Well I encourage you to take your copies of God's Word and turn once again to Acts chapter 2 verse 42. We'll begin there this evening. I just want to remind you we're working through a big series called Praying with Scripture and last week we began a series within a series called Why Are Church Prayer Meetings Important? And last week we opened up Acts 2.42, which if you've been here for any amount of time, you know is not a foreign verse or a neglected verse in our time of worship and consideration. But really, I submitted to you last week that Acts 2.42 is really the sum and substance of what we at Grace Covenant Church are about, because what you see in Acts 2.42 is that Dr. Luke said that the church was characterized by what they clung to. And they clung to four things. They clung to the Apostles' teaching, that is the Word of God. They clung to the fellowship of the saints, which as I said last week and I repeat, is more than punching cookies, although it can include that. But the idea of koinonia in the Greek, fellowship, is the idea of sharing resources with one another. bearing burdens, helping one another. Thirdly, the breaking of bread, which is a sacrament, the Lord's Supper. And finally, to prayer. They were committed to all of these things. It was not a buffet where they picked and chose, but it is something that they gave themselves holistically to. In fact, the word cling, as I noted last week, literally means something like they clung to. They gave themselves over to it. So last week we began this series, why are church prayer meetings important? And I reminded us at least of four things, and I just want to rattle them off as we begin tonight. Number one, should come as no surprise to you, prayer is a means of grace. Secondly, by and large, when you look at church history, reformation and revival was always preceded by what? the corporate prayer of the people. And as Charles Spurgeon said, number three, we shall never see much change in our churches in general until the prayer meeting occupies a much higher place in the esteem of Christians. And finally, that the Lord has given us Sunday, the market day of the soul, for the primary purpose of the means of grace, namely, in our time of consideration, corporate prayer. So what I'd like to do this week is in three reflections, I'd like to give three answers to the question, why are church prayer meetings important? But what I specifically want to do this week is I want to, and listen to me very carefully please, I want to try to ground from Scripture the warrant and the reason for corporate prayer meetings. Now notice that I'm not saying your individual prayer time in your prayer closet. That's important. We should do it. We should all be striving toward that. But I'm talking about something very, very specific. I'm talking about a specific service in the life of a local church that is primarily given over to corporate prayer, because somebody can rightly and fairly come along and say, well, you know, we believe in sola scriptura, you know, the scripture alone is our final and ultimate authority, so where from scripture do you get this idea or concept that in addition to our normally stated services, where we have, we follow the regulative principle of worship and we carry out all the elements of worship, Where do you get the justification that, in addition to that, we should be having a corporate time of prayer where everybody, at least, is welcome to enter in? Well, I'd like to answer that tonight. So let's consider three broad scriptural warrants or commands or promises for corporate prayer. Here's the first one. It's the first answer to the question, why are church prayer meetings important? The first reason is because the native instinct of man is to cry out to his Creator for help. Turn in your Bibles to Genesis 4-6. You know that in those first three chapters of the book of Genesis, God is laying out the beginning of human civilization, the beginning of the story of mankind, if you will. And towards the end of chapter 4, He's laying out the genealogies. Very, very important. And at the end of chapter 4, in verse 26, I'll just read the whole verse. He says, To Seth, also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time, the people began to call upon the name of the Lord." So here's the beginning of civilization. And notice that though we would say as Reformed folk that the church was in the beginning with Adam and Eve, we can certainly also say that the church was not very well formed. We could certainly say that it was something of a quagmire. We could certainly say that when this verse says that men to begin to call upon the name of the Lord, it is not necessarily restricted to the church. In fact, the word people is not referring to any religious entity in and of itself necessarily. It says people. I don't remember off the top of my head what Hebrew word it is, but it's probably something just like man, mankind. Adamah, the word from which we get Adam. People begin to call on the name of the Lord. J.B. Johnston says that the first corporate prayer meeting happened here, in Genesis 4.26. Notice that there isn't even some explicit command to do so. If you look from Genesis 1 all the way up to Genesis 4.26, there isn't some specific and explicit command to hold a prayer meeting. But this is what I find to be so very fascinating. It is the native instinct of man to cry out to his creator, and why is that? I think you can answer the question. If we are made in the image of God, if we have God's image stamped upon our being, which the Shorter Catechism says of the image of God, it reflects righteousness, knowledge, and holiness. If we have that on our being, does it not make sense that we would cry out to that being to whom we owe obeisance and worship and respect? Of course it is. It is native. Sometimes my Presbyterian brothers chide me for teaching my kids to pray. Have you ever had a conversation with a Presbyterian about that? They say, well, Josh, you don't believe that your children are in the covenant of grace. And because they're not in the covenant of grace, you can't expect God to hear their prayers, and yet you teach them to pray. So why would you do this if they're not in covenant with God? My answer to that is twofold. Number one, I tell them, yes, it is true that as far as I can tell, if my child, as a Baptist, does not believe, he or she is not in the covenant of grace. But that doesn't mean that my child is not in a covenant with God. All human beings are in a covenant with God. Can anybody tell me what that covenant is? Thank you, the covenant of works. Every image bearer of God is in a covenant with God. And for that reason, we should expect them to pray. Now, we may not answer all the questions, cross all the T's and dot all the I's of the intricacies of how far up into heaven that prayer gets. I'm not interested in that. But as a covenant member in a covenant with God, we should pray. All humans should pray. But here's the second thing I tell my Presbyterian friends. I'm called to teach my children the kinds of habits that I want them to eventually carry out themselves, right? You do this in every other area of life. You teach them to brush their teeth, you teach them to clear the table, because you want them eventually to do that without the kind of prodding that parents are prone to give. If you don't pray with your children, you can't expect them to just magically one day start praying like a Westminster divine. It's just not going to happen. You must teach your children to pray. The habit of prayer is both taught and caught, but I would say that it's primarily caught. What do I mean by that? Kids need to see that you take prayer seriously. Kids need to see that you really believe that God is listening to you. Kids need to see that we pray in the name of a mediator. Listen to this. We pray in the name of the mediator, Jesus Christ. Why? Because in our native state, outside of the covenant of grace, we are enemies to God. and therefore we pray in the name of Jesus based on the merit of Jesus and the atonement of Jesus. And parents, can I just say this? Teaching your children to pray in the name of Jesus in and of itself is an opportunity to share the gospel. Right? Why do I pray in the name of Jesus, Daddy? I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you about the gospel and why you need to believe in Jesus. So the first reason why we hold corporate prayer meetings is because it's the native instinct of man to do so. But secondly, why are church prayer meetings important? Turn to Matthew 18, verse 19 and 20. Church prayer meetings are important because God delights to answer petitions signed by multiple signatures. God delights to answer petitions signed by multiple signatures. You should be familiar with Matthew 18, 15-20. We talk about it a lot. It has to do with church discipline. But tucked away in this little passage, Jesus gives us an explicit command to engage in prayer meetings. He says in verse 19, Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Now let me just say two things about this, okay? Number one, it's incredibly important to recognize that the context of this verse is talking about church discipline. In other words, Verse 19 and 20 come at the end of the church discipline process, where an unrepentant sinner, unwilling to repent of his or her sin, has been excommunicated from the church, and what Jesus says is that that decision made by the church, a very difficult and gut-wrenching decision, if the church collectively makes that decision, Jesus says, there I am in the midst of you, In other words, he's saying, my authority and my power is manifested through your decision. That's pretty weighty. He does that by saying, where two or three are gathered, there I am in your name. But at the same time, it's interesting to note that in verse 19 and 20, he says, whatever they ask in my name, it shall be done by my Father in heaven. This is, at the same time that it's talking about the declaration of excommunication, is also talking, listen to me very carefully, what power there is in the corporate nature of praying saints. Now that's interesting to me because I think sometimes we just give a carte blanche recognition to prayer. We tip our hat and we say, yeah, praying is good, whether you do it individually, corporate, it doesn't matter, it's just prayer. But Jesus seems to intimate here that there is some, I don't know if I want to say more power, I definitely don't want to say that, but there is something significant about more than one saint getting together and asking for something in the name of Jesus Christ. There is an approbation of the Father in heaven concerning the public declaration of prayer. In a sermon titled Social Prayer Meeting in 1844, Edwin Hatfield, pastor of New York, said that this Matthew text suggests that any number of praying souls had much greater reason to expect success when they prayed together than if they prayed for the same things individually. Now that is not to denigrate private prayer, but it is to magnify the importance of public prayer and church prayer meetings. In fact, the Greek word for agree here in this verse, this is very interesting. The Greek word for agree is symphoneo. It literally means to sound out together. Some of you already know what English word you hear in that Greek word. This is the word that is often used to depict the harmony of musical instruments sounding together from which we derive the word symphony. Jesus says, if you are voicing petitions, O believers, you are like a symphony of believers, and He will grant whatever you ask, provided it is His will. And that's what John says as well in 1 John 5, 14 and 15. So God wants us and commands us and delights in the saints getting together corporately and praying for things in His name. But now thirdly, third reason why church prayer meetings are important, and this is where we're going to spend the rest of our time tonight. Please turn to 1 Timothy. The third reason is because God commands us to pray as a people. God commands us to pray as a people. Now, I want you to look specifically in 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 and 15, because this is gonna set the context for looking at chapter two. If you wanted to know what both 1st and 2nd Timothy were about, you would see the purpose statement in chapter three, verse 14 and 15. Paul says this, writing to a young pastor in Ephesus named Timothy, Paul says, I hope to come to you soon. But I am writing these things to you so that, purpose clause, if I delay, listen, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth. What does that tell you? Everything that is commanded by Paul to Timothy and by extension to the church in these epistles is meant for the corporate consumption of the people of God. That doesn't mean that it doesn't hold true for us individually as well, that's true, but listen to me very carefully. The purpose of the epistles and really of the whole Bible is to address a people as a people, not individuals. Now some of you say, okay, here we go, Captain Obvious, you're going at it again. But you know, why do I have to make that distinction between corporate and individuals? I'll tell you why. because the broad line evangelical church has conditioned us to read the Bible in primarily individual categories. Have you experienced that? The evangelical church has taught us to read the Bible in primarily individual categories. And can I just say to you again and repeat it as often as I can? The Bible was never meant to be primarily understood in individual categories. It's primarily to be understood in corporate categories. And there's nothing Where did this grow out of? This inclination or this proclivity, I should say, to read the Bible just as an individual disconnected from the church, disconnected from the people of God, grew out of a revivalist movement which was outside the church. The revivalist movement in the 17th, 18th century, those revivals took place outside the context of the church. And again, we've talked about this a lot. It's not that they were bad, but what may have been thoroughly unhelpful is that in their proclamation of the gospel, there was not any exhortation or rarely an exhortation that after you believe, get yourself into a local church. It was just about you and Jesus. And that tendency, that trajectory, it's between me and Jesus, me and God, took those new converts into a life of spirituality where they read their Bibles as individuals, they prayed as individuals, they did good deeds, I guess, as individuals. But that's not the way it's supposed to be. The one and other passages are primarily in the context of the local church and not the universal church, not the invisible church. You can't bear the burdens of an individual church member. You could bear the burdens of a visible church member. Where do you find visible church members? You're looking at them here at Grace Covenant Church. That's where you find them. This means that the primary theater, if you will, in which we carry out the commands of scripture is in the local church. So, 1 Timothy 3, 14 and 15, Paul writes that we may know how we ought to behave ourselves in the household of God. Now I want you to turn to 1 Timothy 2. And I'm going to read this whole chapter, well, almost all of it, and then I'm going to give you a few thoughts, and then we'll conclude. So, we're going into 1 Timothy 2. Listen, because this is my main point tonight. We're going into 1 Timothy 2 with the recognition that what He's going to command us to do here is meant to be understood in the context of the local church, and therefore, it is of a corporate nature. 1 Timothy 2. Paul says, first of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle." I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth, verse eight. I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. Now there's a lot there. I'm not gonna hit it all, but I want you to notice three things. Number one. Paul urges the church as the church to pray. Verse 1, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people. Verse 8, I desire then that in every place the men should pray. That he is speaking in the context of the church is clear from the prohibition of women teaching in verse 12. What I mean by that is this, if you say that prayer in chapter two is just any time, then the prohibition of women teaching is also at any time and any place. And that means that women should not be teaching in schools. That means that women should not be teaching their children at home, which is ludicrous. Paul is talking about the context of the church. So women can teach in the secular realm, but not in the context of the church. So the exhortation to pray is meant to be understood in the context of the local church. Second thing I want you to notice. Paul urges individuals in the church as the church to pray. Verse 8, I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Now, in our particular context here at Grace Covenant Church, The individuals of the congregation don't pray on Sunday morning, okay? Who prays on Sunday morning? The pastors lead in a corporate prayer on Sunday morning, and we very much desire that you are supplicating with us in your mind and in your heart, amening in your heart, maybe even verbally and audibly with your mouth, but you don't have an opportunity to pray on Sunday morning. How can we fulfill what Paul calls us to do in 1 Timothy 2 if all we had was the morning service? We can't. Which leads me to conclude, and countless other churches throughout church history, there must be another venue in the life of the church where the church has an open season of prayer and anybody who wants to, man, woman, black, white, young, old, can enter into prayer. That's what our Vesper services are. And so it seems to me that the only way we can carry out 1 Timothy 2 is to have a specific time of prayer. Finally, third thing I want you to note, prayer meetings are not only commanded by God, but are also good and pleasing in the sight of God, verse three. This is important. We should not pass this up. It is good and pleasing in the sight of God. I know some people who are so fixated on justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, and that it's all the work of Christ and not the work of us, and I say amen to all those things, but they're so fixated on that that they can't imagine that there would be anything in scripture that would say that anything we do is good and pleasing to God. But here we have in Scripture, something that we do is commended as good and pleasing to God. Prayer, corporate prayer, is good and pleasing to God. So let me conclude tonight with three reflections. And before I do that, let me just summarize everything I've said. I've submitted for your consideration tonight, from the Scripture, the warrant for our Vesper services. And the last thing I want to say on that is this, if my exposition is correct, and we need to fulfill or carry out what Paul calls us to do in 1st Timothy 2, we must be at Vesper services. Now I know, I'm preaching the choir, you're here, okay? And I commend you for that. But it is the obligation and privilege of the people of God to carry out this privilege. So let me give three concluding reflections tonight, and here's the first one. I won't spend a lot of time on it since I spent a lot of time on it last week. God has given us a time and a place for corporate prayer. God has given us a time and a place for corporate prayer. I know we're busy. Many of us have full plates. But you know one of the most frequent excuses I hear for prayerlessness is that we just don't have time. We just don't have time. I've given that excuse. I don't have time. My day is so busy. My week is so busy. I don't have time. And you know the Lord understands that. He understands that. I mean the Lord wants you to pray as often as is possible. But you know as I said last week and this is why I'm not going to belabor it. He's given us a day. where we could set all that stuff aside and we can give ourselves to corporate prayer. He's given you a day. He's given you a day to enter into prayer. Secondly, secondly, God has given us the precious prayer of the saints, listen, to instruct us in how to pray. How many of you were nervous the first time you prayed in a public setting? Raise your hand. Okay, pretty much all of us were, right? It's very intimidating, especially if you're with a number of seasoned saints who really know how to pray well. And then inevitably you're going to have, you know, that hoary headed man or woman who's going to be praying with the these and the thousand. It sounds beautiful. And you're like, I don't know how to do that. And I've been in prayer meetings where young saints, less sanctified saints, they open with, hi God. How you doing? And it's like, hey, that's fine. I mean, we wanna see growth, but that's good. Get it out there. But one of the things that we get the privilege of sitting under in corporate prayer meetings is to get a panoply of different kinds of prayers from the saints. You know, so often when I ask people about their prayer lives, they say things like, well, I don't pray as much as I should or as much as I would like. And I think, as I said, we can all agree with this sentiment. At the same time, it's often those same people that I don't see at prayer meeting. But the church prayer meeting is the prime opportunity for us to enter into the school of prayer. It's the prime opportunity for us to be prayed for and to pray for others. It's the prime opportunity, as I just said, to learn how to pray. If you don't know how to pray, come on Sunday night and listen to your elder brothers and sisters pray, and you can get an idea of how to do it well. The best way to learn how to pray is to do it. You could read about it, you could read a manual on it, you could read other people's prayers, but to actually hear it before your very ears will give you a template of how to do so. So secondly, prayer is an opportunity to instruct us. Corporate prayer is an opportunity to instruct us in how to pray. But now thirdly, and this is the last one tonight, and I've already mentioned this, but I wanna hit this home a little harder right now. Children imitate the spiritual disciplines of their parents. Children imitate the spiritual disciplines of their parents. Best case scenario, your children will only take corporate prayer as seriously as you do. If they see that it is important to you, chances are it'll be important to them. I've been in a lot of churches in my life, maybe some of you have been in more, but in my church experience, I've noted something, and it's not concrete, it's not absolute, so please don't take me to be saying that, but here's something that I've noticed, okay? Oftentimes I see older couples sitting in a church next to empty seats. Their kids aren't there, and for whatever reason, they've left the church. They've left the church, and what I've observed is that it was that couple who would not bring their children to prayer meeting. And so their children did not see it as important. On the other hand, I see other elderly couples who are sitting in the pew, and they have their children next to them, and the spouses of their children, and their children's children, and when I look at them, I see that those were the people who brought their children to prayer meeting. Again, it's not a one-to-one correspondence, and there are always exceptions, but what is the rule here? The rule is that if you train your children to take prayer seriously, chances are they're going to take prayer seriously. And the reverse side of the coin is also true. If you communicate to your children on any given Sunday, and let's just say Sunday night since that's what we're talking about. If you communicate to your children on any given Sunday night, there is something more important than going to the house of God and praying with the people of God. They take note of that. They take note of that. So we need to teach our children to pant after the will of God. And the will of God is often sought through prayer. It is in prayer that God teaches me to bend my will to His. It is in prayer that I garner a greater desire to do and endure the will of God in my life no matter what it is. So this is three reasons why corporate prayer is so important. And I commend you, Grace. I think that over the last few years we have been growing in this area. And I think we still have some growth to go from the top all the way down. but I commend you for your desire to be here on the Lord's Day Eve and to enter into corporate prayer with the people of God. And can I just say one more thing? I, and I think this is what the elders believe as well, would love to hear more women praying. It's not just the men. I went to a church once that said, men ought to pray, women may pray. Okay, that's fine, whatever. But you know what? We're a body, we're a people. And the Lord loves to hear the prayers, not only of males, but also of females. And can I just say, if you're intimidated, can I just say, if you have some fear, this is your family. We all love you. And we love to hear you lifting up petitions to the Lord. And you know what we're doing while you're doing that? Whether we're doing it audibly or in our heart, we're amening all those petitions because we want the Lord to answer your prayer. And where two or three are gathered in Christ's name, whatever they ask will be done in the name of the Father, provided it is His will. Let's pray. Father God, we do thank you for this gift of corporate prayer, and I pray that you would continue to fashion and shape us into a people who take prayer seriously. And Father, we're gonna pray bold prayers, not only tonight, but as we continue in this life together at Grace Covenant Church. And I pray that you would take away any fear that might be residing in our hearts to pray big prayers. I pray, Father, that you would remind us of the entity to whom we are lifting up our petitions. You are not a second-class God. You are not an idol. You are not a fabrication of some person's imagination. You are the living Creator God of the universe. And you spoke, and universes leapt into existence. And so also, Father, you could speak and bring babies into the wombs of our people. You could speak and cause cancer to be eradicated from our bodies. You could speak, Father, and cause us to pass through trials and tribulations clinging to You without nails. And we pray that You would hear our big prayers this evening. We ask these things in Your Son's name. Amen. Alright, so let's do that.