EVERYDAY | Week One: Prayer

Crisis:

We have two choices: we can choose to take Jesus’s message seriously and make following Jesus an everyday part of our reality, or we can choose to keep Jesus at the margins of our life.

Complication:

If we decide that we want to take Jesus’s message seriously, then our faith in him is going to have to become part of our everyday lives. This is what we are advocating for here at FSM! This is why we say we are here to lead you toward a lifetime of following Jesus. Over the next three weeks, we are going to be painting a vision for what it really looks like to be “all in” followers of Jesus. What if you decided that high school was going to be your chance to decide to go “all in” with Jesus? One of the distinctive markers of someone who is taking Jesus’s message seriously is that they are serious about evangelism. the gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to be shown and shared with a lost and hurting world. And it is our responsibility as followers of Jesus to be the ones to share it! And this is why our vision for the year is to be a ministry marked by a hospitality that heals! That hospitality is for welcoming in those who are lost and hurting and broken and most in need of Jesus and letting them feel the love of Jesus tangibly as we tell them about the love of Jesus available for them in the gospel.

Clue:

If you are ready to be all in this year with Jesus, then it’s time to take evangelism seriously. But for some of you, that may be daunting or overwhelming. The first step in taking Jesus’s message seriously and making evangelism and everyday part of your reality is found in Colossians 4:2-6.

Climax:

Read Colossians 4:2-6. Specifically focus on verse 2.

“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person,” (Col 4:2-6).

Over the next three weeks, we are going to walk through this text slowly. Tonight, we’re homing in on verse 2.

Our main verse tonight in the ESV reads “continue steadfastly,” but interestingly enough, the NIV, CSB, and NASB all translate Paul’s phrasing here as “devote yourselves to prayer.” While this is not a substantial difference, I think the wording of these other translations gets us to Paul’s heart a lot quicker. So, I just want to ask y’all tonight:

Are you devoted to prayer?

Think of things that you are devoted to. The list is probably not very long at this point: your family, your closest friends, your sports team/extracurriculars, maybe your schoolwork, then maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe Jesus made the list because he sounds like someone you should definitely be “devoted” to. But let’s think about it, what does it really look like to be “devoted” to something? How can we tell if we are or we aren’t? And why is it so important that Paul stresses—as do the rest of the New Testament authors—that we be devoted to prayer?

What does “Devotion” Look Like?

Definition: “Being given over to or having loving loyalty to something/someone.”

It’s not the only thing you do, but it is something you often do.

Other things in your life are filtered through your devotion.

Usually gets our first and best, not our leftovers.

Why Should We Be “Devoted” to Prayer? (5 Reasons to Be Devoted to Prayer)

Prayer fuels our ongoing relationship with Jesus.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me,” (John 15:4).

We can’t share what we don’t have.

Everyday faith can’t happen if it functions as a daily checklist.

Everyday faith can’t be a homework assignment.

Everyday faith must spring out of the overflowing well of your personal relationship with Jesus. And this relationship is nourished in prayer.

Prayer opens our eyes to see the world as God sees it.

Long-standing debate among theologians—does prayer change God’s mind or ours? There’s a little bit of evidence that it does both, but the point is that prayer is more about God doing something to usrather than us getting God to do something for us.

Illustration: Prayer is like putting on spiritual glasses.

Prayer positions our hearts to receive God’s direction and guidance.

Paul says that we should continue steadfastly in prayer. This means it’s an ongoing, daily, relentless thing. We’re not just saying one prayer at the closing time or the response time after an FSM sermon, we are daily going before the Father on our knees interceding on behalf of our friends and pleading for direction.

Illustration: When it comes to evangelism, prayer is like step-by-step GPS navigation.

Prayer is the driving force for evangelism.

“Prayer does not prepare you for the greater work, prayer is the greater work,” (Oswald Chambers).

It is really hard for me to actually believe this and live like this is true. I love to try to get things done on my own power—anybody relate to this?

Remember when Jesus told the disciples “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5)? And then at another point when he said in reverse, “if you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13)?

That isn’t some carte blanche statement telling you to ask God for a Ferrari and straight A’s—he’s saying that without him you can do nothing, but with him through prayer you can do anything that God asks of you.

Prayer reminds us that the process of evangelism is entirely based on God’s grace.

In prayer, you are asking God to do what you by definition cannot do.

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out… No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,” (John 6:37, 44).

This takes the pressure off our shoulders for evangelism, but it doesn’t let us off the hook to go and do the work that Jesus commissioned us to do!

Remember Paul’s words to the Romans: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news,’” (Romans 10:14-15).

It’s not up to you to force someone to believe in the message. It’s just up to you to tell them what the message is. Let God do what only he can do.

Conclusion:

So, as we close tonight, I’m going to ask the band to come up and we’re going to spend some time asking God to do what only he can do.

Pray for your circle. Pray for your school. Pray for your city. Pray for the nations.

Remember our buddy Oswald that I quoted earlier? That “prayer doesn’t prepare us for the greater work, it is the greater work”? Yeah. He goes on to say this absolute doozy:

“You labour at prayer and results happen all the time from His standpoint. What an astonishment it will be to find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you had been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ,” (Oswald Chambers).

Let’s take some time to labor in prayer for our neighbors and for the nations.