“Praying by the Rules” (Genesis 18:16-33), August 9, 2009

Prayer joins heaven and earth.

Doctrine

For those of you who attended last week, thank you for coming back!  It wasn’t my best work, but many of you were very affirming.

Part of what happened was that I was trying to do much.  And when you try to do too much in one sermon, you don’t get anything done.  So let me remind all of us what this sermon series is all about.

I remember a discussion in preaching class when I was in seminary in the 1980s.  We had reviewed the history of preaching, and, more often than not, criticized those who had gone before us.  The professor presented his own method, called the “propositional method” of preaching.  The basic idea is that you study the Scripture, come up with one main point, and then turn that into a “proposition” or “key sentence” for the sermon.  Supporting arguments should follow the Scripture passage.  It’s called “expository preaching.”

I raised my hand and asked, “Twenty-five years from now, what do you think people will be saying as a critique of preaching today?”  I realized this week it has been twenty-five years!

It was a fair question.  It’s a question I still ask myself.  Generations have their blind spots.  I’m not sure we can figure out what they are – that’s why they are blind spots.  But we should at least be willing to ask the question – and admit they are there.

Preaching theory, like every other kind of theory, goes in cycles.  Story-telling has been big lately, along with personal experience.  I remember a time when jokes (at least in my mind) were a virtual requirement for every sermon. 

Twenty-five years from now, I believe we will say something that was missing from today’s preaching is doctrine.  In our consumer-driven, feel-good sermons, we don’t say enough about what Christians believe.  So this summer I wanted to preach a series of sermons that hit the basics.

I couldn’t, however, resist the allure of the 500^th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth, especially since he was the first and probably greatest teacher of doctrine in our tradition.  Yet even Calvin wouldn’t want me to preach Calvinist doctrine.  He would want me to preach the Bible.  I found a number of foundations and parallels in the life of Abraham as told in Genesis to key doctrines.

Let us review the doctrines we have covered so far.

Predestination.  We begin with the doctrine of God.  God exists, and because he is God, he is all-wise, all-knowing, and all-powerful.  He is in charge.  We do not choose him; he chooses us.  John Calvin believed that the doctrine of predestination gives great comfort and security to the Christian.  It’s not about me, and it’s not up to me.

Depravity.  This is the doctrine of man – or humans, to use the more inclusive term in contemporary English.  Christians believe that every person is irreparably broken and distant from God.  We are unable to respond to God or do anything good without his help.

Humility.  This concept lies, at least in theory, at the root of John Calvin’s understanding of every other doctrine.  It is certainly fundamental to what develops in the Bible and was reclaimed by the Protestant reformers as salvation by grace through faith alone.  Humility brings us to the Savior, because we admit we need him.  But humility should also govern all our lives – and change how we respond not just to God but to others.

Covenant.  From one end of the Bible to the other, the message is consistent.  God cuts a deal in which we are bound to him and to one another in an eternal family.  The initiative and provision are all God’s.  But in this covenant he sees us as righteous.  He provides for and protects his own.  Our part is to repent, to trust, to obey.

Abraham’s Intercession

Today’s theme is prayer.  How shall we frame a doctrine of prayer?  The Bible teaches many lessons about prayer – some direct and some indirect, through examples and stories.  Genesis 18 and the experience of Abraham is one of those.

At least one of my Bible study groups this week thought it somewhat strange that I should use this text on the subject of prayer.  This looks more like negotiating, or even haggling – something out of a third world street corner.

Maybe, but remember this is very early in the story of the Bible, in faith history.  Let’s place Abraham squarely in his own time period and not judge him by ours.  This is the Bible’s first major lesson on prayer.  Many lessons are to follow.  We won’t get everything we need to know here, but there certainly are some basics.

The chapter opens with three visitors coming to see Abraham.  Commentators differ on whether they are three men, three angels, two angels and God (or Jesus, some suggest), or even the Trinity.  The important thing is that one of them speaks as Yahweh, or for Yahweh, and Abraham responds to him as Yahweh. 

There’s a great conversation in the beginning of this chapter between Yahweh and Abraham which leads to the unambiguous declaration that not only Abraham will have a son, but that Sarah will bear.  Sarah overhears and laughs.  So when their son is born his name is “Laughter” (that’s what Isaac means).

The mood turns serious again in verse 16.  Abraham is escorting his three visitors out of town and one of them, identified as Yahweh, almost seems to be thinking out loud as he looks over the plain of Sodom.  “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”  

This language, even this whole scene, is a little strange to us.  God seems too human here.  Or perhaps it even leads to the question, “Why can’t prayer be more like that for me – an audible dialogue with a flesh-and-blood person?”

I’m not sure I can answer the question, but the exchange here leads me to make my first observation about prayer in this text.  Prayer joins heaven and earth (16-17).  

In his book, Simply Christian, N. T. Wright says,  “We are called to live at the overlap of heaven and earth….We are caught on a small island near the point where these tectonic plates – heaven and earth, present and future – are scrunching themselves together.  Get ready for earthquakes!”  (p. 161)

Whatever else prayer is, it is heaven and earth touching.  That is an amazing reality.  The Creator who flung billions of constellations into space listens, knows, cares, responds.  This very early lesson on prayer from Abraham is designed to impress on us that prayer joins heaven and earth.

Prayer is like a conversation between friends (18-19).  Abraham is later called a “friend of God” (Isaiah 41:8; 2 Chronicles 20:17; James 2:23).  But the hint is right here in verse 19. 

Most translations say, as the NIV does in verse 19, “I have chosen him.”  But the Hebrew verb is actually “to know” (yadha).  One commentator translates this, “For I acknowledge him to be my intimate friend” (Leupold, Genesis I, p. 544).

My best prayer times are when I talk to God like that.  Maybe I don’t hear his audible response, though sometimes a strong impression is just as real.  Most of the time he’s silent.  But Abraham’s experience is designed to teach me to talk to God like he’s standing right there or sitting on the couch beside me.

Prayer appeals to God’s nature (20-25).  Here’s another great lesson on prayer from Abraham.  As God reveals to Abraham his plans to check out Sodom (and Abraham knows what this will mean), Abraham reasons with God.  “You’re going to destroy the whole place?  What if there are some good people down there?  I know there are thousands doing the wrong thing.  But what if there are fifty people doing the right thing?  Do they get the axe as well?”

Then Abraham utters this memorable line, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”  Abraham is appealing to the nature of God, and that’s what prayer does.

From time to time I am asked about what Christians believe will happen to those who have never heard of Christ, or to Jews, or to children who die young.  My answer to all these and similar questions is two-fold.  First, “the Judge of all the earth will do right.”  I may not be able to give an answer that satisfies you – sometimes not even one that satisfies me.  But the essence of faith is that God will do the right thing.  Second, that my responsibility is to share the only way of salvation that God has told us about with as many people as possible while I have life and breath.

When we pray about difficult situations or problems, we hold on to and claim the character of God.  Like Abraham, it’s not only OK, but wise, to name those traits in our prayers.  “God, you are loving.”  “God, you know all things.”  “God, you always do the right thing.”

Prayer is thinking (27-32).  That’s how I summarize this part of the passage that looks like Abraham is negotiating. 

“OK, so you said you will spare Sodom if there are fifty.  How about 45?  40?  30? 20?  10?  How low can you go?”  It’s kind of obvious that Abraham wants his nephew Lot spared – and probably his family.  They’re all living down in Sodom.  Sometimes prayer is kind of selfish – “God, look out for my family, my needs.”  The more we grow in grace, the more we’re aware of that.  But don’t stop praying because all you can think of to pray for seems self-serving.  It’s the first step toward learning to pray.

Derek Kidner says that Abraham is “feeling his way forward in a spirit of faith” (Kidner).  Sometimes prayer is like that.  There’s no manual on what you can pray for and what you can’t:  “You can pray for a Kia, but not a Corvette.”  Prayer is sometimes just wrestling with what God really wants to do.  Prayer, indeed, can be thinking out loud.

Prayer is submission (27-33).  Four times Abraham acknowledges that he has no “right” to demand anything from God.  He’s “dust and ashes” in verse 27.  Twice (30, 32) he says “Don’t get angry….”  And once he admits that he’s getting “bold” (31).

John Calvin says, “The nearer Abraham came to God, the more aware he became of the abject condition of men.  For it is only the brightness of the glory of God that covers with shame and thoroughly humbles men, stripped of their foolish and intoxicated self-confidence.  Whoever, therefore, seems to himself to be something, let him turn his eyes to God, and immediately he will acknowledge himself to be nothing” (Genesis, p. 179). 

At the end of the passage, God leaves and Abraham returns home.  Because prayer is submission.  We make our requests; we make our pleas.  But he is God and we are not, and we go home and let him do what he’s going to do. 

To say it another way, prayer is never about instructing God or manipulating God.  Even when it’s about bargaining with God, at the end of the day it’s about submission.  “Lord, this is what I want, what I think I need.  Not my will but yours be done.”

Calvin’s Rules

Page      Summary          Rule

There is so much to be said about prayer.  We can talk about prayer simply by observing prayer at work in the life of Abraham or others.  One way to learn prayer is through what’s called biblical theology.  You read the Bible and make observations based on a particular passage or part of the Bible.

But this sermon series is designed to lead us to systematic theology – a summary of what the Bible teaches on a given subject.  So let me close with John Calvin’s “rules” for prayer in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (Volume 2, Book III).

Calvin calls prayer “the principal exercise of our faith, and the medium of our daily reception of divine blessings.”  He asks the common question, “Why pray if God already knows what we need?”  He answers  that prayer is not for God’s sake, but for ours.  Prayer is to remind us that we need God.

Then John Calvin gives four rules for prayer.

Calvin’s Rule 1: Focus. “That our heart and mind be composed to a suitable frame, becoming those who enter into conversation with God” (p. 97).  When you pray, as much as it is humanly possible, remove distractions and center your mind on God.

Calvin’s Rule 2: Need.    “That in our supplications we should have a real and permanent sense of our indigence, and seriously considering the necessity of all that we ask, should join with the petitions themselves a serious and ardent desire of obtaining them” (p. 100).  Calvin says this is why troubles and dangers are such a gift, because we become more aware of our lack.

Calvin’s Rule 3: Humility.  “That whoever presents himself before God for the purpose of praying to him, must renounce every idea of his own glory, reject all opinion of his own merit, and, in a word, relinquish all confidence in himself, giving, by this humiliation of himself, all the glory entirely to God”  (p. 102).  An awareness of our sinfulness reminds us that every answer to prayer is an act of mercy.  So the more we are aware of our need for grace, the more we open the door for God to act.

Calvin’s Rule 4: Faith.  “That thus prostrate with true humility, we should nevertheless be animated to pray by the certain hope of obtaining our requests” (p. 104).  The fact that we don’t deserve God’s response, and that we cannot demand it, is not inconsistent with expecting to receive it.  It makes God angry, Calvin says, if we ask him for blessings we don’t expect him to give us.

This is typical of John Calvin.  Humble yourself completely because in your humble awareness of both sin and need, you find comfort and strength and hope.  That is so opposite of our culture, where we are taught that we need to be assertive and bold to get anything out of anyone, particularly our leaders.

And speaking of our cultural blind spots, N. T. Wright says that “we moderns are so anxious to do things our own way…we are instantly suspicious about using anyone else’s prayers.”  That, he says, is like suggesting you’re not properly dressed unless you make your own clothes or you’re being inauthentic by driving a car someone else manufactured.

One of the ways God helps us to pray is through the example of others who have prayed.  So I invite you now to join me in a responsive prayer at the back of your hymnal, Prayer No. 16 on page 544.

O Lord, who knows our fame and remembers that we are dust, pity those who are bearing pain and sorrow.  Cheer those who are worn by constant care.  Strengthen the faith of the dying and comfort the bereaved with compassion.  Deliver the souls of those who are bound in the chain of their own misdeeds, and send your peace and joy to all who are oppressed by the burden of the world’s sin.  Bringing all our sins and sorrows, we lay them before you, in the Name of our Redeemer.  HEAVENLY FATHER, HEAR US.

Most holy and most merciful God, the strength of the weak, the rest of the weary, the comfort of the sorrowful, the Savior of the sinful, and the refuge of your children in every time of need, hear us while we pray for your help.  HEAVENLY FATHER, HEAR US.

When our faith is growing weak, and our love is growing cold, and we are losing the vision of your face, and the spiritual world is not real to us, HEAVENLY FATHER, HELP US.

When we are tempted to mean and wicked ways, and sin grows less sinful in our sight; when duty is difficult and work is hard, and our burdens are heavy, HEAVENLY FATHER, HELP US.

When the unknown future troubles us, and in our fears and anxieties we forget the eternal love and mercy; and when the last darkness shall close around us, and heart and flesh fail, and vain is the help of man, HEAVENLY FATHER, HELP US.

O God, who knows us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright, grant to us such strength and protection as may sustain us in all dangers and carry us through all trials.  HEAVENLY FATHER, HELP US.

O Lord, support us all the day long of this troubled life, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.  Then of your tender mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last, through Jesus Christ our Lord, AMEN.