Word of Salvation – Vol. 14 No.50 - December 1968

 

A New Year's Prayer

 

Sermon by Rev. K. V. Warren, Th.Grad. on Psalm 90:16-17

SCRIPTURE READING: Psalm 90

PSALTER HYMNAL: 121; 317; 299; 173; 316

 

Congregation of our Lord,

Prayer is really a very DARING thing!

Suppose that you find yourself in financial difficulties, and someone helps you out by lending you money.  Not only once, but time and time again.  But you don't have the intention of paying him back, and you tell him so straight-out!  That's bad behaviour, isn't it?

And to make it even worse: you KEEP ON asking him for money.  Very daring that is; very cheeky, too.

Now look at PRAYER!  Is prayer not somewhat like that?  There's MAN in difficulties, always in trouble, plenty of problems, and there's GOD – the One who helps, who turns to man in love, who really goes out of His way (think of Bethlehem!) to make life good and happy.

And... am I thankful?  Do I return His love?  Am I in turn going flat out to please Him?

Yes, and to make it even worse: I have the audacity, the cheek, to KEEP ASKING.  Always asking for more!  For health, and success, and pleasure, and a long life.

That is what we mean when we say that prayer is actually a very DARING thing.

And this New Year's Day, the first day of 1969 [or: this New Year's Eve, the last day of 1968] we dare to pray AGAIN!

Do we indeed realize what we're about to do?  1968 is behind us; was it not filled with God's love and grace?  But WE did not live such very thankful lives, did we?

And now we pray again:
"Oh, Lord, bless us!  We have not been worthy of all the blessings of 1968, but we come again to Thee, to ask for MORE!”

Now is that a cheeky prayer?  A selfish and self-centred prayer?  What do you think of it?  Sure, it is important to know this.  May we indeed pray for a blessing for the New Year?  Is it all right to do that?  We ought to give this serious thought – what are we doing?

That is the reason why we look at the last few lines of a PRAYER of Moses, Psalm 90.  The last two verses of Moses' prayer.  And HE was a man of God, the Bible tells us : HE should know how to pray!

And he DARES to pray too!  That certainly asks for courage, sure.  For Moses has NOTHING to offer!

You know what Moses' PEOPLE were like – the Israelites – stiff-necked, rebellious, disobedient.

And yet Moses dares to pray: "Lord, YOUR work; show it to your servants.  Lord, show us your love and mercy.  Make it known to your people."

Well, that's quite some asking, don't you agree.  On behalf of these sinners, who have spoiled it time and again; yet Moses dares to ask: "Lord, your love and mercy, we would like to see it come upon us!"

How does he dare to ask this?

Because, congregation, Moses bases his prayer on one thing only – NOT on Israel's achievements, THEIR faithfulness, THEIR love for God, then indeed this WOULD have been a selfish, a cheeky, a blasphemous prayer, for these people had nothing to show, nothing to offer, NOT A THING!

But Moses dares to lift up his eyes, to speak these words, ONLY because of God's grace, because of God's faithfulness, because of God's covenant.

Do you want to know what FAITH is?  TRUE faith?  Well, here you find it!  MOSES, the MAN of God!  KNOWING that God never fails.  TRUSTING that all His promises come true.  AND – that is also very important! – Moses having lost all faith in HIMSELF.  THAT is TRUE FAITH!

And what does true faith do?  It puts first things first.
Verse 16: THY WORK!
            Not asking:
            Lord, please give us this, and please give us that,
                         and will you do such and such.
YOUR work, Lord: THAT comes first!

And of course Moses means here: the WORK of SALVATION, FOR AND through His people Israel.  Safely out of Egypt, leading them through the desert, and then the Promised Land!  And one day... the Saviour, the Messiah, the seed of the woman.

And it's THAT work: the covenant, the commandments, the tabernacle, mercy and grace, the WHOLE way of God dealing with His people!  Show it, Lord; THAT is our prayer!

Show it to the world!  Show it to the heathen people around us!  And above all, Moses asks God, to show His mighty works to His own people.

This should be OUR prayer also!  For today.  For the whole of the coming year.  God's work: Number One!

No, it does not mean that OUR work does not count, that our business, our study, our future, our family, is not supposed to be even mentioned; we'll come back to that later.

But, at the TOP of the list – the going-on in 1969 of GOD's WORK; in your heart, in our homes, in the church, in our country; yes, in the whole world.

NOT first – Lord,, keep us from sickness this year, or Lord, bless me in my business this year, or Lord, will you....!

No, no, no, all that is later.  Later, much later.

When you want to sing the song of the true Christian in the New Year, you'll have to start with the first line; you know what that is?
            TAKE MY LIFE AND LET IT BE
            CONSECRATED, LORD, TO THEE!

Lord, show us YOUR work!

But what does that mean?  What does it boil down to?  What DO you want to see in 1969?

Well, God's work! – in MY life too!

More trust, more faith, more power, more witness.

And love for one another!  Real love, going out of our way, counting the other better than ourselves.

More concern for my unbelieving neighbour, more prayer, more love for God's Word.

That is what we want to see in '69.

God's work in our HOMES!
Father and mother being one in the Lord – do you know that of one another; do you talk about it with one another?  Homes where children know: we can always go to father, to mother; where children know: my parents, they really love Jesus, for I can SEE it; homes where boys and girls don't grumble and complain, but rather obey and serve and love.  THAT is what we want to see in 1969.  THAT is our prayer.

God's work in the CHURCH!
People keen to serve; no lip-service; not trying to serve God and their fellowmen with a minimum of Christianity; preachers boldly proclaiming the Word of God; churches being indeed witnesses for Christ; cities on the hilltops, lights in the darkness!

That is what we want to see.  God's work.  Everywhere.  In the world, in politics, in education.  Yes, in culture too, and the arts, and economics.

Lord, show us your work!

Is that YOUR New Year's prayer?

But Moses has still more to ask than only that.

There is one thing especially that this leader of God's people is thinking of, and that is: THE CHILDREN.  Yes, the children.

HE HIMSELF wants to see God's work, he himself wants to see the glory, the splendour of it, but THE CHILDREN need it even more.

The new generation, the church of tomorrow, young people full of vitality and ideals and energy may THEY TOO see the glorious power of that God who led their parents out of Egypt, the house of bondage.

Young people, may you see this year some of the glory and splendour of what God can do.  You want a bright future, don't you?  YOU especially – because you're young! – you’re after brightness and happiness; good on you; we hope you'll get much out of it!

But we know that you'll only get the most when you have God's light surrounding you!

There is nothing that we want more dearly than this, young friends – that God will give you a glimpse of what Christianity really is.

Now I'm afraid that as far as that goes, WE as parents often are of little help to you.  You see our weaknesses and our quarrels and our worldliness, don't you?  BUT MAY GOD MAKE YOU LOOK RIGHT BEHIND THIS!  Oh, how much we want you to see JESUS.  As your Saviour.

Don't look too much at OUR work, the work of men, the work of people in the church.  May God show you some of HIS glorious power!

I do not know what lives deep within your heart.  It could well be that some of you don't think Christianity and the church to be exciting at all.  You wouldn't be the first one, you know.

But if that is so – and may God forbid – it is only because you haven't seen the POWER OF GOD.  Then you have only seen US and OUR sinful work.  Just wait till you see the glorious power of HIM who made you!

Will you pray to God to show you His power?  In your life?  Will you?  We will pray with you!  For we want the best for you.  The very best!  We want the FAVOUR of God to be upon you!  Upon us all!

And there is every reason for MOSES to pray this!

Verse 17: "Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us!"

You know when Moses prays this?  When He is in the desert, the wilderness, on the way from Egypt to Canaan, when time and again God has to punish His people – coming to them with that heavy hand of his anger – THEN Moses has the audacity to say – in the midst of judgment and wrath – Lord, we would like to see Thy favour!  Thy beauty!

No more an angry look; but, Lord, the smile of your love.  He DARES, Moses does.  Because he has FAITH.

He has faith that all this asking – which is really an impossible asking (with man anyway!) – all this asking will be answered one day by JESUS CHRIST, the child of Christmas, the Lord of Easter.

This Old Testament prayer is a reaching hand, stretching out towards that fullness of time, when the Word came to live among us!

Yes, MOSES could only PRAY for it, only ASK to see God's work, and to live under His favour.  That was all Moses could do, nothing more!

And then it took all those hundreds of years, thousands even, from Moses to Bethlehem, to Calvary!  THEN Moses' prayers at last could be really answered!  When Christ went into the agony of hell, so that the favour of the Lord could indeed be upon US.

And that holds true also for TODAY.  For the New Year.  Pray this prayer with Moses.  Yes, true; a daring prayer it is – but it is prayed in FAITH, and that makes all the difference: Faith!  Believing that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ!

That is our belief, isn't it?

Let us go on then, praying; go on, asking.  With Moses, He prayed for God's work, but he doesn't forget his own work!  For Moses these two do not contradict; they really belong together.  There is a relationship.  It is GOD'S love and OUR response; GOD'S faithfulness and OUR responsibility.

And if there's one thing God's grace does NOT produce, it's lazy people; yes, also spiritually lazy people, who have no desire to work, who are not interested to do THIS, and you never get them excited about THAT.

Now THEY can't really pray this prayer, can they?  These people – in a way – have nothing to pray for in 1969.

God's work and our work.

How do we see OUR WORK?  Yes, the ordinary, every-day work too.  Washing dishes, cleaning homes, doing schoolwork, the work-shop, the factory.  And there will be plenty of it in this New Year!

Do we believe that it all has a purpose?

Do we believe that even sweeping the floor is by the grace of God?  And that also through your market garden, your bakery, your shop, God is bringing the world and its history to an end?  And that is why we also pray today: "Lord, this work of ours, establish it!  A confession that when God does not guide, all is in vain; when His Spirit does not lead, there will never be success!

And again we must look at Christ, in whom we have the assurance that all our work IS established!  We never have to be afraid that something is lacking.  What a tremendous thing this is!  That all our good works are prepared beforehand by God, for us to walk in them.  And that Christ fulfilled all this!

We do want to start the New Year like this, don't we?  With this prayer?  With folded hands?  That is difficult for our hands, to be still; we'd much rather be BUSY, working; but that means that we then enter this year in our own strength, and that is a dangerous business.

Sunday school teachers, session members, Cadets and Calvinette leaders, youth club, choir, Bible study groups : FOLDED HANDS, yes?  Folded hands, first of all?

ARE we a praying people?  Are we a congregation on our knees?  HOW do we pray?  WHAT do we pray for?  Do we pray IN FAITH?

Are we all active in the Kingdom, each in his own little corner?  Are we all pulling our weight in the church?  Or are you more of a dead weight?

You know: PRAYER and WORK, they do go together.  It's useless to pray this New Year's prayer, and then at the same time be on strike in God's vineyard!  How could God possibly establish the work of our hands, while these hands are doing nothing?  Don't say: What can I get out of the church, but what can the church get out of ME?  What can I do with MY talents, MY time, MY education, in God's Kingdom?

Then our New Year's prayer, brothers and sisters, will surely be answered!  For it is NOT REALLY a daring prayer, not really a cheeky prayer, it is a prayer in FAITH!

Faith in the love of Christ; faith in the power of God.

That of course does not mean that in 1969 all things will go the way WE want them to go; we might make many plans, yet none of them come true.

God sometimes breaks down OUR work, so that He can break THROUGH with HIS work, but our work in JESUS CHRIST is never in vain, never wasted, be sure of that!

When we appeal to His grace in CHRIST, then God's favour will be upon us, throughout this year, and then the coming 365 days will be immensely fruitful and worthwhile, for God will establish them in Jesus Christ, for 1969; yes, for all eternity!

AMEN.