"The Disciplines" - Part 4 - Prayer & Service

Introduction

Well this morning we are continuing in our series we are simply calling “Disciple” where we are learning, I hope we are learning, the importance of becoming and living our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.

To get to that place where we experience the easy yoke Jesus spoke of where we learn how to effortlessly do what Jesus would do if He were in our place. And we best learn this by doing one thing, and that is by arranging our lives around those practices and rhythms that Jesus himself engaged in so that he could be, from one moment to the next, no matter what was going on around Him externally, at home deeply in His mind and His soul in the presence of His father who loved Him.

This is possible for every person in here this morning and not only is it possible, but it is the expectation our creator has for each one of us.

To become more Christlike in our character and the way we conduct our days, in our thought life and the way we treat others, and in our obedience to Him.

I hope we have been talking about this long enough now that you know that this transformation will not happen just because at some point in your life you prayed a prayer asking Jesus into your life. As I said, it is possible but it is not automatic.

As an example of what I am getting at, today, you can decide that you would like to speak Arabic. That is Vision. You have a vision to be an Arabic speaking person. But you have to go further than that and make speaking Arabic your intention. That is, you have to make some level of commitment to do what it takes to become a person who speaks Arabic. Now, if you stop there, will you ever speak the Arabic language? No you will not. Because there is one very important thing missing.

The Means. The HOW. How do you learn to speak Arabic? Your intention has to drive you to the means by which you actually learn the language. What are those means?

Well you will sign up for language courses. You will listen to recordings of the language spoken, you will buy books and study them, you will start hanging our with people who speak the language, you may immerse yourself in the culture and you may even travel to visit some Arabic speaking country like Jordan or Morocco. And you will, practice, practice, practice. All of those activities are the MEANS by which you will actually become an Arabic speaking person.

Well, so it is with your spiritual formation.

I have just given you the reason why we see such widespread failure by so many to attain Christian maturity among those in the church. Most of us are not tied into this formula of transformation. Vision, Intention and Means.

Any one of those missing components, results in no spiritual transformation. But all three of these are what enables us to point where what Jesus Himself did and taught would be the natural outflow of who we really are on the inside.

And so what we see in so many churches today, are many professing Christians end up circling back to what we know best, non-Christian sources to resolve the problems of our inner life. And what Happens? In terms of spiritual transformation? Nothing. Because we are leaving the Resources God has made available to us un-practiced.

This morning we are going to look into two more of the disciplines or practices that will help position us to spend time with Christ, learn from Christ, and actually do what Christ did. That is what an apprentice does. Before we do that, let me show you what it might look like if we incorporated Vision, Intention and Means into our spiritual renovation.

This process of inward renovation has to start with something we spent a few weeks in this series talking about. A stark vision of life in the Kingdom of God.

If we are really concerned about our own spiritual formation (being disciples) or the spiritual formation of others (engaging in the disciple-making process) then a vision of the Kingdom is where we have to start.

Remember, it is the first place where Jesus started. It was indeed the Gospel that He preached. He came announcing, manifesting and teaching the availability and nature of the kingdom of Heaven.

He showed us thought His own life and practice what living in the Kingdom is like. In Luke 4:43

Luk 4:43 ESV - 43 but he said to them, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose."

And remember how we defined the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the range of God’s effective will, where what God wants done is done.

And here is an interesting thing for you to consider. The planet earth and its immediate surroundings, seem to be the only place in creation where God permits His will NOT to be done! Think about that for a moment.

That is why we pray “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and we hope for the time where that kingdom will be completely fulfilled even here on earth, where in fact it is already present and available to anyone who seeks it with all their hearts.

So the Vision that must underlie our spiritual transformation into Christlikeness is a vision of life lived now and forever in the range of God’s effective will. It is us partaking of the divine nature. it is the vision of living your life where, as we are told in Colossians 3:17...

Col 3:17 ESV - 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

We are aiming for a vision of living a life fully in the Kingdom of God and as fully as possible both now and here, not just in the hereafter. So that should be our vision. It is a vision of life that cannot come to us naturally, thought the depths of our soul cry out for something like it. it is a vision that God Himself has given to us. We cannot clearly see it on our own. That is the Vision....Kingdom living.

Now what about intention? Well this vision of life in the Kingdom through reliance on Jesus makes it possible for us to INTEND to live in the kingdom as He did.

The first step here is to trust Him. Trust that He is who He claims to be and the one whom scripture speaks of as the Messiah.

If you and I really do not count as Jesus being the ANOINTED ONE of God, we will have no adequate vision of the Kingdom, or of life IN the Kingdom AND we will have no way to enter into that Kingdom. Jesus is the “Door”. he is “the Way” and there is no other.

And the way we INTEND to live in the Kingdom is to INTEND to obey the precise example and teachings of Jesus. This requires that we actually trust Him and not just rely on believing things ABOUT Him.

The truth is, no one can REALLY believe the truth about Him without trusting Him by INTENDING to obey Him. That is a mental impossibility.

These days I hear much about evangelism and how we should go about that. You know what would be the most effective evangelism of all? If those in the church ACTUALLY live according to our belief in the teachings of Jesus.

Beloved, if we invite people to come in here and what they observe is not markedly different that what they came in from, then all we have accomplished is increased numbers, not transformed lives.

My greatest fear in the church today is that we ARE living according to our belief in the teachings of Jesus and we don’t believe them!

Knowing the right answers does not mean we believe them

The idea that you can trust Christ and not intend to obey him is an illusion that will never result in any kind of transformed life.

Intention involves decision. Intention is brought to completion only by a decision to carry through with the intention.

And then, the vision and the solid intention to obey Christ will naturally lead to seeking out and applying the means to that end.

The means are some of those things we have been talking about for the last several weeks. Those disciplines or practices that will eventually replace our inner character of lostness with the inner character of Jesus; His vision, His understanding, His feelings His decisions and His character. And fortunately we have a rich set of resources available to us in the example and teachings of Jesus and in the scriptures.

So it is the means we have been addressing with the practices. these practices are a means to the end which is Christlikeness and ALL of this of course can only happen with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This morning i want to look at two more practices which are Prayer and service.

It is my opinion that prayer should always precede service. There are always things to be done in terms of service but we run the risk of serving outside of God’s will if we do not first get in the habit of praying and communicating with God.

So, lets first look at the practice of Prayer.

Prayer

What is prayer. Simply put, Prayer is conversing or communicating with God. When we pray, we talk to god, out loud or within our thoughts.

Prayer often involves some other of the disciplines like study, meditation and worship. Also it is often a part of solitude and fasting as well.

This is important. If you approach prayer strictly as a discipline, rather than as a way of co-laboring with God to accomplish good things and advancing His Kingdom, then it will probably result in a pretty low voltage spiritual life.

The primary reason you should communicate with God is to be with Him, to commune with him, but it is also a spiritual discipline that will serve to transform the way you live and the way you see the world around you.

In Jeremiah we see this incredible promise from God regarding communication with Him.

Jeremiah 33:3 (ESV) - 3 Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

There is a sense in which some of the things God wants to teach you will ONLY come though the time you spend in prayer.

Dallas Willard says that...

“Even when we are praying for or about things other than our own spiritual needs and growth, the effect of conversing with God cannot fail to have a very pervasive and spiritually strengthening effect on all aspects of our personality.

A conversation with God, when it is a real conversation, makes an indelible impression our minds, and our consciousness of Him remains very vivid .”

Now, I can talk with God directly, or I can talk with you in the awareness of God's presence. There is a third option in our life that we do all the time and that is I talk with you and I'm not aware of God's presence. I think of God as being absent or don’t think of Him at all..

Here is what's striking about Jesus. For Jesus, that third option, was never possible. Jesus lived in constant awareness of God's presence and that's why for example when you look at his life. If Jesus is going to heal someone, sometimes he would pray to God and ask God to bring healing, Sometimes he would just speak directly to that person because Jesus was so constantly aware of the presence of God that the line between praying and just talking was so thin that it was essentially erased and every word that Jesus spoke was spoken in the conscious awareness of and trust in, the presence of his father.

That's the goal of practicing prayer. The the goal of prayer is not to be a prayer Warrior, it's not to be a really good prayer. It is to help me become so aware of and connected with and a friend of God. It is the idea that he is simply always with me and every thought that I think and every word that I say is spoken in the presence of God. So that as was the case for Jesus, that thin line between praying and just talking will eventually be kind of erased.

Here is the thing. Prayer will most likely not be established in your life as it must be in order for us to flourish, unless we are practicing other disciplines like solitude and fasting.

I think in a lot of churches, we hold up prayer and Bible study as the main activities that will make us more like Jesus as if they are the only two arrows in our quiver.. But not many people actually succeed if those are the only two practices they engage in. In fact, many people according to the data we have end of finding those two practices burdensome if they are the only two we engage in.

I will share with you the open secret of many Bible Believing Churches. And that is a very small percentage of people talking about prayer and Bible reading are actually doing it.

And I believe the reason is they have not been shown what we have been talking about. The means by which we go about changing our lives as a whole by permeating it with these disciplines like solitude and silence, so that prayer and Bible reading will b e spiritually successful.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 we are told to ...

17 pray without ceasing,

Philippians 4:6 (ESV)

6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Matthew 7:7 (ESV)

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

James 4:2–3 (ESV) -2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

So it is clear that we should pray and pray often. The more we pray, the more we think to pray, and as we see the results of prayer - the responses of God to our requests - our confidence in His power will spill over into other areas of our life.

So I just want to give you one way that you can begin praying on a regular and consistent basis today. This comes from Richard Foster and he calls it simple prayer.

And it is simply talking to God about whatever it is that happens to be on my mind at the moment. One of the more bizarre examples he gives that is rather appealing to me is a reference to a passage in the Old Testament where a group of boys are taunting the prophet Elisha for being bald. Well Elisha calls up to heaven and a bear attacks the kids and chases them away. (2 Kings 2:23-25) Now there is some stuff going on there that I don’t fully understand but this is a great example of somebody just turning to God with a situation that's troubling them or that that he doesn't like.

So, try it this week then make it a habit. Simple prayer is just to set an intention through the day when something troubles me, when I'm confused, when I don't like something, when I'm grateful for something, I will try to talk to God about it.

Just talk to God about whatever it is that is troubling your heart or that you are grateful for, or that you are confused about. It will seem weird at first but if you keep at it, it will become as natural as breathing and what you will learn is that God is ALWAYS present and ALWAYS aware of what is going on in your life.

The other practice I want to talk about this morning is the discipline of

Service

In service, we engage our resources and strength in the active promotion of the good of others and the cause of God in our world.

Here again, like prayer,m you will strip this practice of its power if you simply practice service as a discipline.

If you pay attention, you will be presented with opportunities to serve someone simply as an act of love and righteousness without focusing on how it is going to enhance your abilities to follow Christ.

What service will do is to train you away from things like arrogance, possessiveness, envy, resentment or covetousness.

If you find yourself, as most of us do, in a position under the authority of a higher authority, then the practice willing service will help keep you from resenting it. In fact, service can actually become for you the high road to freedom from bondage to other people.

The Apostle Paul realized that as we serve, we cease to be man pleasers and eye servants because we are acting unto God in our lowliest deeds.

Col 3:22-24 ESV - 22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

So acts od willing service are helpful to those who are bondservants to someone to avoid resentment, but I will tell you who i think the practice of service n=benefits the most.

The practice of service is most important for any Christian who finds themselves in a position of influence, power and leadership, not only in the church but also in the world. These are the things that can absolutely corrupt a persons character and the anecdote is service.

Living as a servant while fulfilling socially important roles is one of the greatest challenges any disciple of Jesus ever faces.

Some of the most important things Jesus had to say were directed at leaders and how they should live.

Mat 20:25-26, 28 ESV - 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, ... 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

If you read that passage as an instruction on how to become great, you have missed the point. It is a statement on how those who ARE great are to behave. To be great AND live as a servant is one of the most difficult of spiritual practices.

In the Kingdom of God, living as a servant IS the pattern of life to attain. And the way we attain that is to PRACTICE service to others in the power of God. This is what creates the balance necessary to exercise great power without corrupting your soul.

It is the very reason Jesus told the disciples to wash one another’s feet and set an example. (I think on your bulletin I put John 3:14. It is actually John 13:14 where Jesus said...

John 13:14 (ESV)

14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

So if you are a disciple of Jesus who happens to fill a role of influence and power in the world, tray stacking a few chairs without being asked. Clean a toilet or two. Wash a few dishes at the next church potluck.

These are the things that get left out of most seminary courses. Teaching leaders to be servants above all else. The importance of this was not lost on Jesus.

Service to others in the spirit of jesus allows us the freedom of humility that carry no burden of “appearnce”. It lets us be what we actually are, an especially lively piece of clay, who, as a servant of God, happens to be here with the ability to do that good and needful thing for another piece of clay!

Serving others will save you from a number of pitfalls of the spiritual life. So strive to be a servant of those around you, not because you are compelled to in order to check off the practice, but out of a heart of love and care for your fellow human being.

The habit of talking to God nonstop and always being on the lookout for ways to serve others, will make you a better human being and will equip you and make you ready for life in the coming Kingdom of God.

Announcement:

Gentlemen, before I close, I have an opportunity for you to practice both of these things, coupled with a little fellowship that we will be talking about next week at family camp.

Beginning the Saturday after Family Camp, that’s September 7th, at 8 PM, I will be here and I am inviting the men of the church to come join me as we gather for about an hour and pray together. I will be doing this every Saturday night form then until, oh i don’t know, Jesus comes back and i hope you will join me. I will not be negotiating the time or the day. if you can make it, I encourage you to do so. If you can’t you can’t. Why am doing this? Because I think it is important for the men of the church to be the spiritual leaders both in their homes and in the church and I believe gathering together in prayer will help with that. Prayer for our families, prayer for His church, and prayer for the Sunday morning gatherings. If I know anything, I know there is power in prayer that cannot be accessed any other way. So men, Saturday nights 8:pm. Hope to see you. We will meet right here.

Amen? Let’s pray.