Prayer

Intro: The Spiritual Disciplines

Over the past month or so, I’ve been personally convicted to live out more intentionally the things that Jesus teaches us. Through scripture, Jesus teaches us things, and then he expects us to do them, to put them into action. And at this point, some of you are probably thinking “Oh great, John is about to tell me more things that I have to do.” And you’re right. As Christians we have this tendency to do one of two things: we read the bible, we read what Jesus taught, and we come to the conclusion of “I must do all of these things so that Jesus will love me.” Or, we come to the conclusion of “Oh, Jesus loves me, and he’s forgiven me, so now I don’t have to do anything.” And neither of those responses are correct. I often find myself on one end or the other depending on what’s going on in my life. But, I’ve been reflecting on where Paul writes:

Philippians 2:12–13 ESV

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

And in this verse, two things are very clear:

God is working in Us

We are to be working

So what this means is that the work that God is doing in us needs to be live out in our daily lives. And so practically, this means that what we learn in bible study, sermons, etc. the things we learn need to be put into action. If God is working in us then we have his strength to live out his teachings.

So, over the next 6 months or so, we’re going to be looking at the spiritual disciplines. Discipline can be a frightening word, at least for me, so I sometimes refer to them as spiritual practices. But, we’re all capable of being disciplined. We’re disciplined with our studies, or at least we should be, we’re disciplined with the things that are important to us. We’re intentional with what we see as valuable. And so, we have to do a checkup with ourselves and really look and see if we value our relationship with God. And sometimes I ask myself this, and I have to say no. I don’t value it because there’s nothing in my life that points to that. I lack spiritual discipline. And so, each month we’ll look at one of the spiritual disciplines, and we’ll practice it. And as we go along, we’ll slowly add another discipline, giving us time to ease our way in. And my prayer is that these will start to take root in our lives. Because the spiritual disciplines are the tools that we use to train to be more like Jesus. The goal of our relationship with Jesus is to be more like him. Following him leads us to be more like him. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, the practices or disciplines we’re going to look at will help us to follow Jesus and be more like him.

A couple of key things before we start

What they are not

Spiritual disciplines are not a measure of our spirituality

My hope is that all of us start practicing these, but if you don’t or if you’re inconsistent, God is not looking down on you. God’s love for us doesn’t change based on us our spirituality. He doesn’t say “Hmmm, John didn’t pray today. He loses some of my love for tomorrow.” Being disciplined or not being disciplined is not an indicator of our spiritual well-being. The true indicator is our growth in our ability to love God and love people. And the disciplines train us to do that.

Spiritual disciplines are not a way for us to earn favor with God

Like I just said, God’s love for us doesn’t change based on our practice of spiritual discipline. But we also don’t get extra credit with God. Sometimes our thinking is if I pray more, or read scripture more, or live other people more, then God will bless me more or love me more, or give me more credit. That’s not the point of these exercises. If you’re following Jesus, then you already have full and abundant life. The spiritual disciplines are simply a means of growing into that life. They lead us into a deeper life with God.

So, that’s a brief explanation of what spiritual disciplines are. Tonight I want to talk about prayer and then I want us to practice praying.

Intro: Prayer

Prayer has always been hard for me. Over the past year, I’ve gotten more into a habit of praying, but even now, it’s still kind of hard for me. For most of my walk with God, prayer hasn’t been something at the front of my mind or what I think about when I think about my relationship with Jesus. For me, it’s been something I know I’m supposed to do, and so it’s always felt like an obligation. And so I’d usually did it only because I knew I was supposed to. And so, I’d lay in bed, or sit at my desk, close my eyes, and then my mind would just go blank. Or I’d start thinking about all kinds of things that I didn’t think were related to prayer. I had no idea what to do, so I’d fumble through a few sentences, and then say amen and end it. All that to say, prayer can be intimidating and frustrating, especially when we don’t know it’s purpose or when we don’t have a method of praying.

And what I think our biggest problem is is that we associate prayer with desperation. When we’ve done everything we can with our talents or gifts or resources, when we’ve done all we can do through our own strength, and it doesn’t work, then we pray. It’s usually our last resort. There’s nothing wrong with praying out of desperation. Many people come to the Lord through prayers of desperation, but if we only pray in desperate times, we’re not really engaging in the kind of prayer that Jesus wants us to be in. Prayer is how we talk with God, and it furthers our relationship with him. If I only call my parents when I need help, then I don’t really have a relationship with them beyond that. And the same is with God. If we only pray to him out of desperation, we aren’t really in a relationship with him. And I think we do this because we don’t think prayer can really change anything. We pray out of desperation, we pray as a last resort, because that’s what it is for us. We don’t really believe in it, but in that last ditch effort, it’s all we have left so we do it.

But the bible speaks of prayer differently. What the biblical account shows us is that prayer changes thing. When Abraham prayed and asked God not to destroy Sodom, he was insistent. In a sense, he was haggling with God. He was persistent with his request. And God listened. God listened to what Abraham said. Abraham didn’t pray just once and then say “If it be your will.” He pleaded with God to spare Lot and his family. I think that we’re afraid to do this. We’re afraid to plead with God. We’re afraid to be persistent. At least I am. But prayer, powerful, changing prayer, is persistent and it’s raw. It’s not full of theological statements and fancy rhetoric, it’s raw, emotional and authentic. In prayer, we have a freedom to approach God and speak to him anything that’s on our minds and hearts.

But, prayer doesn’t just happen for us. The disciples, who watched Jesus pray all the time, they struggled to truly pray. So they ask Jesus to teach him and he does. So, prayer is a learned behavior. No one is an expert at it and no one ever masters it. When we look at Jesus, we see that he hungered for prayer. It fed his soul. He got up early and spent time in prayer. His response to everything in his life was to pray. And the disciples saw this and wanted it too. So how do we do it?

How to pray

Time and space

The first thing we need is time and space. We need to make time to pray. And to make this something that we do regularly, I think we need to start small. One writer suggests 5 minutes a day to start. If you already have a habit of praying, you don’t have to do this, but if prayer isn’t something you do regularly, give yourself 5 minutes a day. I think this is a very doable starting point. And do it at the same time each day. If you’re a morning person, do it in the morning. If you’re an evening person, do it a night. But be consistent with when you do it. This builds a pattern, and then you can slowly start adding more time. What we usually do, or what I would do, is I would start and think “Okay, I need to do 30 minutes to an hour.” And I’d do it once, and then quit for a month. Now I can regularly go 30minutes to an hour, but not when I started. So, Keep it short for now, and be consistent. And if you do miss a day, start again the next day.

Now, we need a place to pray. My prayer life has been bad this past month, and it’s been because I haven’t given myself a space to pray. So, I cleaned my room, and I made it a place that is hospitable to prayer. A place that is free of distractions. What I do is I sit at my desk, put my headphones on, and turn on rain sounds. This works for me, you’ll have to find what works for you. But I turn on rain sounds, and then I start praying, and sometimes I’ll get up and walk around my room, sometimes I’ll sit on the floor, sometimes I’m praying out loud, and sometimes I’m just still and silent. But I’m in a space that allows me the freedom and peace to pray. And you need to find or create that space too. maybe it’s going for a walk outside. Sometimes I go for a long drive, and pray. Jesus went outside all the time to pray. If that helps you, go outside. But find a time and a place that works for you, and pray.

Once we have a time and space, what do we do? I think prayer is so hard for us because there’s always so much going on around us. Once we’re in a quiet space by ourselves, our minds start to go crazy, at least mine does. It’s hard for me to be still, so I just have to take a few deep breaths, and prepare myself to pray.

What to pray about

So, now we have a time and a space. What do we pray about? There are hundreds or thousands of books about prayer. But what I want us to do, at least as we start this habit, is simple prayer. Like I said, there are so many things that fill our hearts and minds, and when we sit down to pray, all of those things start to flood in, and we can’t stop thinking about them. We start thinking about school, or sports, or our friends, or our family, or whatever, and we don’t associate those things with being spiritual, so we force ourselves to pray for what we think is more spiritual: praying for world peace, or something like that. That’s fine, but it creates this gap between what we think we need to pray about and what’s going on in our lives. So we need to remove that gap. In simple prayer, we pray about what’s really on our hearts, not what we wish was on our hearts. Richard Foster, and author who writes about spiritual disciplines says this: In simple prayer, we come to God just as we are. With all of our baggage. Like children with a loving father, we open our hearts and make our requests. We do not ry to sort out the good from the bad… We tell God, for example, how frustrated we are with people. We ask for food, for good weather, and good health.” So, in simple prayer we pray about what’s at the front of our thoughts and what’s really in our hearts. And this starts a process in us. As we pray, as we are in communication with God, even about things that don’t seem super spiritual, our relationship with God grows, we trust him more, we seek him more, and our love for God and other people begins to grow. Our interests in other will begin to grow. But we first have to go to God with what’s in us. So, don’t think, “My prayers aren’t spiritual enough.” That’s not even something God is looking at. We need to pray what’s on our minds and hearts.

And when our minds wander, because they will, don’t get frustrated with yourself. Pray through it. Turn that thought over in prayer to God. Sometimes when I pray, my mind will go into fantasy mode. Sometimes, I’ll be having an argument with someone in my mind, and I keep going back to it. I that moment, I realize I need to talk to God about it. I might have resentment towards someone or bitterness towards someone, or I need to forgive someone. So I need to talk with God about it. When our minds wander, it’s often wandering towards what we really need to be praying about. Doing this helps us to be fully present in prayer.

Intercession

So that’s simple prayer. I want us to look at one more type of prayer, and then we’ll practice praying. The other type of prayer we’re supposed to pray is intercessory prayer. What I mean by intercessory prayer is prayer for others. And this is where persistence comes in. All throughout scripture, people who prayed for others were persistent in their requests.Moses was persistent when God said he was going to destroy the nation of Israel and start over with him. Moses interceded, and God listened to him. We are also able to be persistent. We need to be persistent in our prayer for others. You know people who are sick? Persistently pray that God will heal them. You know people who don’t know Jesus? Persistently pray for them. You know someone who’s mom or dad just lost a job and life is really hard right now? Persistently pray for them. Keep requesting that God will move. That he’ll do something, and don’t give up.

Relationship

I’ll close with this: Prayer more that anything else expresses the fact that we are invited into a relationship with God. In prayer, our lives are knit to God. We know God more intimately through prayer. He doesn’t love us more, but we know him more and we know him deeper through the act of praying. Prayer changes us and it changes others. It’s powerful, its humbling, and it’s proof that God is with us.

Model for Prayer

Repent

Ask

I realize that sometimes it’s helpful for us to have a model of how to pray. So here’s one that I found online. I’ve instictively done this for a long time, but here’s a cute little acronym that cab be helpful:

Adoration - Give praise to God for who he is and what he’s done

Confession - Tell God your sins, and ask him to forgive you for them and help you to overcome them. But, you can also talk to God about your fears here, or your anxieties, or your burdens. Confess those as well.

Thanksgiving - Thank God for how he’s moved in your life, or for things he’s done in your life

Yield

Supplication - This is where you get to ask God for what you want him to do

What I tend to do is weave all of these together sometimes. So, you don’t have to be too rigid with this.