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Anger
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January 11,2015
*Intro* – Some of you will remember the old starter systems on tractors and cars.
Key and starter were in different places.
You could push on the starter without the key turned and it would turn the motor over.
Remember?
If the car or tractor was in gear it would lurch forward a foot or two.
Of course, if you did that very long, the battery would run down, but you could make very slight progress without ever turning the key on.
So, are you like me?
Does your Christian experience ever feel like a series of disjointed starts and stops – like you are operating by fits and spurts?
If so, the cause is almost certainly that we haven’t turned the key that allows the engine to engage.
What is the key?
Prayer.
Talk a lot about it.
Seldom do it.
But without it all of our efforts, whether sacred or secular, are wasted.
No eternal value.
Having said that, prayer by itself is also useless.
When I was a youngster I used to collect keys.
I had several large key rings filled with keys.
But all were useless because I didn’t know what they were for.
They went to something – a house, a car, a locker.
But they were no good to me because I didn’t know what they were for.
Similarly prayer without human effort – preparation and action, is also useless.
They must go together – prayer and preparation.
But of the two, prayer is the most necessary – yet it is the least practiced.
John Bunyan expressed it memorably: "You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed."
If we really got that, our whole existence would change.
One of Jesus’ disciples got this.
He noticed when Jesus prayed, things happened.
And so he comes in Lu 11:1 and asks, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
This man wanted what Jesus had.
Interestingly, this is the only thing in the gospels that any of Jesus’ disciples ever asked to be taught.
Since He was already teaching them the Word daily, they had no need to ask.
But this question spotlights the importance of prayer.
It’s important to learn about prayer.
But more important is simply to do it.
Don’t wait.
Learn by doing even as we study it.
Prayer is a little like an M16.
The first time you shoot one, you won’t hit much.
Its power is hard to control.
The more you practice, the better.
But if the enemy is coming over the hill, you don’t get out the instruction manual, you start firing, right?
On the job training!
Well, the enemy is coming over the hill, Beloved.
So don’t wait to learn before you do.
Learn as you go.
And I hope the next few weeks will encourage us mightily – not to get smart about prayer, but to do prayer.
Now, eventually we’ll examine Jesus’ teaching in detail.
But for a couple of weeks some general observations about prayer.
*I.
Prayer is entree to God, not Self*
A marine biologist is telling his friends about his research.
“Some whales can communicate at a distance of 300 miles,” he says.
“What in the world would one whale say to another 300 miles away?” asks a sarcastic friend.
Another friends says, “He probably says something like, ‘Can you hear me now?’” Can God hear us now?!
He can!
But what is incredible is that He does!
We’ve lost our amazement at God’s availability.
Because we forget who He is and who we are.
V. 2: And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father.”
Stop there.
Here is the most wonderful aspect of prayer.
Prayer is access to God.
Prayer puts us into the Creator’s presence!
We’re not only there, but we are talking to Him.
We are presuming to speak in His presence.
But what we forget is we have no right to be there.
None.
We are as out of place as we would be if someone lifted us up right now and transported us into the presence of the Queen of England or the President of the US.
Most of us would die of shame.
We are not properly dressed; don’t know the protocol; way out of our league.
We would be totally out of place there and here we are in the throne room of the Creator of everything.
But where is the awe, the reverence, the respect?
We’ve lost our sense of privilege.
God is perfect in His holiness.
That means 2 things.
One – He is totally separate from us; two – He is morally perfect and we have no idea how rotten we look to Him.
We get a clue when He reminds us in Isa 64:6, “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”
Did you ever consider what that means?
That means that on our best day – not our worst, but our best – on the day when we got up, had devotions, prayed for others, gave money and time to the flood victims, helped muck out houses, bent our will to His – on our best day, when compared to His moral perfection, we look like filthy, dirty, oily rags – on our best day!
Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do those things.
We should.
But on our best day our motives are mixed, even as a believer.
And He sees right though our righteous deeds to our selfish, evil heart.
We can never deserve to be anywhere near Him.
So, how’d we get in?
We have a mediator, Beloved.
Those in Christ have a mediator, a go-between, someone who gives us entree.
I Tim 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
He is our ticket to God’s presence.
He paid the entrance fee with His own blood on the cross, taking the penalty for our sin so that we can stand before the Father without being consumed by His holiness.
Heb 4:15-16, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
We could never earn this right – not on our best day.
But in Christ – we have access!
Pete Briscoe pastors the church my sister goes to in Dallas, but he grew up in Milwaukee where his father, Stuart, pastored for many years.
He speaks of how the Brewers are gods in Milwaukee.
Everyone watches them on TV.
As many as can make the pilgrimage to County Stadium to worship in person.
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