Faith Intercedes: Genesis 18:16-33

So guess what I'm preaching on today?

Yeah.

Prayer.

Before I preach, before I read the scripture, do you know what's happening three weeks from this weekend?

Our homecoming.

Alexandria Presbyterian Church first homecoming after 40 years.

And we're starting to hear from many, many former members.

We have people that are going to travel from all over the country to be here.

On the 19th of September, is that down on your calendar yet?

More importantly, have you reserved your space yet?

You have to let us know you're coming.

Okay?

Maybe do that today.

We want you here.

We don't only want the people who were here 30, 20, 10 years ago.

We want them here, but we want you here.

It wouldn't be good without you.

All the people from all the years who've been a part of this church.

We'd love to have you here.

Please sign up.

You're going to be glad you came.

I have a passage to read, an intercessory prayer, and that's the theme of the message this morning.

Genesis chapter 18, beginning in verse 16.

Genesis 18 · chapter mention

Then the men set out from there and they looked down towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to set them on their way.

And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?

Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.

Then the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me.

And if not, I will know.

So the men turned from there and went towards Sodom.

But Abraham stood still before the Lord.

Then Abraham drew near and said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city.

Will you then sweep away the place and not spirit for the fifty righteous who are in it?

Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked.

Far be that from you.

Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?

And the Lord said, If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.

Abraham answered and said, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.

Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking, will you destroy the whole city for the lack of five?

And he said, I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.

Again he spoke to him and said, Suppose forty are found there.

He answered, For the sake of the forty, I will not do it.

Then he said, Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak.

Suppose thirty are found there.

He answered, I will not do it if I find thirty there.

He said, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, suppose twenty are found there.

He answered, For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.

Then he said, Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once.

Suppose ten are found there.

He answered, For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.

And the Lord went his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

This is the reading of God's inerrant, infallible, precious word.

Let's pray.

Father, you were there.

You know every detail of this account far better than we do.

But you gave us this account so that we might learn and that we might live and that we might pray such prayers.

Holy Spirit.

Now, reach our minds, reach our hearts with this truth.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Last week we left off with Abraham with the three visitors, three angels, and we know that one of them was the angel of the Lord.

One of them was Jesus pre-incarnate.

Jesus visited Abraham in his tent.

And Abraham showed good hospitality.

He fed them, he welcomed them.

And now they're leaving.

And Abraham walks with them.

And they get to a point, and two of the angels veer off, but Abraham stays with the angel.

Verse 17, and the Lord the angel said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?

These were ominous words.

No doubt the very tone of his voice indicated, okay, we're no longer just eating and enjoying each other's company.

He's introducing a very somber, heavy topic.

Verse 20.

He says, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to this outcry that has come to me.

And if not, I will know.

In other words, is it as bad as the reports?

And you might be thinking, well, that's a strange thing.

I mean, God could have known that and discerned that from heaven, right?

Yeah.

But once again, he chose to come down.

Our God is the God who comes down.

To be close to his people.

He could do it from a distance, but he chooses not to.

God listened to the cries then, and God still listens to the cries today.

To your cries.

I know what some of your cries are.

There are many cries that I don't know, but God does.

He hears the cries of his people in cities like Sodom and Gomorrah in cities like Washington, D.C.

In Alexandria, Virginia, in Fairfax, all around.

He has not stopped bending his ear and listening to the cries of his people.

May you be comforted by that today.

No one else, sometimes, sometimes no one else hears your cry.

But God always does.

Be encouraged by that.

And he doesn't ignore our cries.

He acts.

He delivers his people sometimes now, sometimes later.

He always judges and punishes evil.

Evil never goes unpunished.

He wants you to know that.

He hears the cries rising up.

You know, we think about many things about God, as the scriptures inform us.

There are many things to think about God.

But do you ever think about this?

Or is this kind of is this kind of fresh or new?

That all the time from heaven, he's not only hearing the praises of his people, which is beautiful, he listens to every praise.

He hears every prayer of thanksgiving.

Praise God.

But do you know that he also hears every cry of against injustice and abandonment and loneliness?

Who but God can do that?

His ear is always attending the cries of his people.

He hears the cries.

Places like DC, New York, small towns.

But his ears not trained only on America.

No, on all peoples across the globe, every country.

Nobody's more important to God.

We're all important.

Wherever we are.

Verse 22.

Abraham is there with Jesus in preincarnate.

But Abraham stood before the Lord.

This is actually a Hebrew word.

It's a technical term.

You know what that means?

Abraham approached the bench.

For all you lawyers, for all, you know, for those of you that are in courtrooms, this is a technical term.

Abraham, right now, is approaching the bench.

He understands that this is serious business.

The dinner party is over.

There is work to be done.

He approached the bench.

Why?

Because his heart was stirred and he became engaged emotionally, physically, and spiritually, he became engaged with God himself.

He engaged in what we call intercessory prayer.

My first point this morning is just the question: what is intercessory prayer?

This is perhaps a new term, a new thought for some of us.

There are always three parties involved in intercessory prayer.

There is the person who is reaching out to God or the people who are reaching out to God.

It doesn't always have to be one.

Sometimes it could be a group of people.

It's the person who's reaching up, reaching out to God to, so to speak, take hold of God's hand, to speak to God's heart from your heart on behalf of another person.

There's always three parties in intercessory prayer.

So far, so good.

God wants his people to pray intercessory prayers.

We learn this from this passage, surely.

Intercessory prayer, someone who is concerned, someone who's gripped with the needs of another, who's pulled into their world, who is stepping into their shoes as much as possible, and because of the weighing in of the need of that person, you pray, you pray, and you say to God, God, please, there's something that needs to be done on behalf of this person.

You're not praying for yourself primarily, although we must pray for ourselves often.

No, this is not a prayer for you.

This is a prayer for someone else that you know to be in need, who's crying out, and you're God's appointed representative to get on your knees and engage in intercessory prayer.

There are other things that we can do with people in need, other things that we can do practically and tangibly.

Yes, we can take meals, which is good.

Yes, we can go visit them.

Yes, we can listen to them.

Yes, we can just be there.

That's all important, but there's more than that.

There's nothing more important than to stop whatever you're doing, to disengage from that very thing, and engage with your heart and your mind and your energy and go directly to God on their behalf.

And there is power in that.

May the Spirit convince you of this.

You will never convince yourself of this.

May the Spirit convince you of this.

And pray.

You step into their shoes as much as you can, and you cry out to God for them.

The word intercessory is a word that comes from the Latin root, meaning to intervene, to mediate.

You step into the gap to ask for God's mercy, God's healing, God's guidance, God's protection, whatever it is that that person needs, you step into that gap because it matters.

I heard probably 30 years ago.

A pastor describing the power of prayer and intercessory prayer, and I can't forget it.

I don't want to forget it.

And it's been my prayer of this church ever since.

What is Alexandria Presbyterian Church?

A Holy Spirit emergency room for people who are in trauma.

That gripped my heart the first time I heard it.

It informs the way I live, it informs the way I pray.

An emergency, a Holy Spirit emergency room where people who are in spiritual, physical trauma can be rescued, can be treated, can be seen, can be heard, and can be treated.

Secondly, how do we see this modeled by Abraham?

We see in the paragraph, beginning in verse 20.

Abraham, now that God tells him, I've come down to see, because I hear the outcries.

And Abraham now is engaged.

I find this so encouraging.

Abraham had a lot of other things that he could be engaged in.

What was it about Abraham?

And we've already touched on it in the sermon series.

Abraham was a friend of God.

Friends know in a different way.

Abraham's heart was being shaped and shaped and shaped.

And really, this is the second point.

Abraham knew the character of God.

Abraham knew the heart of God.

And it shaped his heart, and it shaped his character.

So he became more like God.

So when he heard things like this that got his attention, he didn't just say, oh well, too bad.

Oh well, wish it weren't that way.

But I gotta get back to what I'm doing.

He didn't do that.

And the reason he didn't do that is because God had been working in his heart and been working in his life for years.

He stopped.

His heart was filling with compassion for the broken, for the lost.

He was pulled in.

And that's what's required.

An intercessory prayer.

He starts to bargain with God.

Who would do that?

He says, God, you wouldn't destroy the city with all those wicked people.

You wouldn't destroy the city if there were 50 righteous people in the city, would you?

God said, No.

What about if there were 45?

No.

What if there were 40?

No?

What if there were 30?

No.

What if there were 20?

No?

What if there were 10?

Would you destroy all these wicked sinners?

And they were wicked sinners.

We're going to talk about that more next week.

Would you destroy them?

If there were ten righteous people, would you sweep away the righteous along with the wicked?

Would you do that?

Is that really what you're like?

This is a bold intercessor.

We can learn a lot from Abraham.

And then he stops asking.

We don't know why.

You know, you can read these verses in a minute or two or three.

I suspect, I suspect, as many commentators do, that this was not one and done easy.

This could have easily taken much more time.

I can easily see that this took 20, 30, 60 minutes or more.

I think this was intense spiritual wrestling.

And I very well suspect that when Abraham got his first answer, because he knew how audacious this was, I suspect he might have stepped back.

Okay.

And he mustered up his faith.

I don't think it happened like I read it.

I don't.

I think each time he asked, he thought, he paused, he considered the character of God, and I suspect he asked himself, do I dare, do I dare go back?

I think that's how it went down.

There is reason to believe that it could have been longer.

With each petition, his faith and his courage grew.

And God's not getting, not God's not discouraging him from asking.

Ask for what you need.

Intercessory prayer is ask what they need.

Our daily bread.

We prayed that this morning in the Lord's Prayer.

It's not only give us this day our bread, our daily bread.

Yes, ask daily for your bread.

But learn how to ask daily for your neighbor's bread.

For that person that you know is in pain.

That person that you know desperately needs a touch of God in their life.

Yeah.

Abraham is wrestling with God.

To pray, to intercede on the basis of God's character.

Don't lose this.

This is vital to intercessory prayer.

We're not making stuff up.

We're going to the Word of God.

We're learning about the character of God.

What is my God like?

Abraham knew pretty well what he was like.

He said, God, you are a God of justice.

I'm praying for justice.

I'm praying for mercy.

I'm praying for wisdom.

I'm praying for discernment.

I'm praying for righteousness.

Learn, be in your Bible.

If you're not in your Bible, you will not be able to do this.

Okay?

You just won't.

Be in your Bible and walk with God to know the heart of God.

So that when you're in crisis or your friend or your other person is in crisis, it'll be a reflex of the heart.

And you'll pray back.

Hear me.

You will pray back God's very things that He tells you to pray about.

Those are the best kinds of prayers.

Pray back the character of God.

Learn to do that.

Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, said, I have a license to beg in the courts of heaven.

I read that 30 some years ago.

I can't forget it.

I don't want to forget it.

I have a license to beg in the courts of heaven.

Find whatever attribute of God that He's putting you in touch with.

Spurgeon said, as it were, let that care.

Of God become a great battering ram with which we may open up the gates of heaven.

Wow.

The battering ram that opens up the gates of heaven aren't you.

They aren't me.

They're the attributes, the character of God.

God, you said this is who you are.

You said this is what you will do for your people.

I am asking you, by the power of the Spirit, to do what I could never do.

That's a beautiful thing.

What does this look like at APC?

Yes, we do have an intercessory prayer ministry.

It's one of the most important ministries that I know of in this church.

Many, many people are on this team.

I wonder if God would speak to you today to be part of this team.

If you're part of this team and you receive this every Thursday afternoon, you know that these are not frivolous, simple, generic prayers.

Many of these prayer requests are from the heart.

God, God's people pray for my marriage.

It's in trouble.

God, pray for my wayward child.

He or she is lost.

God, pray for my little faith, my lack of faith.

My faith is wavering.

God, pray for, please pray for humility.

I need more humility.

I need more courage.

Yeah, we pray for ministries of the church, for sure.

But we also pray for our own hearts.

What a joy to be able to have many, many people praying intercessory prayers for our personal lives, our personal needs.

What does this look like at APC?

I have five applications.

Praying for the lost.

It's not lost on me that one year ago, now we started on Sunday nights with an evangelism class, and that class was filled with people who spent 10 or 11 weeks praying earnestly and fervently for lost people, people who are spiritually lost.

People who are spiritually lost, and we call that our pick five.

The five people that you know that don't know Jesus, the five people that you know are lost spiritually, and you pray for them like you haven't prayed for them.

It's not lost on me.

That we have seen far more fruit in evangelism in the last year than we've ever seen in this church.

Do you think that's a coincidence?

I don't.

God heard and God answered.

People crying out that spiritually lost people would come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior and their Lord.

Pray for the lost.

Do you have a pick five?

Secondly, praying for the sick.

We just heard recently a testimony from one of our members, Jim.

Some of you know, some of you don't know.

The doctors told Jim, there's nothing more we can do for you.

Those are hard words to hear.

There's nothing more we can do for you.

God had a different answer.

God said, actually, there is something more that we can do for you.

And God healed him.

Sometimes when doctors give up and doctors don't have an answer, God does.

Many, many times over the years, the elders of the church have met with people and anointed them with oil and prayed over the sick.

Many times.

In ICUs, in hospital rooms, in homes, in all kinds of places.

We've seen the power of prayer.

Because James chapter 5 tells us if any of you among you is sick, let them call the elders and come and pray over them.

James 5 · chapter mention

The prayers of a righteous person avail much, and they will be healed.

Thirdly, pray for personal needs, marriages, strained children, freedom from addictions.

We've seen God answer prayers like that.

We ought to be praying such prayers.

Fourthly, praying for the ministries of this church, the ministry to the teens, to the children's ministry, missions, missionaries, worship.

The list goes on.

Praying not just for our programs.

I don't pray for our programs.

I pray for the ministry that's going to happen in a program.

That's different.

We're not just saying, God bless our programs and move on.

That's not intercessory prayer.

God, you know what needs are in each of these programs.

God, you know what the needs are.

To the extent that we know what the needs are, we pray accordingly.

Fifthly, praying for our city.

The city of Alexandria, the city of Washington, D.C.

Beyond.

I've had to sit in this text all week.

This is the one that convicts me the most.

You know what God told me this week?

Tom, I think it would be good if you prayed more for the city.

I think it would be good if you prayed more for the lost of the city and cried out for the cries that I hear in Alexandria, in Fairfax County, in Washington, D.C.

I've had to repent of that.

Sometimes I get more focused on the church within, the family within, which is good.

But I want to be more, you can pray for me.

I would be more like Abraham.

And I would pray more for the city and for the wickedness in the city.

God, I know you hear the cries.

I know you hear the cries.

F.

B.

Meyer, one of my favorite preachers from a couple hundred years ago, says, ungodly men little realize how much they owe to the presence of the children of God in their midst.

For many years now, the floods of deserved wrath have not swept them away.

Judgment has been restrained because God cannot do anything while the righteous are found amongst them.

The impatient servants have often asked if they should not gather out the tares, but the answer of the righteous has ever been, no, more time before I gather up the tares, lest you tear up the wheat also with them.

Oh, how little the world realizes the debt it owes to Christians, the salt to stay its corruption, the light to arrest the reinstitution of the reign of chaos and night.

We cannot but yearn over our cities as the evil rolls on its way.

Let us plead from the heights of Mamre, which is where Abraham prayed.

Many of us have heard about a man named Augustine, the greatest theologian, probably of the first thousand years after the apostles.

At the age of 16, Augustine in the year 371 sneaked away from his mother in Carthage.

During the night he sailed away to Rome, leaving her alone in her tears and her prayers.

How were these prayers answered?

Not the way that his mother, Monica, hoped at the time.

Only later would she see that all of her prayers were answered.

Augustine was a very worldly, sensual, lost man.

Very smart, but very lost.

Augustine himself later wrote, and what did she beg for you, God, with all those tears, if not that you would prevent me from sailing away.

But I did sail away.

You didn't answer her prayer then that I would not sail away.

Instead, in the depth of your wisdom, you granted the wish that was closest to her heart.

And the wish that was closest to her heart was not that her son would sail away to Rome, but that her son would come to know Jesus Christ as his Savior and His Lord.

And he answered that prayer.

For she saw that you had granted her far more than she could have asked in her tearful prayers.

You converted me to yourself so that I no longer place my hope in this world.

And you turn her sadness into rejoicing far more than that one particular prayer.

Ungodly men and women little realize how much they owe to the presence of God's people in their midst.

We cannot pray intercessory prayers like this without our hearts.

And maybe that's the hardest part.

Maybe one of the hardest parts about it.

We can't engage, we can't wrestle with God in intercessory prayer without our hearts engaged.

It's not just a mind thing.

That's not really intercessory prayer.

A little prayer that just flies up.

Oh God, please do this.

That's not really, that's missing the heart of intercessory prayer.

Intercessory prayer is my heart engaging with God's heart for the needs of another person's heart.

Without heart, it's not intercessory prayer, I don't think.

This brings me to the last point, the foundation of intercessory prayer.

It's not in the text, it is implied in the text.

But you need to turn to the book of Hebrews to find this.

Hebrews chapter 7, verse 23.

Hebrews 7:23

Hebrews is the book in the Bible that tells us the most about the work of our high priest Jesus Christ.

We have much to learn from this book, this epistle.

Hebrews chapter 7, verse 23.

Hebrews 7:23

Listen to this.

The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.

But he, Jesus, holds his priesthood permanently.

Jesus does not resign from this role.

Because he continues forever.

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

This is good news for you and for me.

If you're in Hebrews chapter 4 as well.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

Verse 14, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace in our time of need.

May many of you come forward for prayer this morning.

As the Spirit speaks to you, as the Spirit leads you, get up out of your chair and come forward for prayer.

You know what my job is right now?

You say preaching?

Well, yeah.

Is to point you not to the elders or the deacons or the pastors.

My job right now is to draw, by the Spirit's work, to draw you to Jesus.

You come to Jesus.

And with your needs you come.

And you ask people to intercede for you.

Let us come boldly to the throne of grace.

It is a throne.

That means He is a king.

He is the king of kings.

But it is a throne of grace.

It's not a throne of law.

It's not a throne of duty.

It's a throne of grace.

Do you believe that?

The mercy seat is a throne.

You come to a king.

I come to a king.

The hymn that said, Thou art coming to a king, large petitions with thee bring.

Don't bring small, frivolous.

As Luther said, don't bring a fictitious sin.

If you bring a fictitious sin, you might as well be saying, I'm bringing it to a fictitious Savior.

Bring a real sin.

Bring a real need.

And see what God will do in your time of need.

It's a throne of grace.

Before I close, I have to do this.

This week I've made a commitment to myself.

I'm going to put it out on email.

The books that have been so formidable in my prayer life in the last 35 years.

There's no topic that I've read more on than prayer in the last 35 years.

When I came here, I needed Jesus in new ways that I never knew before.

And God graciously taught me about prayer in ways that He never taught me before.

And these are some of my closest companions outside of the Bible.

One is by Charles Spurgeon called The Power of Prayer.

I just want to read a couple passages about what we're talking about right now.

What does God do when you reach out?

We do not come in prayer, as it were, only to God's poorhouse where he dispenses his favors to the poor, nor do we come to the back door of the house of mercy to receive the broken scraps.

Though that would be far more than we deserve to eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table, it's more than we could claim.

But when we pray, we are standing in the palace on the glittering floor of the great king's own reception room, and thus we are placed on a vantage ground.

No, it does not become a king to be giving away pennies and nickels.

He distributes pieces of gold.

He scatters not as poor men must, scraps of bread and broken meat, but he makes a feast of fat things, of wines well refined.

When Alexander's soldiers were asked, told to ask what he would receive, he did not ask sparingly.

He did not ask according to his own character, but he made such a heavy demand that the royal treasurer refused to pay it.

But the king said, No, you pay it.

I'm honored by somebody who would ask me for so much.

Because that means he believes that I am capable of giving it.

You and I, the people of God, have a permit, a passport, to come before the throne of heaven at any time we will, and are encouraged to come with great boldness.

Still, let us not forget that this is no light thing to be in the courts of heaven and earth.

No, it's not.

I may see a thousand defects within me, but there is still hope.

I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than anything else I do.

But I don't believe that hinders me if I see my high priest praying for me.

I need to hear that.

Grace sits not on the footstool of God.

Grace stands not in the courts of God, but it sits on the throne.

We're coming to a king who's on the throne.

And we come.

We didn't come here today to do church.

We came here to meet a king.

Because we have a high priest, and he knows your need.

And we're going to come to him.

Please pray with me.

Oh Father, give us faith to believe these truths about who you are, because sometimes we don't.

Sometimes we doubt, and sometimes we despair.

Grow our faith.

Jesus, great high priest, you opened up the way that we could come right into the very presence of the Father and pray bold prayers.

Not because of our prayer life, but because of the life of Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, we pray these prayers.

The prayers that sit on our hearts, that trouble our consciences, whatever it is, as an act of worship today.

Speak to your servants.

Give us what we need in our time of need.

Amen.