Don’t Let God Sleep
Church, in just a moment, we’ll move into our time of silent confession; something we do each and every week. But before we do that, I want to give you a simple exhortation this morning: pray for the unsaved people in your life.
Family, friends, coworkers, neighbors. Pray for them. Don’t let a single day go by without praying for unsaved peoples.
Now, if we have the opportunity to share the gospel with unsaved peoples, we should open our mouths and share but we don’t always get that opportunity, for various reasons, but we can always pray!
Most of my family members are not Christians. And there are family members of mine that I have prayed for, for many, many years. My dad, for example, is not a believer. But I pray for him daily. Here’s what I do with my dad. His birthday is March 3, so I have an alarm set on my phone every day at 3:03pm. When the reminder goes off, I pray for my dad. Not a long prayer, it’s usually just a few seconds. I pray for him every day. I do the same for my mom. Her birthday is October 24th, so every morning at 10:24am, the reminder goes off, and I pray for her too.
I’ve prayed for my parents’ salvation nearly every day that I’ve been a Christian. I may have missed a few days, here and there, but I’ve pretty much prayed for my parents’ salvation every day, for more than 27 years. And every night before my wife and I go to sleep, we pray for our unsaved family members. My siblings, her cousins, some aunts, and uncles.
And we pray for them in-line with what we see in Scripture. For example, in Acts 16, we see that God opened the heart of a woman named Lydia, which caused her to believe. So, I often pray, God, would you open their hearts.
Or, as we see in Romans 10, the apostle Paul says that his prayer is for his fellow Israelites to be saved, but later in the chapter he says that they cannot be saved unless a preacher is sent to them to preach. So, I often pray, God, would you send people to my dad; when he stops at Wawa to get his morning coffee (it’s a very popular chain in Philadelphia), “God, when my dad stops to get his coffee, would you send Christians, would he bump into people who love God, who could proclaim the gospel.”
Or in 2 Cor. 4, the apostle Paul says that the “unbelievers” are “blinded” by “the god of this world.” So, I pray, O God, would you open their eyes, would you give them spiritual eyes to see. These are the types of prayers we should pray for unbelieving peoples every single day. Keep praying and keep praying and keep praying! Don’t give up!
I’m encouraged by the words from the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 62. In that chapter the prophet Isaiah is giving instructions, he says…
“All you who pray to the Lord… [take no rest],
Give the Lord no rest until he completes his work.”
(Isa. 62:6b-7a NLT)
The prophet says, “don’t let God rest until he answers you.” He says give God no rest. It’s sort of like he’s saying don’t let God sleep, don’t let God take a nap, until he answers.
Now, of course, we know that God doesn’t rest or sleep the way we do, this passage is using this language to make a point. His point is that we should pray so much, that even if God were going to take a nap, he couldn’t sleep because he’s being bombarded by the prayers of his people.
Church, Give him no rest. Pray, pray a lot, pray often, and may your prayers include prayers for unbelieving peoples. Pray with me now.
Father in heaven, we acknowledge that it’s so easy for us to get lazy in our prayer life. It’s so easy to get apathetic, or flippant.
O God, would you forgive us. Forgive us for not laboring in prayer for those who are blinded by the god of this world. God, we can all think of names and faces of people that we know, people that refuse to believe. God, would you bestow to us the grace and the fortitude that we need to labor in prayer for those people. And God, as we do pray, would you hear our prayers, and would you be pleased to use our prayers in the process of saving those souls. I ask.
And now God, as we do every Sunday, we pause to acknowledge our sinfulness, not just in our lack of prayer, but many other sins too.
God, we know that we are sinners, by nature and by choice, and we take this moment of silence to confess our own individual sins to you now.
Father in heaven, you are kind and merciful. Thank you. Praise be to your glorious grace. And God I acknowledge that you have promised to listen to us when we pray! The God of the universe, Creator of everything, you actually listen to us. Wow! Thank you! God, you take our prayers, and you fold them into your plans, and that through prayer, we can be a part of the amazing things that you are doing across the world. God, Thank you! Thank you!
Also, thank you God for the church, as we’ve seen in the book of Hebrews the last few weeks, the church is the instrument that you use to keep our hearts soft, to guard us from the deceitfulness of sin. God, I ask, in the name of Jesus, that you would use this church family to sanctify your people, to make us to be more like Jesus. And lastly, God, thank you for giving us the opportunity to confess our sins. Thank you for making it possible for our sins to be forgiven. Thank you for sending Jesus. Amen!
Assurance of Pardon
Now, please stand if you’re able, for the assurance of pardon. Church, you have confessed your sins, now hear the good news!
When we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Therefore, to all who humbly seek the mercy of God, I say to you, in Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven.