Sermon from August 13, 2006
I'd like to talk about four words in our Christian vocabulary. I think we have a rough and ready understanding of them. I'd like to take our understanding a step further. The four words are: praise, thanksgiving, confession, and intercession. They are action words. They tell us how prayer behaves in different circumstances.

Here's what I'd like to do with them. First, I want to give you memorable ways of understanding them. Second, I'd like to illustrate them from everyday experience. Third, I'd like to illustrate them from the Bible. Then, I'd like to show you a powerful way these four words can help us to turn scripture into prayer. Finally, I'd like for us to pray, and I'll model for you how to turn scripture into prayer.

Memorable Ways of Understanding
So, let's begin with memorable ways of understanding praise, thanksgiving, confession, and intercession. Does it ever register how often you hear people say words like cool, fantastic, great, awesome, marvelous, unbelievable, and stunning? It is worth noting that they are all different ways of saying that something is good, and there are probably a dozen other words like them, all of which are synonymous ways of saying that something is good.

Goodness is the basic quality; but in a world where we feel the need to exaggerate in order to prove that we're sincere, it is not enough to say that something is good. That is too vanilla. We want 33 varieties of goodness to pick from to express our feelings about things. That's just being human. Nevertheless, we need to remember that goodness is the basic quality. Using that word takes away the emotions, which the other words evoke, and that helps us to think more clearly about what we're talking about.

Goodness is central to praise, thansgiving, confession, and intercession. Let me show you. Praise means our expression of something good about someone or something. When you say to someone, "You look great," that is praise. If we're lying, it's flattery, but if it's true, or if we think it's true, it is praise.

Turn to a couple of people around you and say, "Nice outfit," or "nice voice," or "nice smile." Go ahead and do that. Were you flattering or were you praising or were you just doing what I asked you to do? To the degree that you could be sincere, to that degree you gave praise. I think you get the idea.

Now, look in your Bible to Luke 1:48ff. The Virgin Mary had gone to visit her relatives, Elizabeth and Zechariah in the hill country of Judea. Her meeting with Elizabeth was joyous, and Elizabeth called Mary the mother of my Lord (Luke 1:43). Mary broke out into a song, which the Church has labeled The Magnificat. It occupies verses 46-55. Look at just two lines of her song.

In verse 48 Mary says that the Lord "has been mindful of the humble state of his servant." In verse 49 she says, "The Mighty One has done great things for me – holy is his name." Both offer praise. Both express something good about the Lord.

Now, turn to a couple of people arond you and finish this sentence: "God is ..." Go ahead and do that. What did you say? "God is good," or "God is love," or "God is just," or something else. I know you were sincere in what you said, and what you did was praise to God. You get the idea.

Now, let's turn our attention to thanksgiving. Thanksgiving means our expression of appreciation for something good, which someone has done for our benefit. When you say, "Thanks for a good time," that is thanksgiving.

Look a little further along in the Gospel of Luke 17:11-19. Luke recounts the occasion, when ten lepers stood at a distance and called out, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" Jesus healed them and sent them to the priests. Verses 15-16 are very important. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him – and he was a Samaritan.

It is interesting that praise and thanksgiving both happened. They are closely related to each other, and yet they are distinct. When we praise God for something good, the focus is on God and not on ourselves. When we give thanks to God for something good He did for us, the focus is on the benefits we receive. A sense of debt enters. The more we depend on God or someone else for those benefits, the greater our sense of debt and the greater our sense of gratitude.

Just as a sidebar, the Bible says that a failure to give thanks to God lies at the root of human sorrows. Romans 1:21 says, For although the human family knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. A failure to say thank you to our human benefactors also coarsens us and blinds us to how dependent we are on many others.

Confession is agreeing that we failed to do something good, or that we did something bad. "Billy, did you hit your brother?" "Yes." He did something, but it wasn't good. By saying, "Yes," he was confessing. "Susie, did you call to tell your parents you would be late in getting home?" "No." She failed to do something good. By saying, "No," she was confessing.

Look back at the most famous story Jesus ever told in chapter 15, "The Parable of the Prodigal Son." The younger son took his inheritance early, squandered it, and came to his senses only after he had hit bottom. He decided home wasn't such a bad place after all, and he set out for home with cap in hand. Verse 21 tells us what he told his father in the first moment of their reunion. The son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you." That is confession.

Luke five has preserved another striking example of confession. Peter and company had been fishing all night without catching anything. Jesus came along later that day, got into Peter's boat and told him to put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch. Peter was skeptical, but he did it. Verse six says that when they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.

Even more remarkable was Peter's reaction to the huge catch of fish in verse eight. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" Peter's confession reminds us of how deep is the reservoir of failure in every one of us. Confession as a discipline is a profound reality check on our lives.

Intercession is asking someone to do something good for us or for another person. "Say, Jack, I have to work late. Could you pick up my boy for the soccer match?" "Sweetheart, would you get some things at the store on your way home?" We do this kind of thing all the time. We don't usually call it intercession. We call it doing a favor or lending a hand. It happens throughout the Bible.

Down the page in Luke 5:18-19, some friends brought a paralytic to Jesus and asked Him to heal him. That's intercession. In Luke 7:3 a centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. That's intercession.

Martin Luther's Garland of Four Strands
Almost 500 years ago, the Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, demonstrated good pastoral care for his barber. His barber asked him to teach him how to pray. Luther, who was never short on words, gave him an answer that may have been more than he asked for. However, part of his answer offers us further practical assistance in learning how to pray.

Luther taught him to turn Scripture into prayer by using what he called "a garland of four strands." The four strands are, as you might expect, praise, thanksgiving, confession, and intercession. Here's how it works.

You take a short passage of the Bible, maybe even a single verse. You read it. Then, you ask what it tells you about God's character and actions in the world. When you have identified that, you frame a prayer of praise to God.

Then, you read the verse again and ask if it tells you something good that God has done for you. If so, you frame a prayer of thanksgiving to God. Neither this prayer nor any other needs to be long. You may spend more time thinking about the verse than you spend praying. We call that meditation, and that too is a good thing.

Then, you read the verse again to see if it suggests something good in your life that you have failed to do or something bad that you have done. If so, you frame a prayer of confession to God.

Finally, you read the verse a fourth time. This time, you are looking for any blessing in the verse that you might want to ask God to do for you or for someone else. If so, you frame a prayer of intercession to God.

I think you get the idea, but maybe it would help for me to do what I have been talking about. I'd like to do it a couple of ways. First, I'd like to show you how to turn a verse or short passage from the Bible into praise, thanksgiving, confession, and intercession. Then, I'd like to take another passage that I have chosen and actually pray.

I need your help for the first act. Would you call out a favorite verse of the Bible? I'll find that verse and try to turn it into praise, thanksgiving, confession, and intercession. So, go ahead and call out a favorite verse.

(In the next few minutes I hope to be able to take whatever verse the congregation gives me and show how that verse has within it sources of praise, thanksgiving, confession, and intercession.)

Praying the Garland of Four Strands
I hope that has given you a sense of how to use Martin Luther's garland of four strands. Now, I want to take a biblical passage that I have chosen and use it as the basis of a prayer time right in the middle of this sermon.

The scripture that I have chosen is Ephesians 4:1-3. If you would, turn there with me. I'll read the passage and then turn it into prayer. Here is what it says. As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Let's pray together. I'll lead us, using this text as the source of my prayer.

Lord God, Almight and everlasting Father, you have given us, the Church, a calling, a vocation in this world. You have called us to be the place where you live with the human family. You have also given us unity by giving us your Spirit. You have given unity to BVBC, and in spite of our denominational divisions you have given unity to the whole Church throughout the world by giving us all your Holy Spirit. You are good and wise and gracious to do these things. Blessed be your name!

Lord, Paul went to jail for helping the Church to realize its vocation in the world; and yet, he called himself a prisoner for the Lord. I thank you for that. I thank you that his example encourages us to make pesonal sacrifices in order to help the Church realize its calling. I thank you for allowing me to serve that calling. I thank you that it has shaped my life. I thank you that I too have drunk the same Holy Spirit and been joined to my fellow believers throughout the world but especially here at BVBC.

Father, I am not always worthy of these blessings. I regret those times when I have been arrogant and presumptuous. I regret those times, when I needed to be gentle with the people you entrusted to my care, and I was harsh or hasty instead. There are times, when I am not patient with people. I didn't return that phone call, because I just wasn't willing to bear to listen to the person's complaining. Forgive me, Father.

Forgive me and help me to see that person as a child of God. Help me to discover the causes of the complaining, so that I can be more understanding. Help me and all of BVBC to see with the eyes of our souls what it means to be part of your dwelling place in North Wilmington and Southeastern PA. Help me to be slow to criticize other churches and to remember that the same Holy Spirit lives in them and unites them to us at a deep level. Help the evangelical church of New Castle County not to be so distant from each other but to find ways to express our unity in the Spirit. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
I like Luther's garland of four strands for several reasons. First, it teaches us to use Scripture as an aid to worship not merely as a sourcebook of ideas. It engages our hearts not just our minds.

Second, praying this way teaches us to think God's thoughts as we pray. This discipline makes it more likely that we will pray according to God's will and please Him.

Third, it enriches an aid to prayer like our 31-Day Prayer Guide. It can easily expand that simple guide into a more concentrated time of prayer. Every page of the Prayer Guide is replete with Scripture. So, the raw materials for using the garland of four strands are there on every page.

Fourth, do you have times in your daily routine, when you stop concentrating and take a momentary break? In fifteen seconds, you could remeber a favorite Bible verse and turn it into praise or thanksgiving or confession or intercession. In this way, you would practice the presence of God right down in the routine of your life.