Prayer & Spiritual living

Prayer
Spiritual Life (disciplines)


Scripture and Worship compose the 1st two habits of the spiritual life. The third is prayer.

Prayer is getting your life onto God’s agenda. Unfortunately, prayer usually is us asking God to get onto our agenda. The difference is evident, but the fact that something can be plainly seen is not always enough to call us to join God’s agenda, rather than ask Him to join ours.

I googled “prayer” this week, just to see what would happen. There are places live on the net that you can go to pray for your finances, your marriage, your life. You can go to sites to “learn how to pray.” I didn’t spend much time on it so I don’t want you to think its all legit – because its not. The one site I went to had videos on how best to achieve what you want in prayer. When I was a kid I wouldn’t hesitate to pray for things I wanted. Not that it is all bad to do that – as we’ll see we need to be honest with God and we should be honest about what we want. But not to the point that we start trying to bribe God or make commitments we can’t keep. The classic scenario is that we offer God something:
God, if you just give me a friend, then I’ll follow you with all my life. Or if you land me this job, I’ll honor you in it. That all sounds like huge piestic goals: I’ll honor you, I’ll follow you, but come on. What are we really asking: we’re asking for the thing, not God. We’re trying to use God. How dishonorable. Prayer is not a cheap trick. It is not to be cannibalized and prostituted for our ends. We’re not to claim the promises of the Bible, “Jesus, you said whatever I asked for in your name you would do for me” like credit that gets us anything we want.

Scripturally, Biblically, prayer is evident in the lives of believers: it is prayer that is based in the will of God, not in the will of man.

That’s not to say people don’t ask God for good things, or for their own desires, but consistently the type of prayer that God honors is the prayer that is according to His will.

I. Pray God’s Will: Matt. 26:36-46
Consider Jesus. When he was waiting for a lynch mob to come and carry him to a mock trial resulting in His crucifixion, Jesus knew the weight of the moment. The Gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus was in such agony at that moment in time that his sweat became like drops of blood on the ground. That’s intense.
I’ve never sweat blood. Last week Maria shared about the boy at her camp that told her that his soul was laid out, bleeding because he was trying so hard to get to God. There is a time in life of intense struggle, and Jesus was on the cusp of history and the redemption of everyone who would believe. This was an intense time, and Jesus, fully God and fully man, was struggling.
Read Matthew 26:38-39.
A. Be honest in prayer: Jesus was honest in his prayer to God, he basically said Father, I don’t want this. Jesus was torn up inside. He knew from the time of the fall, when Adam and Eve chose independence over God, that this time, this hour would come. He knows that man will only be saved one way: His perfect sacrifice. But the flesh, the human in him cries out that it is painful.
a. Honestly let God know where you are. The Father was not surprised to hear His son say “take this cup from me.” This cup, by the way, can mean a lot of things, but it is the cup of the new covenant, salvation through the blood of Jesus. Already Jesus is sweating blood, knowing that more will be painfully spilt. Even more, he knows that he will become the sin of the world, taking in Himself all of God’s wrath for all the wrong done.
i. Imagine that right now, everything you’ve ever done wrong in your life is called in and you’re going to have to pay for it: either in prison, through work, or maybe even through having to leave the life and people you love. Most of us, at least in our hearts, have done or thought enough evil that we deserve at least that bad. Actually, in ultimate terms, we deserve death: we have grieved God to the point that we cannot be in fellowship with Him. We’re studying spiritual life but we deserve spiritual death. Now imagine that you are held responsible for Hitler’s evil, and bin Laden’s evil. What do you deserve?
B. Jesus took it all upon him in those coming hours. Yet he cried out for mercy. He was honest with God – take this from me. And He was submissive to God: “yet not as I will, but as You will.”
a. Prayer gets truncated when we aren’t submissive to God and what he wants. I’m not a big fan of hearing voices. Jesus is the living word, and the Bible is the written word that reveals Jesus. You can always trust the Bible. Why am I saying this? I don’t want us to think that prayer is about hearing things or hearing voices. Prayer is about getting onto God’s agenda, which is revealed in the Bible, and being submissive to it. It is a revolution: from me to Him. From what I want to what He wants. The step taken in faith honors Him, but the step taken in doubt is not worship. So, when you sense God’s leading search out the scriptures and follow by faith, biblically informed faith, and in submission to His will. The voices that we hear should be viewed in light of the Written Word, the Bible.
C. Read 26:40-41. All this agony and yet his friends are sleeping. If my friend is sweating blood and crying out in agony and wants me to keep watch, I’m going to try my best; but for some reason these guys were just out of it. Jesus gets on them – the spirit is willing but the flesh is week.
a. The 3 with Him are Peter, James, and John. The same three that just weeks earlier climbed a mountain with Jesus and saw him talking with Moses and Elijah. Not knowing at all what to say, Peter, the brash one, said Jesus, do you want us to build 3 shelters – one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah?” Great going Peter, good reality check. And then a cloud comes on the mountain and says: This is my son whom I love: Listen to Him. A couple of weeks have passed, and already they’re not listening. How quick we are to stop being submissive. Following God is not a series of checklist – I listened, check. I obeyed, check. I gave money, check. I loved my neighbor, check. That’s legalism and an enslaved way to live. You are free to love and listen and give and serve, you don’t have to be bound by restrictions but are free to do. I wonder if these three men felt content that they had listened? Maybe not, they were good friends of Jesus’ and did love him, but they’re flesh was tired, and they felt they had no strength.
D. Prayer stops when we stop listening, listening and submission are keys to prayer. Jesus checked on Peter, James, and John 3 times, and every time, even though he asked them to stay awake and be vigilante for the coming hour, they slept. Flesh can interrupt the spirit pretty quick. 41: “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
a. These men were coming off a mountaintop experience where they saw Jesus transfigured; Jesus’ glory was evident to them, they saw, in reality the Kingdom of God. And here they are sleeping. Our flesh must be disciplined to be spiritually sensitive. They were there, late at night, in the cool of the garden, having celebrated Passover with a good meal. And they were tired. The flesh was creeping up on them.
b. It’s amazing how tired I get when I want to pray. Sometimes, and you maybe can identify with this, it’s almost like I set the time to pray and all of a sudden my body feels like it hasn’t rested in weeks. My eyes get heavy, and I want to be like Peter and James and John.
c. Jesus had the same meal, was awake at the same hour, and was in terrible agony. If anyone needed a break, a nap, he did. He would need his strength for what would come. Yet he laid His eyes on the walk of faith, and returned to pray.
E. Read 42.
a. Jesus gave himself fully to God. At that moment, the flesh of Christ submitted to the power of Christ. The human submitted to the divine. The flesh would be destroyed, but life flows from the spirit.
b. How terrifying and freeing all at once. That is the nature of prayer. It is standing on the shores of the stream of God and jumping in and saying – take me where you will. We may not envision or like the outcome. But we have prayed, we have given ourselves to the will of God, and like Christ, there is victory. Because of His victory there is peace. Because of His death, there is life.
c. I visited the Naval Academy when I was looking at colleges. At the academy there is an indoor diving pool with a platform 100s of feet high. Every midshipman has to take the plunge from that tower. I hate heights: flying and heights are my fleshly fears. Seeing that towering diving board really helped to make up my mind about what I wanted to do with my life. It was a terrifying prospect.
i. Jesus faced such prospects head on: Your will be done. He put fear in its place and submitted. Christianity is a radical faith. Grace Harbor is a harbor of radical people who submit to Christ. Jesus could have prayed – if you take this death from me I will preach to more people. He could have tried to bargain and deal with God the father. But He didn’t. He worshiped. He gave His life.
d. What about His friends?
II. Praying for my will
a. Read v.43-46. They were still sleeping. They’re prayer probably went something like this: Father, help Jesus, bless the earth, give us sleep… a…me..nnnn.
b. The tide caught them. When they awoke Judas and the mob were there and Jesus would be going away. Our slumber in prayer can lead to stark awakenings. The prayerful person is expectant of God’s working, the slumbering person is surprised. And not always understanding. Peter, waking up would grab his sword and go for a slave, cutting off his ear. Waking up from His slumber he reacted. Certainly he had lots of reasons, the main being His friend Jesus about to be punished. But what did Peter do? He added to the sin that Jesus must bear.
c. Prayer lays a plan.
i. It starts with submission to God
ii. It is informed with the Word
iii. It encourages us to jump into God’s river of life and leave the shores we know to be carried by His current into the places and people and lives He wants for us.

I remember the bike I wanted so bad when I was young. I made all kinds of bargains for it, I saw the stream of God but I wanted to ride my bike on the shore. Thankfully, I got bored on the shore and started wanting more, and discovered God. Your spiritual life may just be beginning or maybe its time to do what you know God wants you to do, or just time to ask God what he wants. Prayer is that communication with God that puts you on His agenda.

Scripture, Worship, Prayer work together to place you in God’s stream of life, His action.

Pray.

Commitment Cards.