The Witness of Praise

Psalm 66:1-12                 1 Thessalonians 5:16-25                      Luke 17:11-19

The Witness of Praise

In their book, Contagious Disciple Making: Leading others on a Journey of Discovery, father-son team, David and Paul Watson write: “In a meeting of the top one hundred disciple-makers in our ministry, we looked for common elements among these high-producing leaders…we found many common elements among the different groups, but the only element that was present in every team was a high commitment to prayer…as we started looking at disciple-making movements worldwide, we made a critical observation: a prayer movement precedes every disciple-making movement.”

 In their talk at the New Wineskins Missions Conference regarding mobilising believers to pray, they recommended that every church member make a calendar list of at least thirty individuals whom they will commit to pray for every day of every month for every year. Their method is quite simple. Call or text or email the person whose name falls on the particular day and ask how you could be praying for them. Then, pray for them immediately, either verbally on the phone or in person or by writing out the prayer and texting or emailing it back to them. Repeat this each day, every day for everyone on the list of thirty people each and every month, every year…

However, they also highlighted the need to praise God for answered prayer. This means that in addition to contacting the individual you are praying for the following month, you will also need to reconnect with them soon after praying for them to ask if and how your prayers have been answered. If the situation is still the same, pray again, asking God for clarity and guidance in your prayers and thanking him for always knowing what is best for us…but if God has answered the prayer or prayers, then praise him for it together with the person you are praying for. 

Praising God for answered prayer may, at first, seem obvious. Of course, we need to express gratitude to God for answered prayer. But you would be surprised to discover that more often than we would care to admit, we neglect to thank him, much less praise him for his kindness and mercy and grace and compassion. 

Now, just a quick disclaimer here for the sake of basic safeguarding principles. Unless the individual specifically gives you permission to share their prayer requests with others (and unless the request is criminal or life-threatening), all the information is to be kept strictly confidential. 

Not keeping prayer requests confidential is the worst form of Christian gossip I have come across…and I am sure you know exactly what I mean. “I don’t mean to gossip, but (fill in a name) really needs your prayers.” “Oh, why?” “Well, I shouldn’t really be telling you, but…” And so, it begins…soon the whole community knows that (fill in a name) has a problem with chronic stinky feet, and (fill in a name) is left wondering why no one wants to sit next to them during the church service. So, keep the prayers between you and the person you are praying with and for. 

Be that as it may, in our Gospel lesson for today, ten men who had leprosy received healing. They had prayed to the Lord, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us.” In response to their prayer, Jesus had instructed them to go and show themselves to the priests, an act usually performed by one already healed from leprosy. Their obedience to this command demonstrated a certain faith…a belief that in going, they would be healed. And that is exactly what happened. As they went, they were cleansed. That kind of faith is commendable, don’t you think? They were acting on a promise not yet fulfilled.

But it is what followed the healing that is of interest to us today. They had prayed and they had believed and they had received what they had asked for. They had been healed. 

But…they neglected to thank God for their healing. All except one man. “One of them,” Luke tells us, “when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.” What was more remarkable in this particular case, was that the man was considered a foreigner…an outsider by devout Jews…Luke tells us he was a Samaritan.

Now, it is interesting to note that Jesus seemed to have been taken aback by this lack of gratitude of the other nine men. “Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And in expressing his surprise, Jesus reveals to us a key principle in the way we ought to relate to God. When we pray and God answers us in the affirmative, we ought to thank him and praise him for his gracious response.

Last week, Tom Marinello urged us to cultivate an “attitude of gratitude”, and so we should. But why? Why is giving thanks to God for answered prayer so important? Is God a narcissistic megalomaniac or a pathological egotist who demands recognition from his subjects? Or is he perhaps an insecure God who desires constant affirmation to reinforce his fragile self-image? Or does gratitude have more to do with us than with him? 

Paul tells us that giving thanks in all circumstances is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. In our passage from 1 Thessalonians, Paul is actually taking us a step further. He is not only saying that we ought to give God thanks if and when He grants our petitions…no, rather Paul says that we ought to thank God no matter what happens. Really? No matter what happens?

Tom hinted at this in his talk last week when he mentioned the story of Joseph. Do you remember? Joseph was the beloved son of his father…everything seemed to be in his favour…his future looked bright. But then his jealous brothers turned against him. At first, they plotted to kill him, but because of the intervention of first Reuben and then Judah, he was not killed but rather sold to Midianite traders as a slave. Taken to Egypt, he first served as a slave in Potiphar’s household, but due to the false accusations of Potiphar’s wife, he was thrown into prison. Then, after interpreting a dream of the temporally incarcerated cup bearer of the Pharaoh and securing a promise from him to make his case known to Pharoah once he was released, Joseph spent another two years in prison because the cup bearer forgot about him. He only remembered Joseph after God sent disturbing dreams to Pharaoh and finally, Joseph was vindicated. I’m sure you remember the rest of the story and how his brothers grovelled before him for food during the famine. 

But did Joseph thank God no matter what happened to him? Sadly, we are not told explicitly about his attitude, but we are told that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did – in slavery and in prison. We also know that God gave him insight and wisdom to interpret the dreams of Pharoah’s two servants as well as Pharoah’s own dreams. So, it seems that Joseph’s relationship with God was not blurred or soured by bitterness or resentment. Only once in his request to the cup bearer did Joseph speak about his misfortunes. “But when all goes well with you,” he said to the cup bearer, “remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharoah and get me out of this prison for I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.” 

But it is surely in his speeches to his brothers that Joseph reveals his heart. We don’t know exactly when he realised that his suffering was part of a much bigger and better plan of God to preserve the life of his family, but I think we can safely say that that kind of understanding is no born in a moment. That kind of comprehension is founded on a longstanding conviction that God is good, no matter what our circumstances may be…that because of God’s unchangeable character and because of his unthwartable plan God always works all things – the good, the bad, and the ugly – God always works all things together for the good of those who love him. 

It is that firm bedrock conviction that enables us to be thankful in all circumstances. But mor than that. It also gives us the ability to overcome fear. 

In Colossians, Paul urges us not to be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, to present our requests to God. In doing so, he says that the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

It is in knowing that our God is good, kind, compassionate, merciful, gracious, generous, and forgiving that we can give thanks at all times and in all circumstances…no matter what happens. And I think, herein lies the answer to our question. Why is giving thanks to God for answered prayer or, I hasten to add, for unanswered prayer, so important? As I said earlier, I think it has more to with us, than with God.

You see, by giving thanks regardless of our situation in life, we demonstrate the kind of faith displayed by the three friends of Daniel when threatened by the king of Babylon. Remember? “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from your Majesty’s hand. BUT…(and here comes the crucial part)…BUT even if he does not, we want you to know, your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of god you have set up.” Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego served God because they knew he was God…not because of what they could get out of him! 

None of us are privy to all the mysteries of God. None of us know all there is to know. But that is what faith and trust is all about! We don’t need to know the unknowable when we know the knowable. If we know God and believe him to be who he reveals himself to be in the holy Scriptures, we don’t need to be anxious for the future because we know him who holds the future in his hand! 

That kind of faith speaks loudly and clearly about the greatness of our God! That kind of faith is a witness…a more powerful witness than any argument or proof we may seek to offer for the existence of the God of the Scriptures. There is nothing more compelling than a life lived in gratitude. A god served only when he does what we want is not really a god worth following at all.

So, to bring together all that I have said thus far: 

We need to be people of prayer as a life of prayerfulness demonstrates a humble acknowledgement of our own limitations and finiteness. 

But we also need to be a people characterised by gratitude and thankfulness at all times and in all circumstances as that demonstrates a humble acknowledgement that the God we pray to and the God we serve is worthy of our adoration regardless. It is this attitude that carries us through the darkest moments of our lives…in fact it would be true to say that it is often in this darkness that we really get to know the presence of God…that there is, as Corrie Ten Boom once said, no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still. And, I dare to add, it is often in this darkness that our witness of praise to Jesus burns the brightest.

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022