[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon Resources for October 17 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Prayer Does Not Need Proof

Prayer does not need proof outside itself because its proofs are within. It is in the nature and function of man, like breathing, eating and drinking, and he practices it as part of his very being.

Samuel Johnson

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A People of Prayer

I know of a pastor who regularly uses his church directory to pray for the members by name. Although he didn't say it, my guess is that his prayers do much to change him and his relationship to those members.

Within the gospel of Luke, there is abundant encouragement to pray. There are examples of Jesus' praying - if he needed to pray, how much more do we? If nothing else, during the period when we are waiting for the kingdom to come, we are to be people of prayer.

Brian Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes
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And Then Some

James Byrnes, who was Secretary of State under FDR, said that the difference between successful people and average people can be summed up in three words. Here are the three words, "and then some." He said, "Average people do what is expected. Successful people do what is expected, and then some." Our widow did what was expected, and then some.

John Wayne Clarke, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost (Last Third): Father, Forgive Them, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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God Knows What I Need

A little boy knelt down to say his bedtime prayers. His parents heard him reciting the alphabet in very reverent tones. When asked what he was doing, he replied, "I'm saying my prayers, but I cannot think of the exact words tonight. So, I'm just saying all the letters. God knows what I need, and he'll put all the words together for me."

Now, that is not far from a proper way to pray! In seeking prayer we are looking for Christ's mind. We are not sure quite how to word our prayer. So we ask God to take our words and fit them into the correct prayer. We ask him to edit our prayers by cutting out the unnecessary, making corrections, and adding the necessities. We ask God to take our minds and make them his. We ask the Holy Spirit to pray through us. And when we seek in prayer like that, Jesus assures us in the text, we shall find.

Stephen M. Crotts, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost: Music from another Room, CSS Publishing Company 
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Let Us Pray

When the late composer Leonard Bernstein was composing his famous contemporary Mass -his rock, blues and jazz Mass-he said that he wanted it to be "an honest Mass." What he meant was that he wanted the words and music of this Mass, this worship service, to ring true even to people who didn't see themselves as particularly religious, or churchy.

Well, as such, he knew that the most demanding moment in the Mass would not be "Credo," "I believe." Most people out there believe in the culture, at least believe vaguely, in God. The most demanding moment would not be Credo. It would be Oremus, "Let us pray." Because to pray, to talk to God, we cannot hedge our bets about God, we have to move beyond vagueness and enter into a relationship with God.

Sure enough, in Bernstein's Mass, when it comes time to pray, a chorus begins to intone a traditional prayer of confession, but then a lone tenor voice soars up above the others to sing:

If I could, I'd confess.
Good and loud, nice and slow
Get this load off my chest
Yes, but how Lord, I don't know.

What I say, I don't feel
What I feel, I don't show
What I show, isn't real
What is real, Lord?
I don't know.
No, no, no, I don't know.

According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus told his disciples a parable because they were having problems with prayer. Now Leonard Bernstein may have assumed that only contemporary, and non-religious people would have problems with prayer, but Jesus knew better. We all have problems with prayer.

Thomas Long, Praying Without Losing Heart 
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God's Timetable Not Ours

I heard a story which illustrates how we often confuse God's timing with ours. A country newspaper had been running a series of articles on the value of church attendance. One day, a letter to the editor was received in the newspaper office. It read, "Print this if you dare. I have been trying an experiment. I have a field of corn which I plowed on Sunday. I planted it on Sunday. I did all the cultivating on Sunday. I gathered the harvest on Sunday and hauled it to my barn on Sunday. I find that my harvest this October is just as great as any of my neighbors' who went to church on Sunday. So where was God all this time?" The editor printed the letter, but added his reply at the bottom. "Your mistake was in thinking that God always settles his accounts in October."

That's often our mistake as well, isn't it -- thinking that God should act when and how we want him to act, according to our timetable rather than his. The fact that our vision is limited, finite, unable to see the end from the beginning, somehow escapes our mind. So we complain; we get frustrated; we accuse God of being indifferent to us; we do not live by faith.

Larry R. Kalajainen, Extraordinary Faith for Ordinary Time, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.

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If You Just Hold Up Your Head

In a Peanut's cartoon Lucy encourages Charlie Brown: "Look at it this way, Charlie Brown," she consoles. "These are your bitter days. These are the days of your hardship and struggle ..." The next frame goes on: "... but if you just hold your head up high and keep on fighting, you'll triumph!" "Gee, do you really think so, Lucy?" Charlie asks. As she walks away Lucy says: "Frankly, no!"

Hope is like that. We speak of it more often than we believe in it. Hope is not a strong word for us. It has more to do with "wishing" than "expecting." It has the sound of resignation, an inability to bring about, influence, or even believe that a desired event or goal might ever come to be.

Theodore F. Schneider, Until the King Comes, CSS Publishing Company 

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Parable of the Crazy Old Lady

Frankly, don't we wish that Jesus had told this parable in a little different way. Couldn't he have gotten the same point across if He had told it something like this:

Verily, verily I tell you that once upon a time there was a good lady who lived next door to an atheist. Everyday, when the lady prayed, the atheist guy could hear her. He thought to himself, "She sure is crazy, praying all the time like that. Doesn't she know there is no GOD!" Many times while she was praying, he would go to her house and harass her, saying, "Lady, why do you pray all the time? Don't you know there is no GOD!" But she kept on praying.

One day, she ran out of groceries. As usual, she was praying to the Lord explaining her situation and thanking Him for what He was going to do. As usual, the atheist heard her praying and thought to himself, "Humph...I'll fix her.

The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for the Proper 24 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com. 

Please visit http://www.eSermons.com/
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