[This is a lightly edited transcript of a devotional shared by David Yi (one of our ruling elders) during the congregational meeting on February 26, 2023]
Our church has been centered around the topic of prayer, and I thought to share some of my personal reflections and how they intersect with this season at IGC.
As a relatively cautious person, and in no attempt to say anything “prophetic”, I will say this:
Right now, I’m convinced that God is starting to do something in our church. Something different. Something powerful. It’s not uncommon in a community of faith – whether that’s your family, or your group of friends, or a local church – for God to demonstrate his power and grace after an intense season of hardship and sorrow. We’ve seen that pattern throughout scripture. By God’s grace, I believe we can enter into that kind of season together. I’ve seen things in our worship services. I’ve seen things in our CG. I’ve seen it in the conversations I’ve recently had with friends in our church, in the ways God is moving in their hearts and lives. I see it in our session as we are finding new reasons to praise God and give thanks to him for his faithfulness to us. I don’t believe these are random. I believe they are part of a greater work of God at IGC. This is not to say that all people at our church is experiencing such things. It’s also not to say that things are so great at our church. We still need healing and growing. Maybe you are some someone who in pain, or struggling, or feeling distant from God. But here and there, I have noticed some cracks, and beams of renewal and the light of God’s grace starting to peek through.
But here’s the thing church: We need to pray. We must be absolutely committed to prayer during this season. There are no movements of renewal, revival, or repentance without prayer. When we pray, the Holy Spirit can surprise us with unexpected things. During prayer in one of our recent CG meetings someone in our group started praying for another person who had been struggling and tears were shared among us. When we pray, the Spirit can convict our hearts to confession and repentance. When we pray, the Spirit can enter us into a season of putting to death things in our lives that hinder us from Jesus and replace it with new springs of life. Why can’t we have a revival at IGC? Why can’t we enter into a season where our sin becomes more bitter, and Christ becomes sweeter? Why can’t we experience this throughout the church, even before we know the name of our next senior pastor? Why not? When I texted a brother last week about desiring more from the Lord for our church, he texted me back these two words: “Ask boldly.” Yes, I must ask boldly. We all must ask boldly.
Here’s the thing though. As convinced as I am that we need to enter into a season of intense prayer, I look at my prayer life and realize how embarrassed I am at how weak and underdeveloped it is. I’ve examined it carefully. I’ve been talking to my mentor about my prayer life, and I’ve realized how unbalanced I am in my spiritual life. In Acts 6, the church raised up deacons so that the apostles could focus on the two priorities of the church – prayer and the ministry of the Word. Like a guy who only bench presses and does bicep curls at the gym and never trains his legs and resembles the physique of SpongeBob, I realize how imbalanced I am. Not enough prayer. Also, as someone who is passionate about discipling others, I’ve realized of all the spiritual disciplines I’ve passed onto others for their Christian growth, I’ve not transferred a prayer life very well. The reason is pretty simple – because I haven’t modeled it from my own life.
There might be lots of factors (ahem, excuses) for this. I think about all the Christian conferences I’ve been to and how 90% of them are someone talking, there’s about 8% singing, and maybe 2% prayer. I think about how in praying meetings we often spend 80% of the time talking and sharing, and maybe 20% of the time praying, if even that. I think about my Korean immigrant church upbringing, where prayer was so powerful and rich, and how later in English ministry contexts, as we moved away from our parents’ way of faith, we even threw out their rich tradition of prayerfulness (which we should have held onto for dear life). I think about how in our general theologically Reformed camp (like us in the PCA), it feels like sometimes its more about learning theology than practicing doxology (worship). At times it seems like we’re almost afraid of spiritual experiences. I think about the culture of the Bay Area and how much we value acquisition of information. These all may be contributing factors for sure. But in the end, I know don’t pray because my pride, my spiritual immaturity, and even my unbelief in the power of prayer. I am repenting of this.
In thinking through this, I started to feel riddled with guilt and shame about my prayer life. I started to feel immense conviction that I’m supposed to be praying more and I’m not. How am I going to lead our CG in prayer with my weak prayer life? How am I supposed to love others if I don’t find more time to pray for and with them? Why is prayer so hard? I feel bad about this. Do you guys feel this at all?
As I started to work this out, the Holy Spirit led me to start thinking about the apostles. You know, the prayers warriors who led the early church. These guys were so devoted to prayer. I started re-reading Acts and marking all the places they were praying together. It was amazing. They prayed constantly (1:14, 6:4, 10:9, 12:5, 14:23). And in so many places, it said they were “devoted” to prayer.
I soon remembered these were the same guys who, the night that Jesus was betrayed, kept falling asleep, and failed to pray even after the Lord Jesus specifically asked them – pleaded with them multiple times – to pray and keep watch. Do you remember this story?
Some of these guys were fisherman. They were used to fishing all night long for their work. And yet when Jesus, their Lord and friend who spent 3 years of his life with them, is in such sorrow and agony that he is sweating drops of blood and falling to his knees in prayer, asks them to be a friend to pray and keep watch… They can’t. do. it. They can stay up to fish. Not to pray. This story did not help my guilt. It only added to it.
But here’s where I was comforted by our Lord Jesus. Perhaps you’ll be comforted by this as well. Because unlike us, Jesus, who was full of sorrow and to the point of death, actually prays. Luke 22:44 says this “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drop of blood falling to the ground.” As we are in the season of Lent, where we reflect more on the sufferings of our Lord Jesus, picture this for a moment. And the next verse, verse 45, it says that Jesus finds his disciples sleeping. [Luke graciously attributes their slumber to an exhaustion from sorrow. Have you ever been exhausted from sorrow and felt like sleep is all you could do?]. How does our Lord Jesus respond? He doesn’t give a stern word of rebuke. He doesn’t say “You weak, faithless fools. I’m about to die for you! And you’re here sleeping? You can’t even say a few words of prayer?” No. Luke tells us Jesus simply says to his brothers, with love and tenderness and concern, “Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Because Jesus knew how much the disciples would have to endure and he was urging them to pray, to help them. But they fail to pray, Jesus is betrayed and all the disciples all flee.
But our Jesus… what did he do? He prayed. He asked God “not my will but yours be done.” And with those prayers, he went to the cross and died for prayerless, sinful, unfaithful disciples like us. Even on the cross, with his dying breath, he prayed to God to ask him “forgive them for they know not what they do.”
I imagine the disciples never forgot how their Lord prayed, and even prayed on the cross. I imagine the disciples never forgot the night they fell asleep and failed to pray. Yet their Lord still died for them. What was the effect of this to their life and ministry?
Just weeks after this event, after Jesus resurrected and ascends, Luke tells us in Acts 1 that the same disciples were back at the mount of Olives – the same mount of Olives with the garden where Jesus was praying, and they were sleeping. They were back at the scene of the crime. And they come down from that same mountain, they go into the city of Jerusalem together. Acts 1:14 says “all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer…” They were changed by Jesus. Those prayers in Chapter 1 were the prequel to the Holy Spirit’s anointing in Chapter 2, and then proceeds to record all the mighty things God’s Spirit did through the church.
That same Spirit is powerfully working at our church right now. Listen church! We need to pray. I know it’s hard. I know we may not be good at it. I know I’m undisciplined in my prayer. But Jesus isn’t done praying. Right now, Jesus is at the right hand of God, and Romans 8 says he’s interceding for us right now. He’s praying for us! In the same chapter, we are told that the Spirit himself intercedes for us when we don’t even know what to pray for!
I’ve been reading this wonderful book, A Praying Church, by Paul Miller (I urge you to read it). Dane Ortlund, who wrote the intro, writes this about the importance of prayer in churches – a timely word for IGC:
"A church with rich history, flawless music, powerful preaching, amazing childcare, a paid-off mortgage, and stellar attendance but sleepily operating out of the resources of the flesh instead of prayer is headed toward tragic inconsequentiality.
A church riddled with dysfunctions, embattled and beleaguered, unimpressive in preaching, off-tune musically, small in numbers, and without resources but quietly collapsing into the freefall of faith-fueled praying is a church that will bless this world in a thousand surprising ways and leave a mark that reverberates through eternity."
May our God grant IGC the gift of “collapsing into the freefall of faith-fueled praying”!
For Christ and his church. For his glory and our joy.