A Church That Prays

Transcript

Good morning, y’all. I want to begin our time in a little bit of an unconventional way, and I want to start with both a confession and a plea, and contrary to what Thomas just shared, in terms of, yes, my zeal and passion to see prayer take a higher place, I’ve got to confess that I’m not up here speaking on the subject of prayer because my prayer life is one that I want y’all to emulate or follow, or because I’m some kind of expert on the topic. Quite the contrary, in fact, most days conclude with me having prayed far less than I would have hoped and having prayed for far fewer people than I would have liked to, and most likely with far less fervor and conviction than I probably should have. And not to mention the million and one times where my mind wanders. Can I get an amen? My mind wanders, and I

have to pray that all too familiar refrain, Father, forgive me for my wandering mind. Prayer with others is another challenge altogether, often filled with doubts and fears and insecurities and weird performative tendencies, and I would suspect that I’m maybe not alone. But if your prayer life is not what you think it ought to be, I want to encourage you that you are not alone. But in fact, you’re in great company. In fact, I would argue that we find ourselves in the best company, as it was Christ’s own disciples who recognized how their prayer lives had failed to live up to Christ in both language and power. They approached him humbly with those famous words, Lord, teach us, us, to pray. And what’s interesting about this request is these men had heard the greatest sermons ever preached. They had seen miracles jump up, and we have no record of them ever asking him how to preach or how to do

miracles. Rather, it’s prayer that was the subject of this most famous request. And while I don’t want to add anything to the text or imply something that isn’t intended, I do wonder if this was included because the Lord, in his infinite wisdom, knew that we’d all need to be schooled in the place of prayer. And if you find yourself in this camp unsatisfied with your prayer life and desiring to experience what Paul refers to all the fullness of God, I am here to plead with you to enroll in Christ’s school of prayer with me. For as we see in the New Testament, enrollment in this school is not an individual activity, the one where he teaches us to pray. And us, as good students, learn by doing and doing together. And as we can see in Acts, they all join together constantly in prayer along

with the women and Mary and the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. And so my hope and plea is that Trinity Church, which is made out of all of you, not just the pastors, not just the staff, not just the servers, not just the musicians, but all of you would enroll in the Lord’s school of prayer with me. Let’s pray. Our good and gracious King, would you teach us to pray? Not only the language, but the disposition of prayer, the habit of prayer, and as we’ll see today, the attitude of prayer. Would you do this for the good of your people and for the glory of your name? And it’s in Christ’s name that we pray. Amen. And so this morning we’ll be exploring why a church prays, how a church prays, and what happens when a church prays. And our text for this

Why a Church Prays

morning comes out of Hebrews 4.16, which is on page, I’m not sure, in your pew Bible. So if you don’t know, tap your neighbor on the shoulder and ask them to give you a hand to find it. But Hebrews 4.16. The text reads, I’ll read it again. It says,

The book of Hebrews has, for me, over the years, become a personal favorite text in the New Testament, assuming, of course, we’re allowed to have favorites. And so when I was asked to open up God’s word with you on the subject of prayer, Hebrews was both a safe and exciting place to begin. This book has a beautiful way of acknowledging the challenges of life, continually highlighting the need for us to encourage one another every day, giving context and weight to the person and significance of Jesus, and reminding us how we’re not alone in our pilgrimage. So yeah, I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a book of the Bible to read anytime soon. With all that being said, though, not much is known about this gem of a book. Unlike the other letters and books of the New Testament, we don’t know much about the who, the where, and the why. And what I mean by that is we

don’t know who the author is. We don’t know who the audience is. We don’t know where this group of believers is located and what exactly prompted this letter to be written and why. We can draw some assumptions. There’s some clues that are given. But in the Lord’s wisdom, he chose to leave these things out. And in a side note, I don’t think it’s an accident when the Lord chooses to leave things omitted from the Scriptures. We don’t have time to dive into that, so I’ll allow you to consider that on your way home, what that means. But back to Hebrews. One of the clues that we are given is that the audience was most likely of Jewish descent and familiar with the Old Testament, and more specifically, the Torah, the first five books. And as we see the author referencing Abraham, the nation of Israel, Moses, the Old Covenant, high priests, et cetera, all things that if you weren’t

Jewish, you most likely weren’t incredibly familiar with. And we find our author referencing these things in a way that would allow us to assume some level of prior knowledge. And in addition to the background of these individuals and these body of believers in the book of Hebrews, we’re also given some clues into what this body of believers was going through at the time. Specifically, in Hebrews 10, where it says, But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Family, these people suffered, and life with Jesus was clearly bringing a heightened level of difficulty to their reality. And we can also see that

there was most likely many who had fallen away from the faith, as there are many exhortations to persevere and not give in. Namely, in Hebrews 2, verse 1, chapter 3, verse 7, chapter 4, verse 13, chapter 6, verse 4 through 8, chapter 10, verse 26 through 31, and chapter 12, verses 25 through 29. I don’t think it’s an accident there’s that many exhortations. Now, from what we can gather about this body of believers, their experience is not very dissimilar to other New Testament churches. And their challenges, that they experienced, seem to have a common thread. And this was an incredibly challenging time and hostile time for New Testament churches, as they not only were learning and wrestling with the new realities and spiritual implications of the kingdom Jesus was ushering in, but they were doing so in a world that wanted no part of their Jesus, and wanted to erase and eliminate

any mark or trace of his message. These were challenging times. And if you want more proof, you only need to flip a few pages forward or backwards to any one of the other letters. So let’s do a quick little survey here into the issues and challenges of these early believers. On the topic of persecution, while referenced in almost every letter to the churches to some degree, we’ll look specifically at Paul’s words to Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3.11, where he says,

My persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lycia, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Jesus Christ will be persecuted.

— 2 Timothy 3

(ESV)

On the topic of disunity among believers, Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 1, saying, I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions

among you, but that you be united in the same mind and same judgment, for it has been reported to me by close people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? On the topic of twisting the gospel, we see Peter acknowledging this in 2 Peter, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their destruction as they do the other scriptures. On the topic of sexual immorality, we see Paul addressing the incredibly prevalent issue in 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, and I could keep going. On the topic of racial tension, the longstanding

divide between Jews and Gentiles throughout the New Testament, and Peter specifically addressing the divide in Acts 10 where he says, truly I understand that God shows no partiality. And on the topic of apostasy, Paul brings up, and I cannot pronounce this name for the life of me, Phygelus, and Hermogenes, who Paul says walked away from me. And later in 2 Timothy, using language that almost drips with heartbreak, he speaks of Demas saying, Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. And I could go on and on in speaking about the challenges that these churches faced, but for the sake of time, I hope this sufficiently illustrates the severity of their circumstances, lest we take it for granted when we read. And as the odds were severely stacked up against them, one might even go as far as to say, and I think appropriately

so, that these early believers were at war and under attack. And I would also say that they’re not the only ones. Trinity Church, it’s been 2,000 years, but these issues and challenges sound somewhat familiar. Have we not found ourselves divided in a multitude of issues these past few years, causing many, not only in our church, but in the broader church, to leave and part ways with the people that they covenanted with? Have we not seen and heard perversions to the truth of the gospel that has led to the deception of many, via the subtraction of some truths and the addition of others? Have we not been deeply wounded by the effects of sexual sin, and has the church at large not had its reputation stained from it? Have we not found ourselves having to work through the role of race and ethnicity in the body of Christ? And if you don’t think this is us, we have a conference

coming up in a few months because of it. Have we not felt the painful sting of dear friends walking away from the faith? And while we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to worship without fear of the same level of physical violence, while it does happen here in the States, do we not have many of our own brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world that as we speak are enduring hardships that we cannot fathom because of their faith? And while we may not be drowning in a proverbial sea of blood, as one songwriter once said, we may in fact be drowning from something deadlier. Namely, we may be drowning in a desert of prosperity. So whether or not you realize it, and I think one of the most effective tools of our enemy is making sure we don’t, we too are under siege. But let’s return again to our

friends in the early church, as there’s one additional challenge that they faced that we do not. These churches were made out of what we would consider quote-unquote baby Christians. I don’t think we realize this, but there were no seasoned saints who had been following Jesus for decades. Jesus had just shown up. And many of the oldest churches were a decade or two old at best, at the time that we read some of these letters. Nobody among them had grown up in a Christian home, a Jewish home, sure, maybe. But the faith was fresh, the church was brand new, and they were learning as they went. At best, they were faithful Jews who would have been waiting in expectation for the Messiah, but the reality of Jesus and his role as the new high priest was new to everyone. They had no church history to look back on. They had no Bibles or New Testaments

The Problem of Sin

in full, because they were too busy living out the New Testament. They had no Bible study plans, no books, articles, podcasts, apps, seminaries, no Spotify gospel playlists, no church programs, no internet pastors or preachers or any of the resources of our day. But they turned the world upside down. By the power of the Holy Spirit, they shook their society to its core and left a mark on the world that people have been trying to erase for centuries, but have clearly failed. How is this possible? What do they have? What do they do? And the answer, as every good Sunday school kid knows, is always Jesus. But what was different about Jesus? Let’s rewind the clock even more to before the coming of Christ, where there was a major problem, and that problem namely being sin. Family, in the beginning, God made man perfectly in his image, with the intent of having God and man

intimately fellowshipping with one another, sinless man able to approach and enjoy God fully. But when we fell into sin, the intimacy with God was broken, for we had become stained and unworthy, and worthy of condemnation. But God remained God, unchanged, holy, matchless, and perfect in all of his ways, so much so that he cannot be in the presence of anything short of perfection. For God demands perfection. We see in Matthew, he says, you therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect, nothing short of perfection enters his presence. But as we see in the early books, in the Torah, and as summarized in the book of Hebrews, God was beyond merciful, even still, and instituted a way for that relationship to be somewhat salvaged. And his mercy he gave to the children of Israel, high priests. In Hebrews 5, one says of them, for every high priest chosen from among men

is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness, because he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. And so, in summary, God gives high priests, whose job it was to approach God on behalf of men, because men couldn’t do it, still stained, still unworthy, and still unable to be in his holy presence. And while the high priest was able to approach God, just so you know, the role of the high priest was not enviable. It was an impossibly weighty responsibility to approach the holy, matchless, and perfect God on behalf of men.

A responsibility that, if not done with the highest level of care, would leave the high priest dead, and in need of being dragged out of the presence of God by way of rope around his ankle. God’s holiness ain’t nothing to play with. And for these people, confidence was surely not a word to describe their approach to God. And grace would not be a term used to describe what you find at his throne. And this is the setting for our passage. This is the context that this church was receiving this letter in. Confidence. You want us to approach God with confidence? The one before whom high priests dropped dead, and you’re telling us now to approach him with confidence. How? Enter Christ Jesus, the lover and savior of our souls, who came from heaven, entered into the world in the form of a baby, lived a perfect and sinless life, and then went on, as Hebrews tells us, to take on the mantle of high priest.

But he was no ordinary high priest. He was different. Instead of sacrificing animals, as the lesser high priest would, he sacrificed himself. He shed his own sinless blood once and for all. And Hebrews says of him that he enters into the inner place behind the curtain. He tears the veil of separation between God and man. Enough, this high priest. Hebrews also says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And there it is. Not only has Christ washed away our sins, not only has he wrapped us in righteousness and crowned us in mercy, on top of all of those gifts that are given to those who put their faith for salvation in Jesus Christ,

has most importantly restored the union between God and man. We can approach him again. We can know him again. We can be with him again. And not only can we approach him, but as the text we just read says, we can do so in our weakness as he’s able to sympathize. This is really dope for us who struggle. This is good news. But if you’re here this morning and you have not put your faith in Christ, please know that your separation still stands. These gifts are not for you and your penalty still persists, which is death. But if you repent of your sins and believe that Christ is who he says he is in faith for the salvation of your soul and the restoration of your intimacy with God, you too can be saved. And if you’d like to have your relationship with God restored, you can talk to any member of this church,

Christ Our High Priest

and we’d love to walk you through what it means to follow Jesus. And at this point, you may be thinking, I thought this was supposed to be about prayer. And to that, I would say, praise God, you were paying attention earlier. So what does any of this have to do with prayer, or more specifically, corporate prayer? I would argue everything, and I would say the early church is our evidence. As we’ve already discussed, these people didn’t have much. No seasoned lifelong saints, no church history programs, online sermons, preachers, no denominations, no written Bibles, no commentaries, no conferences, no nothing. And again, they changed the course of human history forever. While navigating numerous challenges, many of which are comparable to ours. What was their secret, and how did they do it? They were a people that soaked themselves in prayer. They gave themselves to it. They committed themselves and prayed without end.

And when they prayed, they drew near to the throne of grace with the confidence made possible by the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And they received mercy and found grace, abounding grace, in their time of need. They proved the promise in Hebrews to be true. That’s how they did it. And if you don’t believe me, I’ll just quickly share some numbers with you that will hopefully help in convincing you how often and frequently these people prayed. For context, in the Gospels, prayer is mentioned in one form or another ten times in the book of Matthew, twelve times in the book of Mark, nineteen times in Luke, and five times in John. But in the book of Acts, the book that is primarily about the launching of the early church, it’s mentioned 32 times. These people prayed, and they prayed, and they prayed, and they prayed, and they prayed.

And they didn’t just pray. They were constant in all of the, what we famously now call, the ordinary means of grace. As Acts 2.42 says, they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers. And on that, on the one-off opportunity that these saints had, the opportunity to hear the word of God, because, oh, by the way, they didn’t have their own copies. They didn’t just classify it in their minds as another text to listen to or to gloss their eyes by, or another sermon just to file away in a long catalog of sermons they’ve previously heard. No, they clung to the apostles’ teaching, storing up God’s promises in their hearts because it’s all they had. They didn’t take the privilege of being in the same room with God’s elect as something to be taken for granted or to be engaged with

when they had room after their other social obligations. But they treasured each other and had all things in common. They didn’t treat the sacraments as another thing to do but as an experience that had to be protected at all costs. And they didn’t treat prayer as an optional activity for those who like to inconvenience themselves to pray. They devoted themselves to it with a fervent constancy. In Acts 1, it says that they joined together constantly in prayer along with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. There it is again, constant in prayer. Persisting in gathering together and like Jacob saying to the Lord, with the continual coming, we will not let you go until you bless us. See it in Acts 4, they lifted their voices together to God. When they had need, seeking deliverance from their circumstances, they prayed for one another as it says in Acts 12.

So Peter was kept in prison but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. Paul, when writing to the Corinthians in his second letter, pleads with them saying, you also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. And he also says in Ephesians, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication, to that end keep alert, with all perseverance making supplication for the saints. And I could go on and on and on. What would happen if Trinity Church became a church that was both constant and devoted to prayer? What I’m about to say, I want to preface by saying, please do not take this in a way that is meant to discourage or condemn, but to give you some context to the state of prayer,

not only here but abroad in the wider church. When speaking of the state of prayer, a good friend Charles Spurgeon, Shout out, Greg. A good friend Charles Spurgeon once said, we have attended little prayer meetings of four or five, and we have been so glad to be there, for we had the promise of the Lord’s presence, but our minds are grieved to see so little attention given to united prayer by many of our churches. Or what is sometimes wickedly described as only a prayer meeting. How could we expect a blessing if we’re too idle to ask for it? Brothers and sisters, we shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of the Christian. Spurgeon lived in the 1800s, and his words could not be more relevant and true today.

Drawing Near with Confidence

In fact, the average size of our morning prayer meetings in the three years that I’ve been a part of this church just so happens to be four or five. And please know, as Spurgeon says, we were glad to be there, for we had the promise of the Lord’s presence, but oh, we long to gather with more. And again, I do not share this to discourage or condemn, because Hebrews 4.15 says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, including our weakness in prayer. So now is not the time to be discouraged. Now is a time to do what the very next verse instructs us to do despite our weakness, which is, let us then with confidence draw near to the thorn of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

And so this morning, if our prayer lives are not what they could or should be, and we want Jesus to teach us how to pray, let us with confidence draw near. If we find ourselves in great need, which we are always in, let us with confidence draw near. If we find ourselves discouraged and bogged down by the burdens of this world, let us with confidence draw near. If we find ourselves thriving and full of life and joy in the Lord, praise God, and let us with confidence even still draw near. If we desire to experience more of God’s power and his presence, let us with confidence draw near. If we desire to grow in unity with our brothers and sisters, let us with confidence draw near. If we desire to be a pure church, one unstained from the mark of sexual sin, let us with confidence draw near.

If we desire to see the racial divides in the church and in our society healed, let us with confidence draw near. If we desire to see friends who may have made shipwreck of their faith be restored, let us with confidence draw near. And if we desire to see the kingdom come and God’s will be done in Portland, as it is in heaven, let us with confidence draw near. What is our confidence? Our confidence is the position that Jesus has given us and the promise that he has given us. Our confidence is not an arrogant one that approaches God without reverence. Our confidence is a humble one, a thankful one, that recognizes that Jesus has positioned us in a way that we are now wholly pure, righteous, loved heirs of the eternal kingdom. That is your position when you pray, not as the sinner that you feel like you are or that your actions may reflect,

but know your position is what Jesus has made you into. And his promise, as Thomas already alluded to, is that God hears the prayers of his beloved. That is your confidence, the promise and the position. And so this text is our new North Star in our ambition. It speaks to what Christ has done while also opening up our eyes to what he will do. It is our call to action, our call to prayer. And so, Trinity Church, how will we pray? We will pray in confidence because of our promise and because of our position. And because the Father is now for us, Christ now represents us, and the Spirit is now in us. To whom will we pray? The throne of grace where Christ is seated and where he is advocating for us. What will we receive when we pray? Mercy. Mercy, mercy, mercy all the days of our lives.

What will we find when we pray? Grace. Grace to help in our time of need. And when will we pray? At all times with an urgent and fervent spirit for we are always in need. And how do we know God hears us? How do we know our prayers just aren’t bouncing up the ceiling and coming back down, especially for many of us who feel like he’s been ignoring our prayers for so long? We know this because Jesus promised us. Jesus said, Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Who among you, if a son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? He also says in John, Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. If you remain in me, he says in John 15

, if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. In 1 John, it says that this is the confidence we have before him. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him. Do we believe this?

Or have we become so jaded and numb to the possibilities of grace that we can’t even imagine God answering our wildest prayers? I want to encourage you that he is eager and willing. And his answers may not look like what we want them to look like, but our God answers prayer. And a part of what we will be doing together as a church will be keeping account to remind us of God’s faithfulness to this church. I would be remiss if I ended there, as if our earthly wants and needs being met was the end goal of our prayers. And I could say the same for our personal growth and maturity and holiness or sanctification. While all these things are beautiful and gifts that come from asking the Father, they are not the ultimate aim. They are not our end. Our ultimate end, in the words of Jesus himself in John 17.3,

is that we may know him, the one, only true God. And if I were to ask you this morning, do you know God? What would your answer be? And to clarify, not do you know things about God, but do you know God? To illustrate this, I’ll point to all my married folk in the room. You know well that a medical doctor knows far more things about your spouse than you could ever. Blood type, skin, hair, eye color, teeth, whatever. Cholesterol, blood pressure, et cetera. But there is a knowledge that you possess of your spouse that a medical report cannot touch. There is a depth of intimate knowledge that cannot be compared to simple numbers on a chart. And so there lies a knowledge of God that lies behind the veil of concentrated times of intimacy. Or as David said, one thing have I asked of the Lord,

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Our New Prayer Structure

that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Family, this is the greatest grace. Knowledge and intimacy with our king. It’s what makes prayer so miraculous and so special, namely that what was cut off in the garden due to our sin, the intimacy between God and man has been restored through Christ, by him bearing all our penalty for sin and giving to us all his righteousness that allows us as our sermon text reads, then with confidence draw near to the thorn of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Amen? So to conclude, I would love to spend a few moments walking you through our new corporate prayer structure that will allow us to do the very thing that we discussed,

draw near in confidence just as our brothers and sisters in the early church did. And we will begin implementing this week, oh yes, with the application coming in hot and heavy. So for a little bit of context, as we were considering what this kind of new prayer structure should look like, we considered some of the learnings we had from previous years. And for those who don’t know, we were previously meeting biweekly before service at 9 a.m. downstairs. All churches universally experienced COVID was an unfortunate inconvenience that threw all of us for a loop and made it very difficult to maintain a rhythm and a regular practice of prayer. So over the past couple years, it’s changed in nature quite a bit, whether it’s before service in person, whether it was when COVID hit, taking a little bit of a break, whether it was when we tried to do the whole Zoom prayer thing,

praise God for Zoom, whether it was back to in person, we had like two services for a little bit, and we’re trying to figure out when to do it, first or middle service or whatever, or back to the original time like we were doing up until this spring. We also ran into some scheduling challenges as well, just considering other things that were happening in the life of our church. So it’s important to us to create and establish regular and consistent rhythms that we will be able to sustain as a church, and not just have these kind of short sprints of prayer that go and die out when XYZ happens. And so I’m going to walk you through our four new rhythms of prayer. The first one is weekly. Every week we’ll be meeting on Friday mornings at 6 a.m. for morning prayer. Praise God for 6 a.m.

And the objective here is for us to have a protected, regular, safe space for us to regularly be praying. These prayer meetings will be going for roughly an hour, and we’re going to be having them downstairs in our basement. Rhythm one every week at 6 a.m. Rhythm two is monthly. Every month we will be having a 24-7 day of prayer. And the objective is this is a unique time for us to devote ourselves as a body, separately, to prayer, praying for various needs in our congregation, in our city, across the globe. And there’s an opportunity here, if you would also like, to incorporate fasting as well. So the way that these 24-7 rhythms are going to work is we will have an online sign-up portal. Eliezer, our dear brother, is building a website where all of this will live. More to come on that. But you will be able to go on this website and sign up for an hour time slot

that you will commit to praying. Now, we’re going to be doing these on Saturdays because, obviously, 2 a.m. is not an ideal time slot. So we’re going to do it on a Saturday for those of us who can potentially either stay up a little bit later or get up a little bit early. And it will be one-hour time slots. Now, this is something that you can do with your family. As a family, sign up for an hour block. This is something you can do on your own. Sign up for an hour block. You can do this with your small group, with your friends. You can do this with another family that you want to link up with and have an hour to pray together. There’s a multitude of opportunities here. But the objective is we’ve got to fill up 24 spots, y’all. So be ready. We can go to the next rhythm.

The next one is quarterly. We will be having a full week of morning prayer every quarter. Monday to Friday, 6 a.m., downstairs in the basement, we will be having a full week of prayer. And again, this is something that we can craft and place depending on different things in the church calendar, depending on needs as they arise, depending on challenges as they arise, depending on things that we see come up. We will have this quarterly week of prayer that we can devote to certain things. And one thing I will say that we do look forward to doing is potentially taking our prayer ministry to the streets. I don’t know about y’all, but I come from a background where we walk and pray. And that may or may not be coming to Trinity. So be looking forward to some prayer walks as well. We can go to the last rhythm. And lastly, once a year,

annually, we will be having a full month dedicated to prayer where every morning we will be having a 6 a.m. time of prayer. More to come on that. And so what are these prayer gatherings going to look like? We’ve got an hour to fill, right? As we’re thinking about what we want these gatherings to look like, we want it to be based off of what Jesus taught us and how he taught us to pray. So some of the key elements that we want to integrate into every gathering is, number one, adoration. We want to spend time adoring the Lord. We want to spend time not asking for anything, just recognizing how beautiful and matchless he is. We want to spend time in gratitude, thanking him for his goodness towards us. Obviously, time of confession, confessing our sins. We want to spend time praying for the kingdom to grow and for the kingdom to come here in Portland

as it is in heaven. We want to pray for needs. We all got needs, y’all. Things happening in each other’s lives, and we want to be praying for those things. And we also want to spend time at every prayer gathering listening and meditating in silence. I think this is a practice, I’ll speak for myself, that it’s a bit awkward sitting in silence and listening to what the Holy Spirit might have to speak. But this is something that we want to get in the habit and the routine of doing. And also, as we were saying, sharing praise reports because our God is good. Next slide. And so here is our calendar when we start looking into the rest of the year, how this will work. As I mentioned, we’re going to be starting off this upcoming week on the 16th downstairs at 6 a.m. It is an invitation for all of you to come join as we pray and as we seek

to draw near to the Lord. We see our first 24-7 day of prayer is going to be coming up on October 1st, I believe that is, right? Where we will send out more information and communication on where to sign up, how it’s going to work. We will also have prompts, just so you know, by the way. We will have prompts for those 24-7 days of prayer, so you won’t be unguided. We will have some prompts for y’all. The quarterly week of prayer, we’re going to have that also in October, that third week. And then we’re going to hold for the annual day of prayer until 2023. We’re not going to fully dive in. We’re going to ease in, so we’re not going too hard, too quick. And I do want to share a couple thoughts as I close. One, I want to say for many of us,

prayer with other people can be incredibly challenging. Many of us can feel as though we don’t have the right words and we don’t have the right temperament to participate in something like this. And I would just want to encourage you again to consider our friends in the early church, filled with people who didn’t know all the right words to say. But rather, they approached God as a child would approach a parent saying, Abba, Father, help us. And so if you have to pray, if all you have to pray and all you can utter and all you have confidence to be able to say in public is, Father, help, I would invite you to come and join us. If all you have to offer is your agreement in silence and your agreement in your presence, I would ask that you would come and join us. And if all you have is a groaning

heart and a soul that is ravished and unable to utter words, know that as the great revivalist Leonard Ravenhill once said, prayer is so simple a child can do it. Prayer is so profound and inexhaustible. Some of the greatest prayers in the Bible have no language at all. So wherever you find yourself, the invitation to draw near still stands. And so to close, I want to read a quick little manifesto of sorts that I shared with the elders earlier this spring. When thinking about what this could potentially look like, and I hope this serves as a reminder of how faithful our God is. We pray because we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses in the scriptures that testify to the necessity and power of prayer. We pray because our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were men of prayer who communed with God and saw the Lord do incredible wonders in their lives, and we desire to see the

Lord do wonders in ours. We pray because Hannah prayed and pleaded for a son, and the Lord provided to her Samuel along with five others, and we desire to see the Lord provide for our needs and desires beyond what we could ever ask. We pray because Elijah, a man subject to like passions as we are, prayed and the Lord brought down fire that consumed Mount Carmel, and we too want to see the Lord send down fire from heaven to consume our lusts and passions that Christ might shine brighter. We pray because Elisha prayed and life came back to a dead child, and we too have children that are dead in their trespasses and sins, and we desire to be made alive. We pray because Manasseh, the king and wicked man, cried out in his time of distress in Babylon and was heard and delivered. Much more

will the Father hear our cries in our time of distress. We pray because Samson, a backslider, prayed and had his strength restored, and many of us may also be in the seasons of backsliding desiring for the Lord to restore us the joy of our salvation. We pray because Job, having everything stripped away from him, prayed and not only received his prosperity back but more importantly experienced the Lord anew. And we pray now because we have Jesus as our high priest, our better high priest than all of these, who was able to sympathize with our weakness. So then Trinity Church let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. Let’s pray.

Father, what a cloud of witnesses we have that testify to your faithfulness to those who pray. You say that the eyes of the Lord go to and fro the earth looking for those who would diligently seek you, and we ask that you would help us become a place where your eyes rest often. Teach us to pray. In Christ’s name, amen.