Every year Gene Hall and his team put together a National Day of Prayer event at Red Oak Excavating. I had the privilege of speaking at this event this morning. I am posting my manuscript for my speech below.
National Day of
Prayer
May 7, 2015
Have you had a good time this
morning? I count it a privilege to be a
part of this event again this year.
Thank you to Gene Hall and others who are responsible for putting this
wonderful event together. It is a great
blessing to gather with brothers and sisters in Christ in this free land to
consider the importance of crying out to our God in prayer, and then to do just
that.
I have been given the task this morning
of pulling all of the speeches and prayers together in kind of a concluding
fashion under the banner of the theme: Lord, Hear Our Cry!
Of course, as you have heard, the verse
of Scripture associated with this theme comes from 1 Kings 8:28.
“Hear the cry and the prayer that your
servant is praying in your presence this day.”
This verse is found in the context of
Solomon's prayer of dedication for the recently constructed temple. If you are familiar with the story, you know
that Solomon's father David desired to build a temple for the Lord. This would be a place for the Lord to
dwell. There the people of God could
have fellowship with their God.
But it was not God's plan for David
to build this temple. Instead, He told
David that his son would be the one who would build the temple. God said to David, "Whereas it was in
your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your
heart. Nevertheless, you shall not build
the house, but your son who shall be born to you shall build the house for my
name."
And here in 1 Kings 8 we see the
fulfillment of that promise that God made to David. Solomon has overseen the building of a
temple. Now He is dedicating that temple
to God. In doing so, He cries out to
God, "Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your
presence this day." Solomon's hope
was in the fact that the God He worshiped hears the cries of His people. That is certainly the source of our hope this
morning as we unite under the theme of "Lord, Hear our Cry!" God hears the cries of His people.
Because of the fulfillment of God's
promise, Solomon's heart was filled with worship to God. Solomon prayed, "O Lord, God of Israel, there
is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and
showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their
heart." He goes on later in the
chapter, "Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel,
according to all that he promised. Not
one word has failed of all his good promise which he spoke by Moses his
servant." Friends, this God that
Solomon worshiped is our God. He is
still a covenant keeping God. His
promises never fail.
Now, while there is a sense in which
God's promise to David was fulfilled in his son Solomon, there is also a sense
in which it was not fulfilled until many years later and is still being
fulfilled. As we turn to the New
Testament in Matthew chapter 1, we see that Jesus the Messiah was a descendant
of David. This promise that a descendant
of David would establish a place of worship for the one true God was ultimately
fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In fact, we
see Jesus refer to his own body as a temple during His time here on earth. Also, we see Jesus establishing a people for
God through His sinless life and death on our behalf. And one day, we know that Jesus will return
to establish a new heaven and a new earth where God will dwell with His people
forever.
But in the meantime, we are God's
temple. Those who have repented of their
sin and placed their faith in Jesus, the people of God, are His temple. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit of
God resides in all believers. Thus we
know, that just as God heard the cries of His people in 1 Kings 8, He hears the
cries of His people today. Romans 8
talks about the Spirit interceding to God on our behalf. The writer of Hebrews talks about Jesus as
the mediator between God and man. We
have access to God this morning, as we gather for this day of prayer, because
of Jesus.
The cultural situation in which we
find ourselves is bleak. All one needs
to do to see this is turn on the news.
Often it feels as if the enemy is winning the battle. We see rioting in the streets of
Baltimore. Buildings burned. Police cars are smashed. Gunshots are fired. We see more injustice piled on top of
injustice.
Then just a short drive down I-95
our attention shifts to arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States
about whether states should be forced to recognize something as marriage that
cannot and never will truly be marriage.
Confusion abounds as the truth of God is exchanged for a lie. Rather than the worship of the Creator, we
see men and women worshiping and serving the creature.
And if you're paying attention, you
know that the crowd screaming "tolerance" is the most intolerant of
them all. If you dare speak the truth of
God and His Word to the culture, you better be prepared to face the
consequences. You may be ostracized and
cast aside as a bigot. While our nation
was founded on the principle of religious freedom, that freedom is eroding
before our very eyes.
So where is our hope? I truly think that perhaps the changing
cultural tide in our nation is a good thing.
It doesn't feel good, but perhaps it will serve to set our minds on the
author and perfecter of our faith. For
far too long we have placed our hope in the political process. For far too long we have set our minds on the
ballot box. But the reality is that
there is nothing our elected officials in Richmond or Washington can do to
change the hearts of men and women.
And friends, that is what we need
more than new laws in Washington. We
need new hearts. And this change must
begin with you and me. It must begin
with the people of God. We must fall on
our knees first in repentance. We repent
of having trusted the political process more than we trusted God. And we vow to live differently moving
forward. We vow to walk by faith, and
not by sight. We vow to be the
instruments God uses to effect the change we desire to see.
Our God is the same God who made His
promise to David. He is the same God who
kept His promise in Solomon. He is the
same God who is keeping His promise even now in Jesus. We carry with us, fellow believers, the
greatest message in all the world. It's
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
one who lived in perfect obedience to the Father. The one who died to pay for the sin of all
those who would repent of their sin and place their faith in Jesus. The one who was raised on the third day. The one who ascended into heaven and is right
now seated at the right hand of the Father.
And He is the one who will one day return to establish His kingdom
forever. At that time, He will right all
wrongs. Friends, this is the only source of hope
for us, and it is the only source of hope for this great nation.
