Praying the Value of the Theology and Practice of the Kingdom of God

When Nancy invited me to teach one of the classes in this series on praying Vineyard values, it reminded me of my son Jonathan’s team project for Biblical Literature earlier this semester. He told me his professor said they could pick any topic they wanted to – “Guess, mom, what topic my team picked!” “Umm . . . who is God?” “No, that’s way too big a topic” “Umm, I don’t know, I give up – tell me what your team picked” “The free will of man.” I guess it runs in the family – we like running toward big topics 🙂 Let me be clear – I approach this not as an expert, not as one who has done more theological study or has more experience with practical application, but as one who is learning and stumbling towards the goal alongside a company of like-minded Kingdom seekers such as yourselves, and as one who gets really excited thinking about the Kingdom of God both now and in the future. We have a lot to get excited about – this is no dry and dusty topic. Maybe a better title for this class would be “asking God to interrupt our people-sized plans with His God-sized ones” or “inviting Jesus to make us into little Christs to serve up to the world a limitless banquet of healing, justice, and deliverance” or my personal favorite, “praying big.” We can choose to not settle for dreary, truncated visions of what the Kingdom of God looks like. We can decide against setting boundaries where we dictate to Jesus what we’re going to let Him do in us or through us. We can venture out to live by faith and not by sight. We can allow God’s grace and greatness to inspire us to pursue possibilities that lie beyond the borders of the brokenness all around us. We can give up our pea-sized expectations and down-sized affections for Christ, and instead place our hope and passion firmly in Him.

Bert Waggoner, the national director of Vineyard USA, says, “Regardless of the location, size, ethnicity, or cultural context, the one thing that characterizes the message, mission, and experience of a Vineyard church is commitment to the experience and theology of the kingdom of God.” This is essential to who we are as a congregation. He goes on to say, “The focus of the Vineyard has always been on the manifest presence of the kingdom in the Spirit revealing Christ and empowering believers to heal the sick, cast out demons, feed the poor and be instruments of God in social justice.”

“Core Values & Beliefs” (a Vineyard USA publication) says: “The mission of Vineyard USA is to join God’s mission in the world by building a community of churches that are proclaiming and practicing the full message and reality of the kingdom of God.” A team member at a Vineyard church in New England equates the Kingdom of God with the aroma of justice, and that justice is what love looks like in public.

We want that, don’t we – to smell like the Kingdom of God, that a powerful aroma of love and justice would emanate from our pores and draw others to Jesus Christ. Today’s class is focused on praying into this topic, in two distinct sections. First we’re going to look at some prayer paralyses and later we’re going to look at some ways we can strategically pray for the fullness of the Kingdom of God, using an acronym, PRONE, referring to one of the many ways to pray explained and demonstrated for us in the Bible. The dictionary gives several definitions for this word. One is to have a natural inclination or tendency to something – as in, I am prone to sin – let me put it to you that our natural tendency as human beings who are basically fairly self-centered is to do anything BUT pray, especially in a posture of humility. Another definition of PRONE is having a downward direction or slope. That’s probably our most natural tendency in so many ways! But let’s look at the definition we’re centering on today – to be prone is to lie flat or prostrate in a posture of humility. It implies submission and dependency.

According to scholar Philip Wendell Crannell, whenever bodily prostration occurs in the Bible, it is translated in English as “worship.” The main word used in the Old Testament for worship is “shachah”, which means to bow down or prostrate oneself. Other Old Testament passages on worship include the idea of falling down, serving, labor, and sacrifice. The main word used in the New Testament for worship is “proskuneo”, which means to kiss towards, often in the Eastern fashion of bowing prostrate on the ground.

It’s interesting that when we look at the four most common postures of prayer mentioned in the Bible, there’s a progression in intensity – standing, bowing, kneeling, and lying prone or falling on the face. Obviously just because our bodies are in a certain posture doesn’t mean our hearts are fully aligned. But I’m sure we all realize that in certain extremities of circumstances, our bodies automatically take on these more intense postures – it’s usually easy enough to stand, but we bow when we’re in the presence of someone great, we fall to our knees in repentance, we crumple on the floor in an ocean of grief. Prostration is the most intense way of showing one’s regard or emphasizing some kind of request. We see many examples in Scripture of people prostrating themselves before the Lord – Abraham, Elijah, Job, Jairus, Mary the sister of Lazarus, the apostle John in the book of Revelation when he saw Jesus in his glorified state. Notice that although angels and apostles correctly refuse this kind of adoration, Jesus always accepts this form of worship, when someone lies prone or prostrate before Him.

As I said earlier, lying prone or prostrate is a posture of humility. Fourteenth century Flemish mystic John of Ruysbroeck says, “to pay homage to God by every outward and inward act, this is the first and dearest work of humility, the most savoury among those of charity, and most meet among those of righteousness.” He speaks of being humble in our devotions both outwardly and inwardly. There’s no legalism about the posture in which we pray, but something powerful occurs when we bring our outward and inward acts into alignment and in humility before God.

Paralysis & prayerlessness:

We, the Church today, are in great need of humility, submission, and dependency on God. We are in great need of desperate, intense prayer. It doesn’t take much searching to realize that we have fallen far short of God’s highest and best for His people. Do we realize the extremity of our circumstances? What is it that is keeping us from the living fully as God intended for us to live? International prayer leader and author David Bryant, from whose book, “Christ Is All” I’ve quoted in each of my teachings in recent months, suggests that there are 3 primary causes of paralysis and prayerlessness inside the Church that are keeping us from living in the fullness of the Kingdom of God. We can pray about each of these points.

1. Busyness and fatigue

What does it say about what we believe when we live our lives at a frenetic, over-extended pace? Bryant says that pressures from pious programming block us from a restorative rest in God. The apostle Paul warned the Galatians about this trap in Galatians 3:3-5 (NLT) – “How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it? I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.” Stick with me as we look at what Paul says in the following chapter: “Oh, my dear children! I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives.” I’ve been through labor pains – not like this (standing), not like this (bowing), not like this (kneeling), but more like this (prostrate, groaning in agony!) I confess that many if not most of my prayers lack this kind of urgency. When labor pains come, there’s no pressing the pause button, putting it on my things to do list, or acting cool and casual! Going through the labor that accompanies childbirth has been compared to running a marathon. Good runners don’t prepare for their races by exhausting themselves, skipping balanced meals, and burning the candle at both ends. They discipline their bodies in the areas of rest, nutrition, and diet so they will be at their prime to run their best possible race. It’s astounding what God has enabled the human body to be capable of. A friend of mine began running 7 years ago at age 40, and is now competing in 100 mile ultra-marathons. We greatly underestimate what God can do through us when we pray, proclaim, and practice the Kingdom of God, precisely because we try to do so many things in our own strength. In our own strength we can do all kinds of things but at what cost? Busyness and fatigue have some very costly results, including but not limited to undue stress, excessive frustration, depression, disillusionment, pessimism, and hopelessness, not to mention numerous physical and relational problems. We often read the well-known Scripture Philippians 4:13 like this – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” or the slightly improved, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Maybe God intends for us to read it this way – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It’s in the strength and power of the Lord that He wants us to live and serve. When people begin to lose hope, they turn to other people and sources for strength. If we are not careful, we will develop hard hearts as a form of self-protection from the endless prayer requests and the endless needs of others. Yes, we are to help bear one another’s burdens, but none of us can eliminate one another’s burdens – only Christ and Christ alone can do that. We need to rely on His strength and not get caught up in the endless cycle of busyness and fatigue that is so easy to slip into.

2. Confusion over Christ’s unfinished mission

There are many encouraging reports from around the world about how close we are to finishing the task of the Great Commission, to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to every people group. For the first time in history, this generation can see the possibility of reaching this goal within our lifetime. Yet in spite of these encouragements, many believers seem to be immobilized with hopelessness because of our perception that world evangelization has failed. There are seemingly overwhelming, inexplicable gaps between what the Church claims about the outcome of Christ’s mission to the world and what has actually been accomplished so far. As David Bryant puts it, it is hard to sustain hope in Christ and His supremacy for personal challenges when we conclude that the immensity and complexity of the larger mission is still too elusive. Demographer Dr. David Barrett says that given the opportunities, strategies, laborers, and resources at the Church’s disposal over the last 2000 years, the world should have been evangelized 1000 times over by now. However, a tragic 2/3 of all people from the time of Christ to now have never heard the name of Jesus. Another sobering statistic is that during the past 100 years, more Christians have been martyred for their faith than in the previous 19 centuries. And closer to home, in the last two decades, 80% of American churches have been identified as either stagnant or dying in membership. How desperately we need to be released from this confusion and paralysis and receive a revival of hope in Christ!

3. Disappointments with Christ Himself

The most disabling form of despair we can experience as Christians is our personal, secret disappointments with Jesus Himself. Many believers have come to the conclusion that they will never consistently live the abundant life in Christ. Thirteen years ago we hosted a conference here at the Atlanta Vineyard with west coast Vineyard pastor Rich Buhler who spoke about the commonly held false belief that God has chosen some to be “beautiful people” and others, well, “not-so-beautiful people”. He wasn’t talking about external appearances alone, rather, how easy it is to believe the lie that some people are just blessed by God and others simply are not. The Bible clearly teaches that God blesses and calls beautiful everyone who is in Christ – as Jesus said, “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” (John 10:10, NLT) We’ve all heard the discouraging reports from Barna and Gallup that there’s little measurable difference between the quality of character in Christians versus non-Christians in America. Many of us harbor secret sorrows and unmet longings in the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms. David Bryant describes this as nurturing a tentative spirit towards the Lord Jesus Christ, and he compares this with Missouri’s state motto, “Show Me”, as though we’re saying that we’ll only believe God’s promises when He shows us personally. It’s rare that any would actually say that out loud, but those attitudes can creep up and set up camp inside our hearts. Widespread loss of confidence in the Lordship of Christ among His people has left what Brennan Manning calls, “the flotsam of distrustful, cynical Christians, angry at a capricious God.”

The tragedy is that these paralyses show up mainly as prayerlessness. I thank God for each of you who faithfully come before the throne of heaven privately and together with other believers, like here on Sunday mornings. I think this is where we need to begin to remedy these paralyses – pray. Increasing our busyness is not the answer. Rehearsing our frustrations over our many personal and relational failures is not the answer. Hanging onto our heartaches over disappointments with Jesus is not the answer. Prayerlessness is basically slamming the door in Jesus’ face. Let’s encourage one another to believe God at His Word and I pray this over us . . . Ephesians 3:14-21 (NLT) – “I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.”

Praying with a PRONE posture:

Now to some nuts and bolts. I developed this PRONE acronym to help us to pray strategically about the theology and practice of the Kingdom of God. Many of these ideas were sparked while reading Alexander Venter’s book, Doing Church.

• P – Planting – Kingdom missions = Church planting

In the Vineyard movement, we believe the New Testament clearly teaches that the method sanctioned and empowered by God to extend the Kingdom is through Church planting. We also seek to network as local Vineyard Churches in order to plant Churches more effectively. Our founder John Wimber consistently said that the primary reason for the Vineyard’s existence is Church planting in fulfillment of the Great Commission. We can pray for God to direct us in how to partner with Him in this, individually and as a congregation.

• R – Renewal – loving the whole Church and giving away through Church renewal what God has given us

Another aspect of Vineyard’s mission is to help bring renewal to the broader Church. If we try to cling to what God has given us, we may lose it. This means we are called to a ministry of renewal to the whole body of Christ, including Catholics, Orthodox, Reformed, Pentecostal, House churches, TV churches – whoever belongs to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior – without strings, without manipulation, without judgment. We do not espouse the “come out from among them” idea, or the “God has finished with them” language. God loves the whole Church and often surprises those who have written off some part of it by choosing to bless just that part. By giving away the blessings that God has given to us, we experience renewal ourselves by embracing what God is doing in other parts of the Body. We can be strategic, intentional, and creative about blessing other parts of the Body of Christ. We can pray that God will give us opportunities to give away whatever God has entrusted to us.

• O – Overall vision – from personal conversion to the full social implications of the gospel

Our mission includes the overall vision of what it means to advance the Kingdom of God, to disciple individuals and nations. Some of us may have grown up in churches where evangelism was emphasized. I thank God for this foundation in my life. But Jesus told us to make disciples, not just converts – our mission needs to be holistic and partnership oriented. We can respect and work with others such as Bible translators, relief and development workers, and parachurch groups. We want to focus us on equipping and releasing indigenous Kingdom work, with a priority on investing in local Church missions. We can pray that God will give us eyes to see where God is working so we can do what we see the Father doing in individuals and communities in every arena of life.

• N – Neighbors and Nations – having God’s heart

We can’t talk about the Kingdom of God without entering into God’s passion for this lost world – “for God so loved the world that He gave . . .” (John 3:16). We want to be motivated by God’s love. Vineyard founder John Wimber was born again in an atmosphere where winning people for Jesus was expected of every Christian, and he willingly obeyed, joyfully leading hundreds to Christ. This passion led to a heart for the nations, to plant Churches around the globe. We need to be clear about the reality that when our life on earth is over, our final destination will be either heaven or hell, determined by whether or not we’ve accepted or rejected Jesus Christ, God’s Son, as Lord and Savior. There’s no third option. The topic of hell is an uncomfortable one for many Christians – it’s just not PC! Sadly, there are plenty of wolves around who teach grossly false doctrines, like universalism which in essence says that everyone will ultimately be saved. This is not what the Bible teaches. My daughter Cascade recently participated with her Christian dance troupe in an outreach called “Judgment House”, a vivid depiction with actors & dancers of what happens to us when we die, including portrayals of heaven and hell. It may seem cheesy to some, but it was the fear of God and the Holy Spirit’s conviction that I deserved His divine punishment that first drew me to Jesus. We gain and nurture passion for neighbors and nations as we worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Then He sends us out into the joy, privilege and power of hands-on Kingdom mission. Steve Green reminded us in song that “people need the Lord . . . at the end of broken dreams, He’s the open door . . . people need the Lord.” Mother Teresa’s words as well as her life proclaimed, “We find Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor and needy.” We can pray for God’s heart for neighbors and nations.

• E – Equipping the saints – to do the work of ministry and mission

Valuing the Kingdom of God implies an ongoing value for learning and training so we can be better equipped to cooperate with God’s rule. Two weeks ago, Marie mentioned the Presbyterian catechism she learned as a child. One of the questions asks, “What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him?” “The word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures, of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us, how we may glorify and enjoy Him!” Christians have known this for hundreds and hundreds of years, and we can be challenged by asking ourselves, “How much do I value the Word of God that God gave me in the Old and New Testament in order to direct me how I can both glorify and enjoy Him?” We need to read, absorb, think about, meditate on, study, apply Scripture. We need it just as much as we need to eat each day. If you are not already in the habit of studying the Bible, I want to encourage you to start today. It doesn’t have to be complicated. I find that reading Scripture aloud, singing Scripture, writing down Scripture, and praying Scripture are simple ways to get the Word of God deeper into my heart, mind, and will on a daily basis. Coming to classes or Bible studies with others is a great way to spur one another on. We never stop learning, growing and changing. We need the stimulation and challenges of studying and discussing Scripture with one another in order to keep us sharp and ready to spread the gospel. Team work is so important, whether we’re pondering, preparing, plugging away, or praying. We can be equipped and allow it to spill over into the lives of others as equippers, in order to together accomplish the ministries and missions God’s given us.

Summary:

May God take us from prayer paralysis to praying with prone hearts, crying out to Him with desperation and urgency that we may live in the fullness of the Kingdom of God in its many beautiful facets. Kingdom of God, come!