Billy Hellmark – Scripture Reading and Prayer
1. Amen, it’s good to praise the Lord. We’re going to read from the Holy Scriptures.
From Psalm 27:1,4. “The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life — of whom shall I be afraid?
One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
2. We’re going to today about having a life of prayer, and I think that verse 4 here expresses such a longing for the Lord, to dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, to gaze on His beauty and to seek Him in His temple. And you know, that we don’t need to go to a special place. It’s wonderful when we come together and seek the Lord together, but He is always there, for us when we cry out, when we seek His face. So, let’s do it day-by-day and let’s do it together when we come together like this.
Stavros Antoniades – Prayer
1. So, let’s pray for this service. Heavenly Father, we thank You once again for giving us the ability to be in Your house, to be together, the whole family, heavenly Father God. We ask today and every day of our lives, to be able to pray and open up our hearts to you Father God. And that Your Holy Spirit may penetrate the hardness of our hearts, the hardness of every day, heavenly Father, and to deeply touch our hearts. Yes, Father, as time goes by, we have need of You all the more. Bless each and every one who is present and anyone who is connected via the internet. Bless my brethren wherever they may be. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Billy Hellmark – Main Message
1. It’s good to be in the presence of God. This year, in this church, is going to be a year of prayer. Isn’t that exciting? And today we’re going to talk about ‘How to make prayer-life a reality’. I think that deep down we all desire to be a praying people. But it’s not always easy. There is so much going on around us, and inside of us, that easily distract us from prayer.
2. So, what’s the best way to learn how to pray? I mean, we can come up with lots of ideas. But I have one good idea, ‘to pray’. We learn how to pray by praying. So, let’s do it right now. And I was thinking as we were worshipping, there’s so much going on in the world right now, on the bigger scale, but I also know that there are a lot of things going on in our lives as well. The wonderful thing is that the Lord knows what’s going on in Israel, Palestine, in America, in the Philippines, in so many different places, but He knows what’s going on in your life as well.
3. So, let’s just turn to Him for a moment. Thank You Lord, that You are the God that is present. You came to this world to be here with us, to become part of this world in a deeper way. You shared the experiences with us as humans. And right now, we turn to You. You know all the nations, the peoples around the world, that are desperate, after very difficult times, without hope for the future, and others that maybe have hope, in people and in systems. But Lord we pray for this world, we pray as humans, knowing that’s only in You that we can put our hope. And we pray for this year, whatever lies before us, in our personal lives in our families, in our countries, in this world. We turn to You, Lord. Have mercy on us. Let Your Kingdom come. Let Your will be done. We pray, even this day, come close to us, come close to Your people, to Your church. Revive Your church around the world, and let us all see that You are not far away, but You are in our midst. So, bless us as we seek Your face, and may we be a blessing to others. Amen.
4. So, how to make prayer-life a reality. It’s not been easy for me. I have followed Jesus for many years, more years than years some of you have in life, and I always had the desire to be a person of prayer. But it’s not been easy. So, like many of us, I feel I’m not where I should be, and you very easily get a bad conscience. And sometimes it’s the bad conscience that pushes us to pray. And of course, it’s good if we discipline ourselves and we do what we know is right to do. But to really have a life of prayer, I think we need something more, deeper, to bring us to the place of prayer, than just a bad conscience.
5. Prayer is something beautiful. You remember the story from Genesis, when God had created Adam and Eve, and it said that in the cool of the night, God was walking with them. They had a deep relationship, friendship. And we know that that was destroyed by sin, but through Jesus coming and restoring that relationship. We often talk about a legal standing before God. And it’s true that we have been declared righteous, free from all accusations. But He wants to restore it even at a deeper level. God wants to restore that closeness to Him, that once was there.
6. So, it will be quite practical what I’m going to say. But let’s start by reading two passages from the Gospels. The first one is Luke 18:9-14, “Then Jesus told this parable to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
7. We will also read one verse from Matthew 18:19, “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
8. In those two passages, you see two very different types of attitudes that are promoted, attitudes we need, when we come before God. In the first passage we saw two different people. If you noticed, both of them separated themselves from others, one out of pride, he thought he was much better than the others, so he didn’t want to have anything to do with the others. So, he separated himself for that reason. The other one, stood back, because he realized that he was a sinner, and he cried out for God to be merciful to him. And Jesus says, the second one was heard.
9. So, to come before God, we need humility. All of us. We don’t need to be the worst sinner; we can still be humble. We’re all sinners. Humility. In the other passage, Jesus says that we agree on earth about anything we ask and it will be done by the Father. It speaks about boldness. Ask about anything. Those two, I believe are very important, the humility and the boldness. It’s maybe a tricky combination. We can easily go overboard on either side.
10. We know we can ask about anything and forget about the humility and become like the pharisee, and think that we deserve this. But the truth is, it’s all by grace. So, be humble, be bold, and find the way between those two, or with both of them, I should say, not between them, avoiding them but with boldness and humility. That is in simple terms, how to come before God.
11. I said that if our motivation to come before God is a bad conscience, i.e. it’s something I have to do, we’re missing the mark. It’s our love for God that should draw us to Him. When we open our hearts to Him, He will warm them. He will warm our hearts. But there is a battle between the spirit, which is willing, Jesus said these words, and the flesh which is interested in a lot of other things, and often are filled with worry. But the Lord sees and blesses every little effort we make to come before Him in prayer. Even if we can sometimes just whisper the name of Jesus, He’s there, He hears us. And let us not forget that this is a place where we encouraged to pray and when we come together to pray, something happens. We pray together, and we pray for each other, and we can know that others are praying for us. That’s a strength.
12. So, some practical things. I said it was going to be very practical. Well, to have those wonderful times of prayer, where do they come from? Do they just come from heaven, when we are lying around watching a movie? I think a key to knowing the Lord’s presence and experiencing Him in a special way, comes from developing a regularity in our prayer. We can see already in the Old Testament, that the Jews were taught to have certain times of prayer. For instance, in David’s Psalms, and in Daniel’s life in Babylon, and eventually they set certain times, these times for prayer, for the people.
13. And we see even through the New Testament, that Jesus went away to pray at certain times. We see that the disciples went to the temple to pray at certain hours, and some important events happened at those certain hours of prayer. Like, when Peter was praying on the rooftop, and he had a vision. Peter and John went to the temple to pray and they met a paralyzed man. The Holy Spirit fell on the disciples when they were gathered to pray. But I think it is important to understand that those specific hours are not the most important thing, but the regularity to set the practice, prayer in the morning, in some documents from the early church, it says, ‘Pray the Lord’s prayer three time every day’. Regularly turning to God, helps us to be aware of His presence all the time.
14. If we know that God is there, we can whisper to Him anywhere, anytime. We know He sees us; we know He hears us; we know He is close to us. So, it’s good to develop, even if it is a simple practice, but to regularly turn to God. And if we do it regularly and more and more often, it becomes easier. So, we learn to pray by praying.
15. If we can have a place to do it, it’s wonderful, it’s helpful. Jesus talks about going into your room. Maybe you don’t have a room where you can be alone with God. But it’s helpful to have a place where you can say, here I go when I pray. For some, it’s even going on a walk. But to get rid of as many distractions as possible.
16. Another thing that can be very helpful, is to use other peoples’ words and prayers. You know, the book of Psalms, it is like a prayer book. And of course, it’s good to pray our words and thoughts, from our hearts. But it can become very self-centered. I only pray how I feel today and I forget who God is. I lose the perspective of what He can do. And praying for instance the Psalms, helps us to keep a focus on Him who is. But it also helps us to express those things which are difficult to express to God. If you read the Psalms, sometimes you discover that the Psalmists are very frustrated, very even angry with God.
17. So, praying the Psalms can help us to express those things that is otherwise hard for us to express, and they don’t stay in the anger. And many of the times, if it’s for instance David, he turns it around and encourages even himself, to see God’s promises and what God has done and remind himself of that. But to pray and have a life of prayer, I think the Scriptures, like the Psalms, are very important to help us.
18. Another thing is to use our whole being. We’re not just a spirit. We have a body, we have a soul, we have emotions, thoughts and sometimes it’s helpful to kneel down, use your body to express things to God. I think it’s a key, to find simple things to do, when it comes to prayer. We don’t need to aim for the sky. Well, maybe we should, if we believe God is there, we should aim for the sky. But you know what I mean.
19. Quite a few years ago now, I was so convicted that I need to pray, I need to pray, so, I decided to pray in the evening. And I knelt down, and I thought, I’m going to pray for hours now. The next thing I knew, I woke up and my knees were hurting. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pray on your knees all night, but maybe if you’re not used to that, don’t start with those kinds of things. But rather start with some small steps.
20. If you find it hard to pray every day, maybe read a Scripture and pray it back to God, and let prayer grow out of that. Like I said before, pray the Lord’s prayer three times a day, you can go away, you can even go to the bathroom for a minute and pray it, just as a way of turning to God. But let it grow from something small and develop.
21. In the New Testament it talks about praying all the time. Pray without ceasing or pray always. In the beginning of Acts, we see that all the disciples, Jesus’ mother and a whole group came together and they prayed, constantly, it says. But to develop this, that we can pray all the time, we need to start on a journey. And it doesn’t mean just keep talking all the time. But I believe it means to live our lives constantly turned towards heaven.
22. We need to live on this earth with our feet firmly on this earth. But to realize that we are close to heaven. Heaven is close to us. It’s never far away. So, we can live our lives like that. But to reach where we live a life of prayer, we need to build some good structures, having regularities in our prayers, than the spontaneous, those special moments can come and grow out of our ongoing prayer life.
23. As humans, we are created to live in relationship to God. So, prayer is part of what we are created for. It’s still a struggle; it doesn’t come naturally, just from heaven. It takes discipline, because we need to learn to live in a new way as children of God, that have been born by Him.
24. I want to go back to the very beginning of the service. Not so many were here at that time. But we read from Psalm 27, and in verse 4, it says the following, “One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
25. One thing – what would you ask if you asked for one thing of the Lord? I can think of a lot of things that I can think of spontaneously to ask for. I’m not sure that the first thing I would ask for is that I would dwell in the house of the Lord. But David, more than anything else, that he would dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life. To gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.
26. And the way they knew the Lord in those days, they longed to go to a special place, the temple, to experience that, dwelling in the house of the Lord, gazing on His beauty, seeking Him in His temple. But today we live in a different time, when Jesus has come, His presence is here; His Kingdom is within us, it’s here among us. We don’t need to go to the temple. That longing for the Lord, can be fulfilled in our lives, both as we as each one of us draws near to Him, but also when we do it together and we experience Him together. And if you have tasted some of that, His presence close to you, His presence when we are together before Him, is seeing just a tiny bit of His beauty, it sparks something in our hearts.
27. And having a prayer-life, without this, it becomes routine. It’s good, but I believe the Lord wants us to know the fullness of His presence. If we could ask the Lord of anything, may it be that we would live in His presence, all the days of our lives, to gaze on His beauty and to seek Him in His temple.
28. I think for me this is a beautiful picture of what it means, to live close to the Lord, and having our deepest desires met in Him and through Him. Let’s just take a moment in silence, where you are, thinking, how can I grow in prayer. Don’t take that huge leap and just fall asleep and your knees get sore. But make an effort to take a few steps, maybe a small step, then add to that as you can.
29. The Lord is drawing us, not by giving us a bad conscience, but by His Spirit birthing a desire in our hearts for Him. So, let’s just take a moment before Him. Yes Lord, spark a desire in our hearts for you. Help us to find ways to keep it in our hearts, and we have You and Your beauty before our own eyes. Help us to take, even if they are small steps, to be people of prayer. And help us together, to be a people of prayer. We thank You for those that faithfully pray at different times throughout the week.
30. You know Lord, sometimes it’s wonderful, it’s easy, sometimes it’s like hard work. But pour out Your Spirit on each one of us. Birth this among us through Your Spirit. Come Holy Spirit, speak to our hearts.
31. Yes Lord, as we start a new year, may it not be just by word, a year of prayer, but let something new appear in all of us. Your Spirit that would draw us to Yourself. Let’s pray one of the songs where we express our longing for God. Make it your prayer and if you can, if you feel led to, decide to take a small step to make this not just a year of prayer but a life of prayer. Amen.