This Sunday sermon Payer Preacher :Capt. Joseph kinuthia In brief.... Prayer sermon by Capt. Joseph Kinuthia on 31st August 2014 Venue: Anglican Church of Kenya Diocese of Kajiado, St. Thomas Parish-Ongata Rongai Liturgical texts: Jonah 3:1-9, Rev 3:14-22 Prayer Part one Prayer is a communication process that does allow us to talk directly to God. As in all communication whether through electronic peripherals devices or through living things, verbal or non-verbal, communication helps two or more people to interact, discuss and respond to one another. Communication is a two way interactive process and its importance can be found in our Professional as well as in our daily personal lives. Communication is a matter of effectiveness, which is dependent on the interlocutor’s (a person who takes part in a conversation) communication competency. In other words its effectiveness is dependent on one’s competency in communication. Communication involves intents and efforts from both the sender of the message and the receiver. Its a process that can be fraught with error such as with messages muddled (i.e., mixed up by the sender, or misinterpreted by the recipient). Miscommunication is avoidable. However, if this isnt detected, it can cause tremendous confusion, wasted efforts and missed opportunities. Similarly, it is well to know that Prayer is not compounded of words, words that may fail to express what one desires to say, words that so often may cloak inconsistencies, words that may have no deeper source than the physical organ of speech and that may be spoken to impress the mortal ears. (Matt 6:5-8) Prayer is not magic or ala-cadabra, it is not a dictation or a monologue where only one person speaks and dictates what he/she wants. Prayer is a dialogue. It consists of thanksgiving, adoration, supplication, repentance and petition. Prayer is made up of heart throbs and the righteous yearnings of the soul, on supplication based on realization of need, of contrition (a state of feeling sorry for wrongdoing) and pure desire. (Luke 18:9-14) Prayer is a command from our Lord Jesus Christ, (Matt 7: 7-11; 18:1-8; 26:41; John 14:13) whose life was a perfect example to the believers. During his earthly life, our Lord Jesus Christ prayed to God with all humility and reverence. (Heb 5:7) and because He trusted God in His prayers, He was answered and so has demonstrated a perfect example to the church that prayer is a trustful act towards one who can answer all our problems. The first church following the Lord’s command lived a prayerful life and through this, miracles and wonders accompanied them, people received healing and deliverance from demonic possession and captivity. The Apostle Paul and James reminded us to pray always both individual and communal prayers to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and for one another (1st Tim 2:1-3; 1st thessa 5:17; Phil 4:6) The Anglican BCP (Book of Common Prayer) in our Anglican spirituality sets a perfect practice of communal worship and prayers in our Anglican heritage. It is a comprehensive liturgical order of services and prayers for communal worship purposes; it should not be confused with individual prayers which Jesus taught that may demand privacy, seclusion and isolation (Matt 6:6). However in the BCP one learns a beautiful and an orderly way of praying even in individual prayer time. The daily Morning Prayer begins with acknowledgement that our gathering as a church has been influenced by the spirit of God. (Item 1) It then goes to a moment of contrition (item 2) confession, repentance (item 3), absolution from the vicar (item 4), then the glorious moment. Then after all the praises and worships, presentations, announcement, sermons, and declaration of faith, we come to another moment of different prayers starting with the Lord’s Prayer (item 20), litany which is a form of petition (item 21), prayer for the day (item 22) different intercessory prayers (items 23, 24, 26, 27,) meditations (item 28) and finally we join in the example of prayer of Saint Chrysostom (item 28)finally the benediction from the vicar. That’s why this prayer of Saint Chrysostom is very important since it concludes or compliments all the prayers together, and in humility we ask God to answer our united prayers in accordance with his promises in his word. In our first reading, we find that after Jonah accepted to heed the Lord’s call he went to Nineveh and declared the message of the Lord to the Ninevian. His message was just simple “40 days and Nineveh will be overturned” v:4 we see the positive response from Ninevian who from the sucking baby to the oldest granny declared fasting and praying moment. At first they had not told their king, he may have learnt later may be through his servants...... download copy of the full sermon heremediafire/view/5rt5vzd0v7lrt6c/Prayer_sermon_by_Capt_all.pdf Confirmation candidates catechism class questionnaire for 2014 https://mediafire/?dykunhlwark3nju.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 13:28:13 +0000
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