Prayer Perfumed with Praise

A sermon (No. 1469) delivered on Lord’s-Day morning, April 20th, 1879, by C. H. Spurgeon

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

“In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”—Philippians 4:6.

ACCORDING TO THE TEXT, we are both by prayer and supplication to make known our requests unto God. If any distinction be intended here, I suppose that by prayer is meant the general act of devotion and the mention of our usual needs; and by supplication I think would be intended our distinct entreaties and special petitions. We are to offer the general prayer common to all the saints, and we are to add thereto the special and definite petitions which are peculiar to ourselves. We are to worship in prayer, for God is to be adored by all his saints, and then we are to beseech his favours for ourselves, according to the words of the text, letting our requests be made known unto God. Do not forget this second form of worship. There is a good deal of generalizing in prayer, and God forbid that we should say a word against it, so far as it is sincere worship, but we want to have more of specific, definite pleading with God, asking him for such-and-such things, with a clear knowledge of what we ask. You will hear prayers at prayer-meetings, in which everything is asked in general but nothing in particular, and yet the reality and heartiness of prayer will often be best manifested by the putting up of requests for distinct blessings. See how Abraham, when he went to worship the Lord, did not merely adore him, and in general pray for his glory, but on a special occasion he pleaded concerning the promised heir, at another time he cried, “O that Ishmael might live before thee,” and on one special occasion he interceded for Sodom. Elijah, when on the top of Carmel, did not pray for all the blessings of providence in general, but for rain, for rain there and then. He knew what he was driving at, kept to his point, and prevailed. So, my beloved friends, we have many wants which are so pressing as to be very distinct and definite, and we ought to have just so many clearly defined petitions which we offer unto God by way of supplication, and for the divine answers to these we are bound to watch with eager expectancy, so that when we receive them we may magnify the Lord.  Continue at Sharper Iron

Be Stressed Out and Do Not Sin

I love the Book of Psalms. As authoritative models of prayer and worship, we return to them often for help (When we don't know how to pray as we ought, the Spirit intercedes for us... and read some psalms). And in my experience, it's the easiest book to short-circuit meaning for application. Because the theology is so relevant, we can subtly gloss over what the text says to focus on us and our situations. But remember it's only for us — by God about his Son for us. 

So how might it look if we read like this? Say, Psalm 4? How would it look if we asked first, "what does this text say?" and then second, "what does it mean for me right now?"

Psalm 4:1–8,

¹  Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
²   O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah
³   But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
the Lord hears when I call to him.
  ⁴ Be angry, and do not sin;
ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah
⁵   Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the Lord.
⁶   There are many who say, "Who will show us some good?
Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!"
⁷   You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.
⁸   In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

What It Means

Prayer is an important theme in this Psalm of David. It begins with the plea, "Answer me when I call" (verse 1). Again, "hear my prayer!" Then, "the Lord hears when I call to him" (verse 3). It's an amazing picture of fellowship. David talks to God and God hears David. And he keeps David. He sustains and guards him (Psalm 3:5; 4:8). 

Now these are observations. They are all by the way of discovering what the text says. But don't think we're blank-slate readers. Jesus has let us in on an important tip: the whole Bible is about him (Luke 24:25–27; John 5:39, 46). So an integral part of discovering what this psalm means is seeing how it's connected to our Lord.  Continue at Jonathan Parnell

Exchanging Fear for Fear

Why is the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom? Because the end of folly is the love of the praise of men. Or to say the same thing in a different way: there is no sin so prevalent, so insidious, and so deep as the sin of fearing people more than we fear God.

Think of Saul, that tall Benjaminite who became the first king of Israel. His downfall was the result of misplaced fear. As he explained to Samuel after the whole business with the bleating sheep, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (1 Sam. 15:24). Here’s this powerful, impressive looking king worried about what people think of him. And it’s not his enemies the Amalekites he’s worried about. Except for Agag, they were all dead. Saul wasn’t afraid of his enemies; he was scared of his friends—afraid that they would desert him, afraid they would revolt, afraid he would he be an unpopular King.  Saul was a head taller with more authority than anyone in the kingdom and yet he disobeyed a clear command from God because he feared people. He was the Lord’s cautionary tale for Proverbs 29:25 (“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe”) and a preview of Christ’s indictment in John 12:42-43 (“but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God”). Saul is but one of many sad examples of those who counted it more precious to be acceptable and palatable and influential in the eyes of their peers, than to be honored and affirmed and found faithful in the sight of God.

It’s easy to see how foolish Saul was, but each one of us struggles with the same fear of man and love of the praise of man.

• Do you struggle with peer pressure?  Do you give in to things against your will just to go along with the crowd?  That’s the fear of man.  And it doesn’t get any easier when you get older.  Adults just find more creative ways to mask it and more socially acceptable ways to channel it.  We don’t set things on fire as much.  But we still feel peer pressure when gossip starts, or a raunchy movie is on, or bad mouthing someone begins.

• Are you over-committed?  Is it impossible for you to say no? Could be a sign that you love to be loved by others.   Continue at Kevin DeYoung

An Open Letter to Praise Bands

Dear Praise Band,

I so appreciate your willingness and desire to offer up your gifts to God in worship. I appreciate your devotion and celebrate your faithfulness--schlepping to church early, Sunday after Sunday, making time for practice mid-week, learning and writing new songs, and so much more. Like those skilled artists and artisans that God used to create the tabernacle (Exodus 36), you are willing to put your artistic gifts in service to the Triune God.

So please receive this little missive in the spirit it is meant: as an encouragement to reflect on the practice of "leading worship." It seems to me that you are often simply co-opted into a practice without being encouraged to reflect on its rationale, its "reason why." In other words, it seems to me that you are often recruited to "lead worship" without much opportunity to pause and reflect on the nature of "worship" and what it would mean to "lead."

In particular, my concern is that we, the church, have unwittingly encouraged you to simply import musical practices into Christian worship that--while they might be appropriate elsewhere--are detrimental to congregational worship. More pointedly, using language I first employed in Desiring the Kingdom, I sometimes worry that we've unwittingly encouraged you to import certain forms of performance that are, in effect, "secular liturgies" and not just neutral "methods." Without us realizing it, the dominant practices of performance train us to relate to music (and musicians) in a certain way: as something for our pleasure, as entertainment, as a largely passive experience. The function and goal of music in these "secular liturgies" is quite different from the function and goal of music in Christian worship.

So let me offer just a few brief axioms with the hope of encouraging new reflection on the practice of "leading worship":  Continue at James K. A. Smith

THE TRUE CHARACTER OF PRAISE...an exposition of Psalm 119:12

Psalm 119:12
"Blessed are You, O Lord:
teach me Your statutes."

“Praise is lovely for the upright.” It is at once their duty and their privilege. But what does highest exercise amount to, when placed on the ground of its own merit? We clothe our ideas with magnificence of language, and deck them out with all the richness of imagery; and perhaps we are pleased with our forms of praise. But what are they in His sight beyond the offering of a contemptible worm, spreading before its Maker its own mean and low notions of Divine Majesty? If a worm were to raise its head, and cry—’O sun! You are the source of light and heat to a widely-extended universe’—it would, in fact, render a higher praise to the sun, than we can ever give to our Maker. Between it and us there is some proportion—between us and God none. Yet, unworthy as the offering confessedly is, He will not despise it. No, more, instead of spurning it from His presence, He has revealed Himself as “inhabiting the praises of Israel;” thus intimating to us, that the service of praise is “set forth in His sight as incense;” and at the same time, that it should be the daily and unceasing exercise of one at his own home.

The true character of praise, however, depends entirely upon the state of the heart. In the contemplative philosopher it is only cheerless, barren admiration: in the believer it becomes a principle of comfort and encouragement. For, can he forget the revelation, which his God has given of Himself in the gospel of His dear Son; how it divests every attribute of its terrors, and shines before us in all the glory of His faithfulness and love? The ascription of praise, “Blessed are You, O Lord,” frames itself therefore into the prophet’s song, “Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy.” Read the rest HERE