10-11-26 “The Power of Intercessory Prayer”
“The Power of Intercessory Prayer”
I want to start with something funny that I found on the internet. After dying in a car crash, three friends go to heaven for orientation. They are all asked the same question: “When you’re lying in your casket, and your friends and family are mourning over you, what would you like to hear them say about you?”
The first man immediately responds, “I would like to hear them say that I was one of the great doctors of my time and a great family man.”
The second man says, “I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and a schoolteacher who made a huge difference in the lives of children.” The last man thinks for a moment and then replies, “I guess I’d like to hear them say, ‘Look! He’s alive!’”
Let me ask you a more serious question: What would you like to hear people say about you at your celebration of life service?
When I was in Chicago, I led a young adult group, and one year we had a very unusual retreat experience. We called it “Experiencing a Funeral Service.” The young adults were mostly in their twenties and thirties. During the retreat, we had a very solemn—and honestly, somewhat frightening—experience. We wrote a last-wish letter to our loved ones. And then, one by one, we experienced what it was like to lie in a casket while the others gathered around us and held a celebration of life service. It was a powerful experience. We were young, but for a moment, we had to face the reality of the end of life. After that experience, many of us began to think differently about our lives.
How should I live? What kind of person do I want to become? What do I want people to remember about me? Most importantly, how does God want me to live as a child of God?
God has given each of us one life to live in this world. We cannot live it twice. So, since that retreat, I have often thought about the end of my life. And I try to remind myself: I want to live my life in the way God intends for me. But I also know something about myself. I am weak. Even when I know God’s will, I do not always have the strength to follow it. Even when I want to live faithfully, I sometimes become tired, impatient, afraid, or distracted. That is why we need one another. We need one another’s prayers. We need one another to help us grow in faith. We need one another to share God’s love. And we need one another to build God’s kingdom together. That’s why God gives us family and friends, and sends us into the church, our communities, and the world to serve in love.
So let me ask you: Do you have someone who prays for you? And, is there someone you pray for?
I think about my mother. My mother was a faithful servant of God. She never stopped praying. Every morning, she began her day with early morning prayer. When we had my mother’s celebration of life service, the pastor shared something that I will never forget. He said that my mother would come to church very early every morning to pray—whether it was raining or snowing.
She prayed for her family, her children and for people she loved. And I believe her prayers shaped my life. My mother passed away in 2000. But sometimes, even now, I feel as though she is still praying for me. I have never forgotten her last words to me: “Go to America and become a pastor.” Those words have stayed with me.
A parent’s prayers—and a parent’s life of faith—can continue to live in their children and grandchildren. Even after they are gone. Their prayers continue to speak. Their faith continues to guide us.
What will your children’s lives look like after you are gone? What will you leave behind for your children and grandchildren? And perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can leave behind is this: a life of prayer for the people we love.
Prayer is a powerful way to draw closer to God. There are some things in our lives that we cannot overcome by our own strength, wisdom, or ability. Some things can only be brought before God through prayer. That is why we need to pray for one another. And that is why intercessory prayer is so powerful.
Today, we come to a person whose prayer made a difference in the lives of God’s people. His name is Moses. Moses was the great leader of the Israelites. And in today’s Scripture, the Israelites have forgotten God. They have become impatient. While they were waiting for Moses, who was with God on the top of Mount Sinai, they became fearful. Moses had been gone for a long time, and they began to wonder if they had lost their leader.
So, they asked Aaron, the brother of Moses and the priest of the Israelites, to make a golden calf for them—a visible god they could see and worship instead of the invisible God who had been leading them.
And God is angry with them. But Moses does something remarkable. Moses prays for his people. And his prayer changes the course of the story.
Today, I want us to think about the power of intercessory prayer. Because sometimes we forget God.
But God never forgets us. Think about the journey of the Israelites. Their story did not begin at Mount Sinai. Their story began when God called Abraham. God made a covenant with Abraham. Abraham was a person who walked with God and prayed for his children and his descendants.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses—all of their lives were shaped, in some way, by God’s covenant with Abraham and by the prayers of those who came before them. God is faithful to his promises. So God kept his promise to Abraham.
Remember how God patiently protected and guided the Israelites through the Red Sea and the wilderness, even though they forgot God’s grace again and again. And in today’s Scripture, they forgot again. They even made a golden calf. Isn’t that sometimes our story, too? We may not make a golden calf. But sometimes we forget the prayers God has already answered. We forget the doors God has opened. We forget the people God has sent into our lives. We remember today’s problem. But we forget yesterday’s grace. Sometimes our greatest temptation is not unbelief, but perhaps, it is impatience.
The Israelites were waiting for Moses. But they were really being asked to wait for God. And they could not wait. They forgot. And their forgetting led them to idolatry. When God saw what they had done, God became angry. God says to Moses, “Go down at once! (32:7)” “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are”(32:9). God saw the people turning away from the covenant.
But then Moses does something amazing. Moses stands before God and prays for them. He reminds God of God’s promises. He reminds God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Exodus 32:13 says, “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, “I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.” And verse 14, says, “and the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”
Moses reminds God that these are God’s people. That is what intercessory prayer means. Intercessory prayer is praying for someone else. It is bringing another person’s name before God. It is saying, “Lord, have mercy on this person.” “Lord, guide this person.”
It is like Jesus praying for the people who nailed him to the cross and mocked him: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Sometimes a person cannot pray for themselves. Sometimes they are too tired. Sometimes they are too afraid. Sometimes they have lost hope. So, we can pray for them.
Prayer is a powerful way to draw closer to God. Jesus himself prayed throughout his ministry. He often went away to quiet places to pray and spend time with God. And Jesus taught his disciples about the power of prayer. In Mark 9:29, after the disciples struggled to help a suffering child, Jesus told them, “This kind can come out only through prayer.”
So, I want to leave you with two questions today: Who is someone you need to pray for? And, who is someone who needs you to help them remember God’s faithfulness?
Let us be people who pray for one another, stand in the gap between God and the people we love, and help one another remember God’s faithfulness. Thanks be to God. Amen!