March 5, 2006

“Our God Hears Us”

Too Busy Not to Pray

Various Scriptures

Prayer: Warren

 

·       Illustration – I’m sure many of you have heard this prayer I’m going to read, but I think it hits us where we live.  Dear God, so far today, I've done all right.  I haven't gossiped.  I haven't lost my temper.  I haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over indulgent.  I'm very thankful for that.  But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed; and from then on, I'm going to need a lot more help.  Amen. 

·       You know, it’s easy for us to get so caught up in the busyness of life that we forget to pray, or to think that we don’t have the time to pray.  Or maybe we only take the time to throw up a prayer in passing.  We’ve lost a big part of the purpose God has for us – being transformed into His likeness and helping others to do the same – because neither of these will happen without much prayer.  Let’s read several verses that show just how dedicated Jesus Himself was to prayer.

·       Matthew 14:23 from the NASB – After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray…

·       Mark 1:35 – In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.

·       Luke 5:16 – But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness to pray.

·       Luke 6:12 – It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.

·       Luke 9:18 – And it happened that while He was praying alone…

·       Luke 9:28 – Some eight days after these sayings, He took along Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.

·       Luke 11:1 – It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place…

·        I’d call these verses a bit of a snapshot of Jesus’ life.  Think about it this way – Jesus only had about three years of ministry on this earth.  He had three years to get His disciples to the point where they could become capable of carrying on without His physical presence on earth.  Now if it’d been me, I’d have been spending every second with those guys pumping into them all that they would need to know.  Know what the truth is?  All they needed to know was how to be like Jesus.  And Jesus needed to stay true to His character as God with skin on, so He prayed.  He prayed a lot.  He prayed with His disciples.  He prayed by Himself. 

·       Jesus was devoted to prayer.  In fact, He is still devoted to prayer, interceding for us.  Romans 8:34 – Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.  The battle rages around us in the spiritual realms and Christ is interceding and intervening for us in prayer to the Father.  That’s awesome news, and also a great lesson for us.  If our Savior and Lord still believes in the power of prayer and is still devoted to prayer, shouldn’t we be as well?

·       In Colossians 4:2, Paul writes, Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.  There’s a level of devotion that goes beyond merely praying out of duty.  There’s a level of devotion that goes beyond our personal opinions and preferences.  There’s a level of devotion that goes beyond our hectic lives.  Jesus was devoted to prayer.  He was so devoted to prayer, that in the midst of clearing the corruption from the Temple courts, He said, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a place of prayer for all nations’” (Mark 11:17).  Jesus’ life was hectic, with literally thousands of people demanding His attention all the time.  Yet He took time to be devoted to prayer.

·       I’m still trying to get a grip on this whole concept of Jesus being both God and man.  I believe it with all my heart, but I don’t profess to understand how it all works.  One thing I do know – if Jesus, being completely God and completely man, felt the need to be devoted to prayer, I’d better be devoted to prayer as well.  And I know this is all nice and theoretical to talk about, but real life keeps getting thrown at us.  How can we be devoted to prayer in the midst of our fast-paced, over-committed culture and life-styles?

·       One thing I’ve got to say right now is that, if we’re going to be devoted to prayer, something else has got to go.  We can’t just add one more thing to our schedules and expect it to work.  We’ve got to cut back on our commitments and re-think how we allocate our time.  Maybe that means cutting back on TV or entertainment time.  I’d be the first to admit that I spend too much time watching TV and that I need to re-think some of my schedule.  But I also have dedicated myself to prayer.  I get up earlier than I have to in order to make sure I have enough time throughout the day to pray.  I stick with it even when it seems like no good is coming from it.  Just a couple of weeks ago I was tempted to give up this devotion to prayer because I didn’t think anything was happening, and since then God has showed me many ways that my prayers have been effective.  So I guess I’d probably better stick with it, right?  We get too discouraged too easily when our prayers aren’t answered in the way we want them to be, so we go back to our over-committed schedule and forget to be persistent in our devotion to prayer.

·       Another challenge is that we often feel like we’ve got to get all of our prayer in one block of time.  That belief will defeat us every time.  Now while it is true on many days that I will pray for an hour or more at one time, most of my prayer time is broken up throughout the day.  It would be very easy for most of us to take five minutes here and there throughout the day to pray.  Maybe while we’re driving.  Maybe while we’re on a coffee break or our lunch hour.  A dedicated block of time on a regular basis is a good habit to get into, but five minutes here and there will help us too.  The point is to pray and be persistent and disciplined about it.  Prayer is the great enabler that allows God access to our hearts to transform us and make us more like Him.  So begin thinking about times throughout your day that you can devote to prayer.

·       Perhaps the greatest challenge for us is corporate prayer.  It’s a struggle for us to value corporate prayer enough to cut something from our schedules so that we can pray together.  But it’s essential that we pray together regularly.  The book of Acts is a book of prayer.  Throughout the book, the believers prayed together and God moved.  Acts 1:14 and 24; 2:42; 4:24; 6:6; 9:40; 10:9; 12:5; 14:23; 16:25; and 28:8 all describe how God moved powerfully when the believers prayed together.  If we want God to move more powerfully than we’ve ever seen before, we’ve got to pray together regularly.  But there’s a greater reason we’ve got to pray together that allows God to move light years beyond what we could imagine.

·       Corporate prayer brings unity.  Believers who pray together on a regular basis are believers who are united in purpose and focus.  Dee Duke has spoken many times about how corporate prayer transformed Jefferson Baptist from a fractured, divisive group into a congregation united around loving one another and bringing people to Jesus.  We’ve got to pray together so that we’ll love one another with Jesus’ love and be united around His plan and purpose.  Corporate prayer is an essential part of becoming like Jesus.  Only when we pray together will we begin to open up to one another – to share who we really are – to be safe.  Being a safe place has nothing to do with hiding – God calls us to be a safe place so we can open up our hearts to each other and to Him and to love with His unconditional love.  But in order to be a safe place we’ve all got to be safe people.  Criticism of one another, complaining about one another, and competing with one another have all got to go out the window if we’re going to be a safe place to pray together and love one another. 

·       Many churches in our country have fallen victim to something of a legalistic mentality where the sinner is looked down upon and failure to keep up appearances is unacceptable.  And some of that attitude has made its way into our church at times.  Brothers and sisters, we are family and we’ve got to love one another as family.  We’ve got to start being a safe place to open up and grow up in Christ, to confess sins and faults and struggles and find love and acceptance and healing, and then to allow that love and acceptance and healing to flow out into our community.  We can never be a place to hide from the world – we’re called to be a place where we can be truly real, warts and all.  Prayer, and particularly corporate prayer, will get us there.  Nothing changes our hearts as much as being with God.  Prayer puts us at the foot of the cross.  The Bible keeps us on the right track, but prayer allows God to use His word to change us as individuals.  Corporate prayer allows God to use His word to change us as a family. 

·       Someone wrote a while back that prayerlessness is the greatest sin of our time.  He’s right.  We’re not too busy to pray.  We’re too busy because, to some extent, we don’t want to pray.  And we don’t want to pray because we’re scared to change.  We can trust God to use our prayers, not to crush us, but to break our hearts only so that they can be healed and whole for the first time in our lives.  Isaiah 42:3, speaking of Jesus, says He will not crush those who are weak or quench the smallest hope.  Let’s make the choice to trust Him by being persistent in prayer, not only as individuals but together as a family.  Jesus is devoted to prayer for us.  Let’s be devoted to prayer so that His will can reign in us.

·       Where are you at with this whole issue of prayer?  Are you devoted to prayer?  Are you persistent in prayer?  Have you made praying with other believers in our church a priority in your life?  What does God say about your prayer life?  The altars are open if you’d like to come forward and make a commitment to be devoted to prayer as an individual and corporately.  You’ve got the next couple of songs and beyond to come forward and make prayer a priority in your life.  Come forward now.