning services. My guess is that we all have something to learn in the school of prayer and I certainly include myself.

Preparing the Ground for Growth

Let me tell you how this series on prayer came about. One Saturday last November, four of us from All Saints’ participated in a consultation arranged by the diocese about preparing our churches for growth.

It is a stated aim of our diocese that our churches should grow in numbers as people come to faith in Christ or come back to the Lord after a time away from him.

It is a stated aim of the diocese that our people should grow in grow in faith, believing God for greater things and grow in character so that we’re more loving and joyful.

So we were asked to examine six specific areas of church life which might need some attention if we are to grow. Those from All Saints’ who went along all agreed that one of the areas of particular need of reinforcement for us is prayer.

We were asked to score between one and ten for the following statement; “As a church we believe that prayer makes a difference and we take prayer seriously.” One means we completely disagree and ten means we strongly agree. What score would you give? “As a church we believe that prayer makes a difference and we take prayer seriously.”

I know, it’s a subjective exercise but it does help us get a feel for where we think we are. We put our score at about half way – because we felt that we do genuinely believe that prayer makes a difference, but we also felt that we probably don’t take prayer as seriously as we could.

Let me give you a quick and recent example of why we thought that. Last month, we organised a Christmas party. I think it was great that about 80 of us turned out on a dark, cold and wet night to celebrate and mix socially.

Rejoicing and making merry is a good and proper thing for Christians to do especially at Christmas time. If anything, I think we should do more of it than we do.

But I know that in my time here, five and a half years now, we’ve never once had even a third of that number for any prayer meeting – and in fact the numbers are usually below 10.

All Saints’ has a reputation of being a flourishing church, and in many ways we are. But if prayerfulness is a key measure of the spiritual health of a church, how alive are we really?

The Director of Mission for our diocese, Judy Hurst, said something that really struck me at the consultation. She said that when she first came to the North East a few years ago, she did some research into all the growing churches in the diocese.

And guess what she found? She discovered that the one common denominator for all the growing churches in our region is that they are all specifically praying that they will grow.

It sounds so simple – and it is. We need to start doing that. We need to pray together, specifically and persistently for growth.

As it happens, I had been feeling for several months prior to that consultation that we needed to raise the temperature of prayer at All Saints’.

It bothered me that attendance at our prayer meetings is generally low.

It bothered me that relatively little seems to change on the Prayer Points bulletin and that I often find them left behind in the pews rather than taken away and used. Lots of things about prayer bothered me.

By pure coincidence, or maybe God-incidence, a week or so before the consultation, I had asked Mark Harrison if he would consider helping us raise the profile of prayer at All Saints’.

That includes things like arranging training for leading intercessory prayers and prayer ministry, building up the fourth Sunday of the month evening service specifically for prayer.

It includes suggesting a more focused approach in Prayer Points, and supporting Sola with growing the Prayer Breakfast - and much more.

Mark kindly agreed and so I am pleased to announce this morning that Mark is our Prayer Coordinator.

The South African devotional writer Andrew Murray once said this: “The person who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization in history.” No pressure there then, Mark!

The group of us who went to the consultation also felt that our verse for the year should focus on prayer and we felt led to Ephesians 6.18 which says: “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”

I’ll be saying a bit more about this verse at the end.

If you go into a Christian bookstore you’ll find lots of resources on prayer. Depending on what type of shop it is, you’ll be able to find books of prayers, prayer stools, prayer candles, prayer diaries, prayer stones, prayer beads, prayer guides, prayer icons, mugs that say “Keep Calm and Pray” – you name it.

But have you ever noticed that there’s nothing in Scripture about prayer techniques? The Bible’s approach is different. Instead, it shows us how prayer works in peoples’ experience.

It shows us people praying when they’re joyful, when they’re sick, when they’re lost, when they’re grateful, when they doubt, and even when they just want to curl up and die.

It shows us people praying in times of crisis or danger and tells us what happened next.

It shows us people praying about difficult decisions they have to make and what turns out to be the best option and why.

It shows us people praying that something will happen and it tells us what they do next when nothing does happen.

These are the kinds of stories we’re going to look at over the next six weeks; ones that show us in people’s actual experience how to pray tenaciously, discerningly, earnestly, authoritatively, honestly and today, unfailingly.

How Do You Pray Unfailingly?

How do you pray unfailingly? That’s what the reading from Daniel is all about. You probably know the story; it’s one of the best known in the Old Testament.

Daniel, a man of God, is the victim of a coordinated campaign to present a complaint against him at work because of his faith.

I’ve just finished reading a book called Christians in the Firing Line which describes a dozen or so disciplinary actions or legal cases against Christians because of a visible or verbal expression of their faith.

Some of these cases have attracted media coverage and you will have heard of them. What you are less likely to be aware of is how stressful and financially costly litigation has been for the defendants, and how disproportionate the sanctions can be given the nature of the alleged offence.

Well, this is what happened to Daniel. Those with an agenda against him engineered a change in the law which led to a clear conflict of conscience for him.

But the thing about Daniel is this; prayer was a settled priority in his life. It was an immoveable feature of his day. No matter what the tasks of the day involved, or what the law said, or what his colleagues thought, or what he felt like, Daniel prayed – unfailingly.

He didn’t make a big display of it. Nor did he go around singing his own praises. (Jesus warned against both).

He didn’t bang on about his rights or protest either. We have the legal right to freedom of religion in our country but prayer is not a right, it’s a responsibility.

And Daniel took his seriously. He went to an upstairs room so he wasn’t making an exhibition of himself to everyone going about their business at street level. But he didn’t shamefully hide his faith away either; he kept the windows open – which would be common sense in a hot place like Babylon. And he prayed – unfailingly.

There’s a book out by a man called Paul Miller called A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World. It very nuts-and-bolts is refreshingly real, understanding where most people are rather than where they would like to be. It doesn’t pour on the guilt or say how wonderfully liberating he finds it to pray and fast for weeks on end.

It’s an American book, so it may not exactly mirror the situation in the UK but it quotes recent studies that show that 90% of people in our churches do not really have a praying life and most people feel guilt, confusion and frustration. 90%. “This kind of Christianity” Miller says, “cannot withstand the onslaught of a postmodern world.”

But, you see, Daniel was able to withstand the very worst spiritual assault of his day precisely because he prayed unfailingly – in fact “three times a day” we’re told.

Daniel knew the truth about the old saying “Those who kneel the most stand the best.”

We’re not told how long he spent in prayer and I presume that’s because it’s not important. Some people get hung up about how long they should spend in prayer.

Books on prayer often talk about it. The Scottish evangelist Henry Drummond said “Ten minutes spent in the presence of Christ every day, aye two minutes, will make the whole day different.” That sounds manageable doesn’t it?

But at the other end of the scale, the reformer Martin Luther is reported to have said; “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business; I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.”  

I don’t know about you, but I usually feel quite defeated by testimonies about being so overwhelmed, and life being so impossibly hectic, that it’s impossible to get through the day without spending most of the morning praying! I suspect we might admire that kind of statement but most of us, if not all of us, just can’t relate to it.

If that’s the Premier League of Prayer, then I must be in the 4^th Division of the Retired Postmen’s League - on the bench, for the reserves!

I’m an early riser and I do try to spend the first hour of most days with a cup of tea and my Bible; and I usually pray over the events in my diary that day and for people on my heart. I’m not one for solitude and I usually find it hard to focus. But I do find it goes well with me when I do that.

It might be different for you. Some people pray best in the car after listening to the Bible on CD (if this is the way you like to pray, learn to pray with your eyes open)! For others, the best moment is at the end of the day on the sofa with a cup of cocoa.

Praying Continuously

But what about our verse for the year from Ephesians 6.18? “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds if prayers and requests.” I don’t think it really means carving out a time in the day to pray, good though that may be. It seems to be talking about living in an atmosphere of prayer.

When the Bible says “pray on all occasions” (or as other versions translate it “pray without ceasing”) does it mean “do nothing else at that moment?” It can’t do. Otherwise we would never eat, or sleep, or talk to anyone or look after the kids.

I think it must mean something like “keep coming back to it.” When people say they have an incessant cough we know they mean that the cough is actually intermittent, but that it keeps recurring.

When people say that they’re always on their mobile phone, we know that they are not always on their mobile phone. They still take showers, eat meals with the boss and drive their cars, and they are not on their phone at those times. It means that they frequently return to it.

That’s what it means I think to be constant in prayer. We keep coming back to it. I find it much easier, much less daunting, to see prayer as a quick reflex than as a solid block of hours on end.

Here’s an example of that: when asked how much time he spent in prayer, the German missionary and orphanage director George Müller replied, “I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk and when I lie down and when I arise. And the answers are always coming.”

This kind of living in an atmosphere of short, simple, under the breath prayers is what the New Testament means, I think.

So you get up in the morning and think “Thank you Lord for a new day.”

You turn the radio on and hear about parliament so you think “Lord, bless all those in authority with wisdom and show them that they are answerable to you.”

Or someone comes into your mind for no good reason – maybe it’s a prompt from the Holy Spirit – it probably is; so you think “Father, whatever this person’s need is today, meet it from the abundance of your riches in grace.”

And so on. “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds if prayers and requests.” I think this is what it means to pray unfailingly and once you’re in the habit of doing it, it’s second nature.

And I want to get better at doing that this year. I hope you do too.

You may find yourself coming back time and time again to the same short, simple prayer about something mundane you do every day. But that’s good!

Think of a stone cutter hammering away at a rock a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet on the 101st blow the rock splits in two.

Question: which blow split the rock? We know it wasn’t just the one last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

Some of you I know have been praying for something for years now with nothing to show for it. But your prayers are like the hammering away at that rock, so you keep praying and don’t give up.

Ending

As I close, I’m not going to do this every week, but I do feel led to do it today. If you feel that the Lord is speaking to you about growing in prayerfulness - not yet but in a minute or so - I’m going to ask you to stand, right where you are.

Let me explain. I’m not going to ask you to come out to the front. I’m not going to ask you to say anything or do anything other than stand where you are, but I do want to pray for you as you stand, and specifically that God will pour out his Holy Spirit afresh on you to help you.

Romans 8.26 says “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (NRSV).

This is what it means to pray in the Spirit, we let him do the work.

And actually I think it’s important to physically get to our feet if God is speaking to us because, like Daniel, committing ourselves to want to grow in prayer is something for which we should be ready to stand up and be counted for.

So if you feel that the Lord is speaking to you about growing in prayerfulness this year, will you please stand, right where you are, and I’ll close in prayer.

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 5th January 2014