Matthew 11:28-30 NIVUK
[28] ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’
A friend of mine told me a story recently, back in the days before luggage was routinely weighed, of a woman on a flight with him to had a large and incredibly heavy bag. The airline baggage handler tried to lift it. He could not. He friend tried to lift it. He too was struggling. So they called her to the airline desk and asked her what on earth was in this large and very heavy bag.
The woman gave them her answer. She had a full table in there. A dining room table. She had dismantled it and was taking it to her friend in California.
Can you imagine that? A table!
We once had to pay extra because our luggage weighed ten kilos more than the allowance! I dread to think how much that table weighed!
We are well used by now to weight limits on aircraft. They are there for a valid reason. Aircraft are routinely much larger than they were in the early days of commercial aviation. If every one of the two or three hundred passengers on board a regular sized jet carried that much luggage, it would affect the amount of fuel it would take for the plane to get airborne and cost the airline an absolute fortune.
But did you know there are baggage limits on the Christian life?
Did you know there are weights and burdens we are simply not made to carry?
Did you know that one of the main purposes of prayer is to leave these with the Lord?
Before we progress with our last study on the Lord’s Prayer – or, as I’m calling it, the Prayer of Letting Go, we will look at seven of these burdens as outlined in the Bible. These are seven things that we as Christians must leave before the Lord and let go of if we are to live a healthy and strong Christian life.
The first of these is for Restoration.
There are two types of Restoration that the Lord’s brother James mentions in his letter to the church. The first is physical restoration:
James 5:13-16 NIVUK
[13] Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. [14] Is anyone among you ill? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. [15] And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. [16] Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
There is little doubt at all that physical limitations – whether brought about by age or ailment, or potentially both – are stressful and frustrating.
I experienced this once when I struggled to the office of a physiotherapist in a gymnasium. I had sciatica that was causing me a lot of pain and discomfort. While I was seated in the waiting room, I saw this guy who must have been almost double my age, paddling away on a spin bike as if he was racing in the Tour de France.
I have never felt so humiliated.
Do you know what we should do with those feelings?
Pray about them.
It is difficult to stop them spilling over onto other people. It’s pretty obvious that it’s not okay when that happens.
However, we should not stop them from spilling out in prayer. In fact, that is the right place for them. God knows how you are feeling. There is no point trying to hide your struggles from Him, or seeking to formalise them in church-y sounding prayers. Pray about them, and ask others to pray with you.
Who knows? God may heal you.
There is a second area of restoration: spiritual restoration:
James 5:19-20 NIVUK
[19] My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, [20] remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
When someone close to us abandons our values and beliefs and does things of which we cannot approve, there are really complex issues and emotions at play. The last thing I want to be is glib about this. It is a very, very painful situation.
When faced with it, the temptation to blame ourselves is enormous. And we have to be realistic: we may have had our part to play.
However, Jesus did warn us that some people would abandon the faith (Matthew 24:12). He also told us that people who are close to us may be among them (Matthew 10:21-22).
No matter if we know this might happen, the feelings of betrayal and disappointment are profound when it does.
Maybe you are tempted to dispute with such people. Or disengage from them. Or disown them.
That’s what the cults do.
The Bible has another way:
Pray for them. Pray for them because you love them and want the best for them.
It is telling that these verses in James are in a section about prayer.
We should pray for wisdom (James 1:5). We should pray for patience (Ephesians 4:2). When opportunities come, we should pray for a double dose of gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15-16).
But most of all, through the tears and the pain, we should repent of any part we have played in it and pray for their salvation.
Apart from restoration, we also see that we should pray for Peace:
Philippians 4:4-7 NIVUK
[4] Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice! [5] Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. [6] Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. [7] And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Anyone who has seen the Kung Fu Panda films will know about the constant obsession with inner peace in those films. Often we are made to believe that the pursuit for inner peace is arduous and difficult.
Yet here we see a clear, and relatively short path to it: rejoice, be gentle, don’t be anxious and pray.
Prayer here is presented as a cure for anxiety.
Paul was not writing these words from a theological ceremony or a peace-filled mountaintop.
No, he was writing from a prison cell where he was awaiting a death sentence (Philippians 1:20-26), to a group of people in city in which he had personally been jailed and beaten (Acts 16:23-24).
In other words, neither Paul nor his audience in Philippi were in situations that would normally produce inner peace.
Yet Paul experiences it through prayer.
So if you lack peace, seek God, because this is what Jesus says about every lack that could steal our peace:
Matthew 6:33 NIVUK
[33] But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them (Matthew 6:8). He will provide for your needs (Matthew 7:9-11).
So if you want peace, pray.
Apart from restoration and peace, we see that we should pray for Our Place.
I wonder: do you love the place where you live?
No-one had more reasons to absolutely despise where they were living than the newly exiled Jews. Snatched from their homeland by pagan Babylonians, taken to a land where they would be far from respected, forced to adapt to a culture that did not value their lifestyle, no-one could have blamed them if they had tried to rise up and leave at the first opportunity, or if they’d tried to sabotage their new rulers.
But the prophet Jeremiah had a different idea:
Jeremiah 29:4-7 NIVUK
[4] This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: [5] ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. [6] Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. [7] Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.’
Jeremiah’s quite amazing letter told them to seek the good of the kingdom of Babylon! He actually told them to pray for it!
How about that?
We often see things in our place that trouble us or concern us. Our first instinct is either to speak our against them or to separate ourselves from them.
Jeremiah’s plan was different. He had told the Jews that they would be in exile for seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11-12, 29:10 – quoted by Daniel in Daniel 9:2). This was recognised by Moses as being approximately the life span of a human being (Psalm 90:10).
In other words, we should pray for and seek the good of the place wherever we find ourselves. We should bring the place to God, leave it there, and seek to lift up those who live within it.
Who knows? God just might answer our prayers while we are still alive to see it.
As well as our restoration, peace and place, we see a fourth burden we should leave before the Lord: Our Powers-That-Be.
The church’s role is to be a prophetic speaker of truth to power in the mould of the Old Testament prophets.
To perform that role, the church cannot be captivated by power, and power cannot be captivated by the church. The two must remain separate.
In other words, for the church to discharge its role in relation to government, it must be disestablished. It cannot be a state church.
But what happens when the state ceases to listen to the prophetic counsel spoken by the church? What do we do when this happens:
2 Timothy 4:3 NIVUK
[3] For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
The Bible has the answer:
We pray.
1 Timothy 2:1-4 NIVUK
[1] I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – [2] for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. [3] This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, [4] who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Every Christian is duty bound to treat anyone in authority with respect (Romans 13:1-7).
There are no exceptions.
We should pray for them. There are no exceptions.
Before anyone starts spouting the partisan nonsense that has become part of our political scene over the last decade or so – or, at least, more that it did before – let me state this plain:
Politics can never, ever usurp the Gospel as the church’s primary mission. If it does, then we have an idol and must repent.
Politics can never divide us into factions. God has brought us together (Galatians 3:26-28). If we allow anything to divide us, then we have an idol and must repent.
Politics cannot lead us to take actions to usurp or overthrow the government, except through legal or democratic processes that the government has set up. If we participate in anything like that, we are disobeying God. We have an idol and must repent.
It is my firm belief that Christians should not participate in political actions that are designed to divide either the church or the nation. We should not be so factional in our thinking that we believe for one second that one side is absolutely right and the other is absolutely wrong. That is never the case.
The Bible is clear: such thinking is fleshly (Galatians 5:19-21).
Instead, we should speak truth to power. We should use the occasions and the rights democracy bequeaths on us to do so, respectfully and in love.
But we should never seek to be part of the state mechanism.
And we should always, always pray.
Because if we pray for those in power, we seek their good, and freedoms for the Gospel increase.
It is perfectly good and fitting to be burdened with the state of your nation.
The wrong reaction is to allow this to spill over into violent rebellion.
The right expression of that burden is to bring it to God in prayer: first, foremost and above all.
Their responsibility before God is to lead well; ours is to serve well.
Brother or sister, how well are you serving?
So apart from restoration, our peace, place and the powers-that-be, we also see that we should let go of our desires for Personnel.
During the Covid pandemic, my company decided it didn’t need me, so it put me on temporary furlough, along with another colleague it felt it didn’t need.
Three months later, it realised it needed me after all and recalled me.
My colleague, however, was made redundant.
There are no redundancies in the Kingdom of God. There is always a need for workers. Do you know why?
Luke 10:1-3 NIVUK
[1] After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. [2] He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. [3] Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
Do you know something?
Nothing has changed.
Mission organisations across the world are still crying out for workers. There are still many who are waiting to hear and respond to the Gospel.
If it’s not happening where you are, maybe it's because you’re trying to harvest in the wrong field (see John 4:28-42 for a beautiful example). But the harvest is still plentiful and the workers are still few.
And often those who are engaged in the work are overcome with the need for more workers.
If that is who you are, if your ministry is being affected through a lack of people, you should pray. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest.
If you are aware of harvest fields where workers are needed, you should pray. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest.
But be aware that, like the disciples, you might be the answer for your own prayer.
So after restoration, peace, our place, the powers-that-be and personnel, we now come to two particular areas of concern relating to the proclamation of the Gospel. The first of these is a Clear Proclamation:
Colossians 4:2-4 NIVUK
[2] Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. [3] And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. [4] Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
At first glance, this seems quite remarkable. Paul is praying for those in a church he did not plant, and where its congregation are much younger in the faith than him, to pray for him to have clarity as he proclaims the Gospel from behind bars and in chains.
Odd, isn’t it?
Or is it?
Until Paul was jailed, there was no witness to the higher echelons of Roman society. Paul later explains this to the Philippians:
Philippians 1:12-14 NIVUK
[12] Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. [13] As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. [14] And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.
It was God who led Paul to be in prison in Rome (Acts 23:11).
But Paul was very much on the back foot.
He would be bearing witness in court before senior figures in Rome, but as a prisoner: in chains (Acts 26:29), likely unshaven, unwashed, unkempt and in ragged prison clothes. As a Jew, we know that Paul spoke Aramaic (Acts 22:2), but his letters, and most of his preaching, were in common Greek. He was bearing witness towards pagan authorities who had little value for Jewish history, tradition or theology.
So this was a very difficult assignment.
Every court session would have felt like a cross-cultural mission, with the added threat that a wrong word to a capricious judge could see him sentenced to death.
Even out of court, witnessing in prison would be tricky. There are many people who sought to make an end of Paul. Likely they would have been delighted to hear from any prisoner willing to betray him.
Yet under all this immense pressure, Paul’s desire is that his message is clear to those who hear him.
If only our preachers and teachers sought the same thing.
There has been a widespread misunderstanding (ironically) of this verse:
2 Corinthians 4:4 NIVUK
[4] The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
There are preachers who hide behind this verse and make no effort to make their teaching plain, understandable, memorable and easily applicable to life.
That is a mistake and a sin against the Word of God.
Look at what the verse really says in context:
2 Corinthians 4:1-6 NIVUK
[1] Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. [2] Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. [3] And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. [4] The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. [5] For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. [6] For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
In other words, Paul asked for prayer, and indeed, he strove for, teaching that was clear, plain and intelligible, so that if his listeners did not understand it, it was clear that it was the devil who did it, not Paul. Or that having heard the message, they themselves had chosen not to hear it and obey (Isaiah 6:9 and 10, quoted in Matthew 13:14 and 15, Mark 4:12 and Acts 28:26 and 27).
Paul asks the Colossians to pray for him that his message would be clear. That is something we ought to desire from our preachers and teachers too – from preschool right up to our senior citizens’ meetings. It is an essential. It is not always easy. It is often a challenge.
That is why we must pray for it.
The second of these is a Fearless Proclamation of the Gospel:
Ephesians 6:19-20 NIVUK
[19] Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, [20] for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
The Greek word used here means ‘boldly, openly, frankly, unreserved in speech, unambiguously, confidently.’
The opposite of this was said about the religious teachers of Jesus’ day:
Matthew 7:28-29 NIV
[28] When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, [29] because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
Their teaching was full of equivocations and exceptions. It was based in the rabbinical teaching on the Torah and the Prophets, which was basically a commentary on the Old Testament, along with centuries of tradition. It was full of contradictions and arguments.
But Jesus was different. His teaching was plain, simple, direct, uncompromising.
And He clearly lived what He taught.
That was why His teaching was bold, fearless and authoritative.
Do you want that style of teaching in your church? Do you want to be done with the fancy rhetoric and the long-winded theological expositions? Do you want to hear bold, fearless, authoritative sermons?
The solution is plain:
Don’t complain about it.
Pray for it.
That is what Paul tells us to do.
I have met with counselling and psychological professionals who universally agree that prayer is a good thing. Most of them who aren’t believers say that because of the time spent in silent contemplation – which is a good for us.
You won’t find any disagreement with that conclusion here.
But prayer is so much more than that. Prayer is where we bring to Jesus all our burdens that weigh heavily on our shoulders and hand them over to Him.
Some argue that prayer is for weak people or that prayer is a crutch.
I agree.
But it takes more strength as a weak person to admit you are weak than to bend your noodle arms in the hope that muscles will appear.
It takes more strength as someone who had injured their leg to pick up a crutch and use it than to attempt to stand on the injured leg and fall on the floor.
I know who of those I would rather be.
I have outlined in this meditation seven areas of our life where the Bible tells us we should pray: restoration, peace, our place, the powers-that-be, for personnel, clear and fearlessness proclamation. This list is not exclusive. There are many more. That is why we see these admonitions in Scripture:
Ephesians 6:18 NIV
[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 Lord’s people.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV
[16] Rejoice always, [17] pray continually, [18] give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
As the old hymn says:
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy-laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge—
Take it to the Lord in prayer;
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer;
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee,
Thou wilt find a solace there.
Prayer is what we need, when we need it, and to Whom we need it from.
I just can’t understand why we don’t pray more often.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, teach me to pray. Teach me how to pray. Teach me what to pray for. Teach me when to pray. I want to learn more about this so that my relationship with You grows and I trust You more. Amen.
Questions
1. Why do you think the Bible singles out these seven things in particular for us to pray about?
2. Which of these seven things concerns you the most? How can you pray about this more often?
3. Do you find it easy to leave these matters with God? Why / why not?
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