Sunday message · If My People (A Call to Prayer) series
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Message Summary
Pastor Phillip Santillan opens the new year by launching If My People, a series on prayer with two goals: growing in prayer and coming together in prayer. This first message asks what prayer is and why we pray. Phil admits that, even as a pastor, he has had seasons of struggling to pray. Most people sense they should pray, yet we find reasons not to.
Prayer can seem confusing, with teaching that unanswered prayer means too little faith, or that God answers yes, no or wait, like a game of red light, green light. We may feel unqualified, or shame over failing God may push us away from the connection we most need. We say we are too busy, but Phil suggests the real issue is often pride: believing the answers to our problems lie within us, so we pray only when all hope is gone. Phil relates to the confession in the book Pray Like Monks, Live Like Fools that the drive to control our circumstances can feel more familiar than the freedom prayer promises.
Yet Scripture keeps calling us to pray, as in Colossians 4:2 and 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18. The first reason to pray is that we are instructed to; in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “when you pray,” not if. The second comes from John 15:7–8: those who remain in Jesus may ask whatever they want, and the Father is glorified when they produce much fruit and prove to be his disciples. Prosperity teachers make God a cosmic vending machine, but “God is not a servant to our desires,” Phil says; he is their source, and people filled with God’s word ask for his desires. The church is starting the year in prayer to be obedient and fruitful.
Most importantly, prayer changes things. Phil calls the idea that prayer only changes the one praying a half-truth. In Luke 11, Jesus tells of a friend who knocks at midnight and receives bread because of his shameless persistence, then urges us to keep asking, seeking and knocking. Phil cites John Wesley’s claim that God does nothing except in answer to prayer, cautioning that it can be misapplied, yet affirming that God grants more of himself and his kingdom to people who pray for it. As Philippians 2 says, God works in us for his good purpose, and he has chosen to accomplish his will through praying people. If we do not pray, we miss the privilege of joining him.
The series will use the Lord’s Prayer as its model, and everyone is invited to use a prayer journal and calendar to pray every day, not as a burden but to share rhythms of prayer with their church family. Phil is not asking anyone to sign up for community, serving or giving in these weeks, only to pray together for God to accomplish his will through the church, so that a year from now they can say God built his church through them, bringing gospel transformation everywhere they go, every day they live, to everyone they meet.
