You Must Pray For Your Brother
Christian Love is Best Expressed in a Mutual Seeking of Christ Together
Howdy!
Here we go with the ending stretch.
The last portion of the Shorter Catechism is all about prayer, and one specific prayer at that: The Lord’s Prayer. It is the model Jesus gives to us to know how to pray, what to pray, and when to lift up our needs to the LORD. It is fitting that the Divines end their work with teaching the Church how to go about applying everything that they have learned in the previous ninety-seven questions.
I have to admit it has been a long walk from September 2, 2021 when I sent out the initial Catechism Lesson on the one Q/A we all know well, What is the Chief End of Man?. Yet, it was helpful to me over the past year to think more deeply about what it means to be a believer as well as how our common understanding of the Bible summarized in the Westminster Standards (the Confession of Faith and the Shorter/Larger Catechisms) help us to be more and more united together in love.
I mentioned last week that beginning the first week of September 2022 we’ll start back at the beginning with a twist. Instead of the Shorter Catechism we’ll be walking through the Larger Catechism for the next two years. Not only is the Larger, well, larger at 196 questions and answers, but it is a bit more technical in what it has to say (it was written for ministers and elders primarily) and we will need some more space for application and teaching. That being said it is my feeling that it will all be worth it as we grow in faith as a Church body. If you have any questions that arise out of what we are learning please don’t hesitate to give me a holler. As I noted in the Bethany Banner for August we will be bringing back the Ever Wonder Wednesday segment that we do on Youtube and FB Live on a monthly basis starting this September. I’ll be glad to answer any thing that might come up. Though enough of that for right now.
Let’s get to the business at hand:
Q. 98. What is prayer?
A. Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.
Q. 99. What rule has God given for our direction in prayer?
A. The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught His disciples, commonly called The Lord’s prayer.
Q. 100. What does the preface of the Lord’s prayer teach us?
A. The preface of the Lord’s prayer (which is, Our Father, which art in heaven) teaches us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father, able and ready to help us; and that we should pray with and for others.
There is a popular acrostic about prayer that you’ve probably heard about called A.C.T.S., which stands for: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. What it means is that when you sit down, kneel down, stand, etc… for prayer it is helpful to follow the above pattern as you lift up your needs to God. Where do we get the idea for that model? As we will see over the next several lessons it comes directly from the Lord’s Prayer. In our catechism questions we are told a couple of things about this work of speaking unto our Heavenly Father. The work of prayer is of a penitent sinner, saved by the blood of the Lamb, seeking the help of the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth in the time-bound issues that all of us face from day-to-day.
It’s worth taking a moment and meditating on that for a second. We who were aliens to the family of God by virtue of the sin of Adam, have been rescued from that separation by the Lord Himself. Through the gift of grace granted by faith alone we who were silent are made able to speak to the very One whom we had transgressed against both in Original sin and in the daily breaking of the Law of God. In some sense all seventy-seven questions that came after WSC #13 have been in service of repairing this relationship between the Creator and His special creation.
Praying is at the same time neither something we should ever take lightly nor something we can do enough. For consider again what we are able to do in prayer: we get to speak directly to the Almighty. We do not need a priest like the old covenant (nor as is the case in many false religions) because the Great High Priest has granted us access to the very throne room of hope.
A consistent message I’ll drumbeat on throughout these next several weeks is remembering the importance of prayer for the daily life of the believer, yet it’s also something that we need to remember is not only to be done alone. Central to the identity of the Christian is the Church itself. We are baptized not into thin air nor do we take the Lord’s Supper as individuals. We are granted access into the family of God in the Sacraments ordained by Christ for the blessing of the whole body and as members of that body we bless one another through the taking of those elements of grace and glory. In the exact same way the work of prayer is better done in the corporate life of the Church. It is a neglecting of our Christian duty to love one another in not taking advantage when opportunity arises to pray together in harmony for the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. How can we know how to pray for each part of the Church if we are not sharing those needs in the comforting confines of the physical presence of your local spiritual family?
In closing, the seriousness with which we take prayer will show itself out in our willingness to perform all the other labors that we are called to in the Christian life. If we say we love our brother or sister and yet refuse out of pettiness or personal dislike to pray with them we are in sin and need to repent thereof. To truly love one another as Christ has loved you is to pray for and with each other, as the Lord Jesus Himself declares in John 17:26:
“And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
There are few things more beautiful than the faithful intercession of a brother or sister in Christ for the needs of another within the body. The foot supports the spleen and the kidney as much as the hand does the mouth and the pancreas. Working together in grace through mutual love, which shows itself in the willingness to put aside the small things to work together for the greater glory of our Lord in prayer.
Another word on this:
https://www.9marks.org/article/biblical-theology-corporate-prayer/
Blessings in Him,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church