prayer

Watch and Pray

Being alert can be very important at times.  If you don’t look both ways before you cross the street, it can be a deadly mistake.  If you fall asleep while driving, it can cost you your life.  If you don’t read the safety precautions before taking certain medications, you can get very sick.  Being alert can be very important.

When the Messiah tells you to be alert about something, it’s probably pretty important.  Jesus in this passage tells three of his disciples to be on guard.  He tells them to “Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.”  This was an important warning.

Passage: Mark 14:32-42
Author: Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Sermon originally preached during the Morning Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 02/01/2009 in Novato, CA.

Manuscript: Watch and Pray

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What Do You Want Me To Do For You?

In our passage for today, we have three specific events all of which are very similar to things that have already happened in Mark.  I mean, yes, they are new and distinct events in the history of Jesus’ ministry, but what’s going on and the general lessons that are being taught are some of the very same specific points that have just been taught in the last few chapters.  And so our temptation today might be to zone out.  We could say, yes, yes, I’ve heard these lessons before.  And yet the fact that Jesus is reteaching even the disciples here some of the same lessons, shows that we sometimes need these lessons repeated.  And so let’s look at what this passage has to say about Jesus’ mission of suffering, and even how we relate to that mission.

Passage: Mark 10:32-52
Author: Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Sermon originally preached during the Morning Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 10/12/2008 in Novato, CA.

Click here for the manuscript.

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Coming Boldly to the Throne of Grace

Passage: Hebrews 4:14-16
Author: Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Sermon originally preached during the Morning Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/20/2008 in Novato, CA.

Our sermon for today is our third and final sermon in our series on the means of grace. Prayer in some sense might seem a bit different as a means of grace than the others. In the Word and Sacraments, the emphasis clearly is on God’s initiation. In the Word, God speaks first to us. In the Sacraments, a minister, who is a representative of God, administers the sacrament to us. But in prayer, we come to God. In prayer, according to the WSC, we come to him, “offering up our desires to God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies” (WSC 98). And yet, though there is a sense in which prayer may seem like something we initiate, our passage for today reminds us that even prayer is an ordinance of God. Even our prayer is something that he ultimately initiates, because he has commanded us to pray. Our prayers are even effective because of the work Christ has done in redeeming us and reconciling us to God. And so in the words here of Hebrews 4:16, we are called by God to “come boldly to the throne of grace.” And so, even in prayer, we find that this is God’s gracious provision for us.

Click here for the manuscript.

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