Sermon from July 9, 2006
Pastor Mark Smith and I are calling the Church to prayer in the next three months. In ten sermons we want to provide biblical teaching and practical help that will encourage more of us to pray daily than ever before.

We will talk about all kinds of praying. We will address some of the barriers to praying. Mostly, we want to help us all to seek God by means of prayer. Over the past decade in particular, the discipline of prayer has shaped my days. I commend what we have to say, not as theory, but as a lived experience of communion with God.

A number of us have prepared a booklet that we think will help. It is a 31-Day Prayer Guide. You can correlate it with the day of the month, or you can just start. Each day is entitled simply Day 1 or Day 10, etc. Central to what I do today is to model for you how to use this Prayer Guide.

You can have a hard copy of the Prayer Guide. They are in the vestibule. They cost $1 to cover paper costs. You can also access it at our Web site, beginning today. Before modeling for you how to use the Prayer Guide, it would be good to listen to the biblical encouragement to pray.

Prayer in the Bible
Deuteronomy 4:7 – 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?

1 Samuel 12:23 – As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right.

2 Chronicles 7:14 – If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Matthew 26:41 – "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

Romans 8:26 – In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

Ephesians 6:18 – 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 saints.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 – Pray continually.

No surprises here. From stem to stern the Word of God calls on the people of God to pray to God. For many of you in many ways this is a reality in your lives. Mark and I recognize that and thank God for that. We hope to encourage you to continue on and deepen your most holy faith. If prayer is a new experience for you, we hope to encourage you to taste this discipline and build it into your daily experience.

The Prayer Guide Structure
We want to put into the hands of every BVBC household a hard copy or a web copy of our 31-Day Prayer Guide. I am holding a copy in my hand. Let me introduce you to the way it is put together.

Every day's routine includes five sections. 

• An Expression of Trust. This will be a short verse from the Bible that expresses trust in the living God. This helps us to get into the right frame of mind to approach God in prayer.
• A Plea to God. This will be a prayer from the Psalms that calls upon God for help. This links our experience with that of God's people in Bible times.
• Requests to God. This will have five categories of requests: for our households, our church, our nation, the war on terror, and ourselves. Each category will offer specific guidelines, but we can augment them as the Spirit leads us.
• Praise to God. This will turn our attention away from our wants and needs. It will focus on God with praise and thanks for who He is and His great works for us.
• A Prayer for the First Week. This prayer will link each day of the week. A good discipline is to memorize this prayer so we can use it on many occasions.

Now, we need to road test this Prayer Guide. In the next ten minutes, we will actually pray our way through Day 1 of the Prayer Guide. I will offer no comments as we go along. Each section will be on the screen. I will kneel while I lead us through Day 1. You can kneel or sit. There will be times when I ask you to pray. Most times, I will pray in order to model for you how it works. So, together, let's pray to our God and Savior.

Modeling Day 1

• For your family: focus on any problems. If there are none, give thanks for peace.
• For BVBC: ask God to provide the money we need for Phase III.
• For the nation: pray for the President.
• For the war on terror: ask God to protect America from terrorist attack.
• For yourself: ask God that your heart not grow cold as wickedness increases.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Here are some ways you can use this 31-Day Prayer Guide. It can be a good personal discipline to use it as your daily prayer. You can expand on it, if you choose, but if you did the prayer guide just as it is written, it would build your faith significantly.

You can use it for family prayer. One person can guide the prayer time, just as I guided our prayer time today. Or you can ask different people in your household to do different sections and different requests.

You can use it in your small groups or in the Christian education classes as a guided prayer time. This works particularly well, if you are correlating the day in the Prayer Guide with the day of the month. If your small group is meeting on July 13, you would be using Day 13 of the Prayer Guide.

A fourth use is more demanding. You could pray through the entire 31-Day Prayer Guide at one sitting. This would be suitable for an extended prayer time or as part of an all-day or all-night prayer meeting.

In James 2:18 the great apostle said, I will show you my faith by what I do. Prayer is something we do that expresses our trust in God. So, let's trust God together and build this expression of our trust into the DNA of this church's life.

One final thing. I don't want you to misunderstand me, but this effort to be a praying church is not something I intend to talk about much outside BVBC. Let's encourage each other to pray, certainly. But let's just do it. Less chatter, more prayer.