Pray for Me

       This morning at 10:00 Pacific Time, the green flag dropped for the start of the Indianapolis 500.  The fabled brickyard is alive.  Thirty-three gleaming, low-slung, turbocharged weapons shot out of the fourth turn at the end of the pace lap and screamed through the starting gate at almost 200 miles an hour.

       But give the race a little time.  Driver-caused accidents, tire problems, gearbox failure, and a host of other calamities will befall cars in the field.  None of us will be surprised if only half of the cars that start actually finish the race.

       On the pace lap, and even on the first few racing laps, every car looks invincible.  But the goal is not just to start well, but also to finish well.  Trophies never get handed out to those who cross the starting line of a race.  The prizes and the money go to those who cross the finish line.

       The Apostle Paul knew that it is not enough to start well.  What matters is the finish.  He also knows that it is not possible for Christian to finish well if they try to go it on their own.  He knows that we badly need one another for encouragement, support, and accountability.  Above all, we need each other’s prayers.  So Paul prays for the people of the churches he serves and he is very up front in asking them to pray for him as well. 

       Paul deals with many matters in his letters.  But he prays repeatedly for other Christians that their spiritual understanding might be enlightened.  In Colossians 1:9-12 he tells the Colossian believers the specific content of his prayers for them.  He writes:  “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.”

      Paul prays for the churches because he is convinced of the power of prayer.  He prays for others and he asks others to pray for him.  And here, near the close of this letter, Paul gives the Colossians some specifics for which to pray on his behalf.

       “Pray also for us,” Paul writes.  He knows his own need for strength if he is to stand against the enemy.  He is humble enough to ask his friends to pray with him and for him. 

       The strength Paul needs is for his evangelistic ministry by which he says he seeks to rescue people from the devil’s dominion.  This had been a part of his original commission when the risen Lord Jesus had called him to turn people from “darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.”

       Now we know from verse 18 of this chapter that Paul writes this letter from jail – probably in Rome .  Now as we will see when we look together at the Book of Acts beginning this summer, imprisoned Christians had a habit of being let out of jails by angels or set free by earthquakes.  They take a lot of looking after.  So Paul is not simply in prison.  He is “bound” in chains – attached day and night by a short chain called a halusis to a member of Caesar’s elite Praetorian Guard.  He is under close guard.  He is severely restricted.   So Paul asks the Colossians to pray that the door of active service may somehow be opened again so that he may “tell the secret of Christ” in a plain, uninhibited way.

       Paul is not social or political prisoner.  He is not paying the penalty for a crime. His imprisonment was “on account of” his message as a Christian preacher.  He not a prisoner of Caesar but a prisoner of Jesus Christ. 

       Paul knows that he hasn’t left the battlefield now that he is under close arrest and unable to continue his missionary journeys.  No, for there are these soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, the sons of the fine families of Rome , to whom he is chained one by one for a shift of several house.  He can talk to them about the gospel.  The result, as Paul notes in Philippians, is that the gospel is taking root in the household of the emperor himself. 

       There are also his constant visitors.  He can still witness to them.  There are individuals like the fugitive slave Onesimus who came to Paul from Colossae to be led to faith in Jesus Christ.  Luke tells of Jewish leaders who came to his lodging “in great numbers” and who heard him expound from “morning until evening” about the kingdom and about Jesus.  “Some were convinced,” Luke tells us.  Paul’s evangelistic work went on.  Luke writes that “for two full years he welcomed all who came to him and proclaimed the kingdom of God .”

       In asking for the prayers of his Colossians friends, Paul refers to the “mystery of the gospel.”  Yes it is a mystery, but one that is meant to be revealed.  So Paul wants their prayers that his proclamation of the mystery ‘might be clear in the way he ought to speak.”  Paul is not content with only communicating so his hearers can understand.  He wants to communicate so they cannot possibly misunderstand if they are at all open to the truth.  He is anxious that nothing be obscured by muddled speech.   So he asks for clarity.

       There are many things that Paul might have asked the Colossians to pray for – release from prison, a successful outcome to his coming trial, a little rest and peace.  But he doesn’t ask them to pray for these things.  He only asks them to pray that there may be given to him strength and opportunity to do the work which God had sent him into the world to do. 

       I believe there is a model there for us.  When we ask people to pray for us, we should not ask for release from a task.  We should ask for strength to complete the task which God has given us to do.  Prayer should seldom for release from a hard place.  The keynote of the Christian life shouldn’t be release but conquest.  The prayer should be for power to do the job God has called us to do and to do it well. 

       A young Anglican minister named Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy volunteered to serve as a chaplain with British forced on the Western Front in World War I.  He was soon given the nickname Woodbine Willie, for his practice of distributing cigarettes to soldiers.  He was loved and also deeply respected for his courage under fire.  In 1917, he won the Military Cross at Messines Ridge after running into no-mans-land to provide comfort to those wounded during an attack on the German line.

       In 1916 Studdert-Kennedy wrote from the trenches in France to his son some words that powerfully echo the request of the Apostle Paul to the Colossians.  He wrote:  “The first prayer I want my son to learn to say for me is not ‘God keep Daddy safe’ but ‘God make Daddy brave, and if he has hard things to do, make him strong to do them.’  Life and death don’t matter, my son.  Right and wrong do.  Daddy dead is Daddy still, but Daddy dishonored before God is something awful, too bad for words.  I suppose you’d like to put in a bit about safety, too, old chap, and Mother would appreciate that.  Well, put it in, but afterwards, always afterwards, because it really does not matter near so much.”  He concluded, “Every man, woman and child should be taught to put first things first in prayer, both in peace and war, and that, I believe, is where we have failed.”

       Paul knew how to put first things first.  He doesn’t ask the Colossians to pray for his physical release but only for his continued effectiveness.  Paul requests prayer for himself…but only that he be able to bear good witness to the grace and goodness of Jesus Christ.  He is undaunted in his imprisonment.

       As he prepares to stand on trial before Caesar, Paul knows that the Lord has put him in a place where he can be of further service.  He is facing an imperial court where he can deliver a royal message for his master.  But I am very impressed in this text by the fact that Paul is not self-confident in spite of his past success.  He knows he has no strength of his own.  He needs help from heaven.  So he signals his fellow believers in Colossae and asks them to unite with him in prayer that the author of their salvation and his will grant him the grace and strength he needs to faithfully fulfill his present post.

       A reporter once asked the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody which people gave him the most trouble.  The answer came without a shred of hesitation: “I’ve had more trouble with Dwight L. Moody than with any other man alive.”

       In the same way, Paul shares his weakness.  He doesn’t presume on the past.  He doesn’t assume that because he has had the needed clarity other times, that that he will have now.  He doesn’t assume that because he has been brave in the past, that he will be brave this time too.  He knows that he needs fresh supplies of clarity and courage for each new day.  So he keeps the vital lifeline of dependence on Jesus open.   

       Paul is waiting at any time to be called before Caesar.  He waits relying on Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit will give him the words to speak when he gets there.  And he knows that the Colossian Christians have a great part to play in this drama to be enacted at Rome even though they are many miles away, are part of a small, struggling church and, for the most part, have not even met Paul. 

       That’s the beautiful reality of Christian community. 

       In an African village we are told, privacy is rare.  Therefore when a Christian convert wishes to pray he retires to the forest.  If he grows careless and neglects his place of prayer, he is confronted with a simple question, “Is the grass turning green on your path?”

       Well Paul doesn’t need to ask the Colossians this question.  He knows of their love.  Paul is very aware that their deep concern continues.  The grass isn’t turning green on their path.  They are going often for him in prayer. 

       Paul writes this closing of his Colossian letter out of his awareness of one great fact…the fact of Christian community…that we are dependent for our well being on each other.      

       Several modern writers have emphasized this by describing the church, using the behavior of migrating geese as an analogy of what the church must be.  The analogy is instructive.

       The next time you see geese flying overhead traveling along in v-formation, you might be interested in what scientists have discovered as to why they fly that way.  It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following.   By flying in v formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater flying range then if each bird flew along.  By analogy, Christians who share a common direction and a sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and with greater ease, because they work together and travel off the thrust of one another.

       Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it along, and quickly gets back into formation with those who are heading in the same direction.

       When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back to the end of the wing and another goose takes a turn flying “point.”  It pays to take turns doing hard jobs…with people in the church or with geese flying south.  The geese honk from behind to encourage those who lead to keep up their speed.

       Finally, and I want you to get this, when a goose falls behind because he is sick or wounded by a shot gun, two other geese also leave the formation and follow him down to protect him.  They stay with him until he is either able to fly or is dead, and then they join up with another formation to rejoin their original group.  

       One last observation about geese.  Stray or lost geese will circle, often for several days in the fog until they hear the familiar honking of their flock.  Those familiar with the nurture of Christian youth remind us that many young people who are separated from the flock for any reason and who engage in “unoriented circling” have a far greater chance of finding their way home if they have heard enough “honking” growing up in worship to recognize it when they hear it again.

       What is it like in the church when we know we can depend on each other?  These past weeks I’ve seen that kind of caring going on between people in this church.  It’s a beautiful thing.  I am also thankful for your prayers for me.  I need them.

       Let me share what you can pray for on my behalf. 

       Two weeks from now I will fly to Birmingham , Alabama for the biennial meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA .  I am going as a member of the resource team for a renewal group in the denomination called Presbyterians for Renewal.        

       This Birmingham gathering promises to be very difficult.  The issues are the same issues that the church has been dealing with for years. They are a decline in membership in our denomination, whether or not Jesus Christ is our only Lord and Savior, convincing defiant congregations to abide by our church’s constitution, and our ongoing debate on sexuality, specifically homosexuality and how it relates to our ordination standards. 

       This year is especially crucial.  There is a major report that is coming from a task force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church.  It is coming with a lot of energy behind it.  Our Presbytery has already sent an overture to help remove the poison parts.  But if the report passes unchanged, it will have the impact of allowing each local congregation and each Presbytery to establish their own de-facto standards for ordination – no matter what our Confessions or our Book of Order say.  Some people call this local option.  But it will be a major step toward a national split in our denomination.

          Some people would welcome that.  They want clarity and there is nothing more clarifying than an earthquake.  But I do not believe that such disunity is the will of Christ for us. 

       Please pray for the General Assembly.  And please pray for me that I can do the part I am being called to do.   We have a great team.  Please pray that we can be clear in what we say and gracious in how we say it.

       If past General Assemblies are any indication, I will be very tired at the end.  Please pray for my health and stamina since I will return from General Assembly only to turn around four days later and leave with our tour group for Greece and Turkey . 

       Please also pray for my role in the building program.  It is exciting.  I’ve enjoyed watching the dirt being moved all week.  We have a great committee.  I have all the confidence in the world in the people we have put in charge.  But every pastor who has been through the building process knows that there are lots of extra places for the pastor to be involved.  Please pray for wisdom.

      Please pray as well for my balance in ministry.  There are a lot of things going on in our congregation that I could get involved with – good things.  But I also know that I need to keep a strong focus on the ministry of preaching and the ministry of teaching.  That’s what I am best trained and gifted to do.  I also believe that this is far and away the most important thing I can do for the health and growth of our church.  Please pray that I can do it right.

      Please pray for me – as I pray for you – that we may not only start the race well but that we may finish it well.  Pray for me, as I pray for you, that I may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work.