Elements,
Part 2
Prayer
Sunday,
November 10th, 2013- MRWC
Welcome
to week two of our sermon series called Elements.
We said last week that an element is a
part or aspect of something especially one that is essential.
This
definition may not apply in the scientific world, but it most certainly applies
to the spiritual world, because the spiritual disciplines are essential elements in the
life of the disciple of Jesus Christ.
We
need the elements of Scripture, prayer, confession, silence and solitude, rest,
and fasting if we are going to become like Jesus.
Paul
reminded us in Colossians 2 that: “just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must
continue to follow him.
7 Let your roots
grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will
grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with
thankfulness.” (Col.2:6-7, NLT2)
We must be
intentional in our own spiritual growth if we are going to become the men and
women God wants us to become, which is why we are instructed to “train yourself for
godliness” (1 Tim.4:7, NIV)
We will never
drift into godliness…it takes hard work to become like Jesus, and the spiritual disciplines are activities that can help us
gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled.
The first
element we looked at was Scripture.
Scripture—reading,
studying and memorizing—is paramount to the disciple of Jesus Christ. Without
the Bible, we are like fish without water, eventually we will die.
I think this is
why Jesus said that: “'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that
comes from the mouth of God.'" (Mt.
4:4, NIV)
As Jesus was
enduring the onslaught of the enemy in the desert for 40 days, He used the
words of Scripture to gain the victory.
David also knew
Scripture was the key to victory. He wrote in Psalm 119: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I
might not sin against you.” (119:11, NIV)
Having God’s
word in our hearts will prove successful when the devil comes a knocking.
So I hope and
pray that many of you took sometime this past week and got into the Word and
allowed God to speak to you.
I also hope that
many of you took time to memorize the 2 scripture verses that I assigned last
Sunday.
God will use His
word in your life in ways you never thought possible, so let’s keep practicing
the Element of Scripture, because Application makes all the difference!
The Element that
I want to introduce today is probably one of my favorite and most practiced
discipline.
This discipline
has been used by disciples of Jesus all over the world, and may in fact be “the oldest
spiritual discipline, preceding Scripture by several thousand years.”
(Drury, 2002, 125)
The Element for
today—and to be practiced this week and beyond-- is the spiritual discipline of
prayer.
The word prayer
and all of its variations- prays, praying, prayed, pray or prayers- occurs 366
times in scripture, with the first reference found in Genesis 20:7 and the last
reference being found in Revelation 8:4.
There is one
scripture reference for prayer for every day of the year, with one left over
for leap year!
I would suggest
to you that prayer, like scripture, is of the utmost importance to the disciple
of Jesus Christ.
It’s of the
utmost importance, but it’s also one of the underutilized disciplines.
This could be
for a variety of reasons:
·
God’s going to do whatever He wants anyway, so
why bother praying?
·
We’re too busy to pray;
·
We don’t know what to say, so we get
discouraged;
·
God doesn’t answer our prayers.
These are just
some of the reasons Christians give for not praying…
So I want to
explain prayer as clearly as I know how and while there is much I know about
prayer, there is still much more I don’t know about prayer.
I don’t know why
God answers some prayers and doesn’t seem to answer other prayers.
I don’t know why
God chooses to answer the prayers He does answer; but this much I do know: God wants us to pray.
D.L. Moody once
said: “I’d
rather be able to pray than to be a great preacher; Jesus Christ never taught
His disciples how to preach, but only how to pray” (from my files)
Even a quick
scan of the Master’s life will show that prayed all of the time, and with that
in mind, I want to give you the take away from today’s sermon: To hear God speak…hide and seek.
If you have a
Bible, I invite you to turn with me to Matthew 6. We are going to try to unpack
this passage just a little bit, and we’ll begin in verse 5:
“When you pray…” (Matthew 6:5, NLT2) Notice right up front what Jesus
didn’t say.
He didn’t say: “If you pray…”
He didn’t say: “When you get around to praying….”
Nor did He say:
“When you have nothing better to do, pray…”
Jesus expected
that His followers would pray, so He said: “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray
publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I
tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.”
(Matthew 6:5, NLT2)
The key to
prayer, Jesus seems to be saying, is not to be showy or rude—or even draw
attention to yourself as you pray.
“But when you pray,
go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then
your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew
6:6, NIV)
John Ortberg,
commenting on this verse says “In Jesus’ day, almost no homes had private bedrooms.
The “room” He
is referring to here might be a supply room where (people) kept feed and tools
or a few small animals.
That would be
the only place where there might be a door. It would be the most humble room in
a humble home.” (Ortberg, 2010, 172)
Jesus is
suggesting that in order to hear God speak…hide and seek.
We are to turn
off our Televisions, turn off our radios, put away that magazine and get away
and talk to God.
What are we to
talk to Him about--- hang on that will come in a moment… the point that we need
not miss is to
hear God speak… we’ve got to hide and seek!
Jesus continues
on by saying: “When
you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think
their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.
8 Don’t be like
them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!” (Matthew
6:7-8, NLT2)
There is no need
to be long and elaborate when you pray; Jesus is telling us to get right to the
point!
Paul said in
Philippians 4:6: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what
you need, and thank him for all he has done.” (NLT2)
God wants us to
talk to Him about anything and everything, but He doesn’t want us going on and
on and on and on as people of other religions do... He wants us to use general
and specific prayers.
After some
boundaries have been established in relation to prayer, Jesus now moves on to
the content of our prayers.
"This, then,
is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10
your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today
our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Mt 6:9-13, NIV)
In this, the
model prayer, Jesus is teaching us how to pray. He’s giving us an outline to
follow, so we’d do and say more than “hey Big Guy in the sky...”
Jesus taught us to praise God. 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name’ (Matt 6:9)
In this part of
the prayer, we adore God for who He is and we adore Him for how he has worked
in our lives right up to present day.
We don’t pray this way because
God needs to be reminded of who He is, we pray this way because we need to be
reminded of who God is!
So we adore God.
We thank Him for Who He is and what He has done.
Jesus taught us to pray about
His kingdom. Look
at verse 10: “your
kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (NIV)
John Ortberg
suggests that this part of the Lord’s Prayer is saying to God: “Make up there
come down here”
Jesus also taught us to pray
about our necessities. “Give us today our daily bread.” (6:11)
It’s in this
part of the prayer that we ask God to be our Jehovah Jireh—our Provider.
God will always
look after those who are His and that means providing enough for today.
Sheila McCrea
MacCallum—who is a sister to Pat Graham and Anna McGuigan--once said that “God has
promised to supply all our needs, not all our greed’s.”
We need to come
to God and ask Him to provide our necessities.
But we also come to God for
forgiveness, in times of temptation and for deliverance from evil.
“Forgive us our
debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:12-13,
NIV)
There is little
doubt that we live in one messed up world.
Sometimes we are
the one who are messed up, and other times another messed up person does
something to us, so we are instructed to pray for forgiveness.
As Jesus was
praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, He told His disciples to: “Watch and pray so
that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is
weak." (Mt. 26:41, NIV)
We can be led
into temptation very easily, so we are to pray that we will not be led down the
wrong path and do something we shouldn’t do.
Because Jesus
expected us to pray, He gave us a model for us to use and to hear God speak…hide and seek.
But maybe you
don’t always have the luxury to slip away into a private room somewhere and
spend time alone praying, because you’ve got to take the kids to hockey
practice, you’ve got to a big report due in the morning…
So what are we
to do when we don’t have time to hide and seek?
Well, a good
answer is found in 1 Thess. 5:17 and it tells us to: “pray continually” (NIV)
I don’t know if
that made things better or worse, so let me try and say it this way.
ILLUSTRATION- like some of you, my wife and
I work full time. I am, of course your pastor, and she is a teacher at RVCA.
We
both love our jobs…most of the time…. But one thing about our jobs is that they
don’t allow us to talk to each other all of the time.
So
what we do is send text messages back and forth all day long.
These messages give both of us
a time to say hello and have a quick conversation about what’s going on in our
day, and also serves as a reminder that we love each other.
Text
messages are a great way for us to communicate throughout the day.
At
the end of the work day, I’ll come home and we’ll begin to have a face-to-face
conversation.
As
we’re eating supper, or cleaning up around the house, we’ll unpack our days;
I’ll try really hard to listen when Beth talks about school, and Beth will try
really hard when I start taking church…
Both
types of communication—text messages, and face-to face conversation have been
essential in our marriage. Not one or the other. Both.
The
same is true for prayer. Some days you won’t have time to get alone with Jesus.
It’s in those times that you’ll need to send up “text-message” prayers:
·
God, I could really use your help here…
·
Please let me know You’re here with me as I take
this test…
·
Please let my daughter go back to sleep so I can
go back to sleep.
But
other times, you’ll actually need to have that face-to-face conversation with
God.
You’ll need to get alone and pour out
your heart and soul to God and ask Him to supply more than your daily bread.
This
is how you can “pray
without ceasing.” (1 Thess.5:17,
NKJV)
So,
let’s seek to bring this home today and I want to give you 4 simple ways that
you can apply this element of prayer this week. You can
1. Join P3
P3—Pastor’s
prayer partners-- is a weekly email that I send out that is jammed packed with
things to pray about.
We pray for changed lives, we pray for
the Sunday morning experience, we pray people who need a touch from Jesus.
If
you want to get better at praying, this is one way for you to get better at
praying. All you have to do is send me an email that says “Add me to the list”
and you can begin praying.
2. You can pray the Word of God.
The
Bible is full of awesome prayers. You can pray the Lord’s Prayer; you can pray
Psalm 31:3: “Since
you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.”(NIV)
Or
you can pray this prayer tucked away in the back of 1 Chronicles:
“Jabez cried out to the God of Israel,
"Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be
with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain."
(NIV)
The
Scriptures are full of excellent prayers, and they can help you practice
Scripture reading and Praying all at the same time.
3. You can find someone to pray
with you.
ILLUSTRATION- I love praying with Pastor
Mike. What I don’t remember to pray for, he almost always does… there is
something awesome that happens when we pray together.
If
you want to take your prayer life to the next level, find someone to pray with
you, and see how God answers your prayers.
4
You can pray the Jesus
Prayer:
It’s
very simple, and it’s been used for hundreds of years: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”
What
a great way to start praying…
No
matter what application you to seek to implement this week, I want you to
remember this: “The
power of prayer… does not depend on the one who makes the prayer but on the One
who hears the prayer.” (Lucado, 2006, 67)
If
you want to
hear God speak…hide and seek!
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