Sermon Tone Analysis

From the Ashes: Contemplation

Prayer: “God, there are times when I feel distant from you.

Help me to carve out the time necessary in my life to develop a deep and abiding relationship with you.

Give me a focused desire to know you and to make you known to others around me. Please help me to add a regular time of prayer to what I do every day.”

Welcome to week 3 of our From the Ashes Sermon Series as we take our journey to the cross together and past the cross to the empty tomb at Easter.

Each week we are looking at a different aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry during His time here on earth.

Each week we are getting a glimpse into the abundant life possible in and through Christ.

This week we take a look at one of Jesus’ most powerful habits; contemplation, or being still and quiet with God.

Without raising your hands, how many of you struggle with being completely still and inviting God into your lives?

If we’re honest, many of us do.

It’s hard to be a Mary in a Martha world!

Most everyone I know wishes they had a more devoted, more powerful, and purposeful prayer life.

One of the major issues we all share is the busy pace of life and constant stimulation we experience.

All of this seriously impedes our ability to slow down.

To be honest, it just feels awkward to be still.

In fact, I would like to invite you to do something with me this morning.

I would like for us to take 1 minute to be completely still, to close our eyes, and try to not think a single thought in that minute.

Like Ghostbusters and the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man that Ray thought of that came to life, whatever you think may come alive today!

Just kidding.

Okay, get ready, set, and let’s go…

PAUSE FOR 1 MINUTE

It was hard to be still, even for a minute wasn’t it?

That minute of stillness felt like half an hour to some of you.

On some level, this exercise draws our attention to the challenge of stillness, contemplation, and prayer generally.

And specifically that we are uncomfortable with being still and silent.

Our lives are so loud, busy, and frantic, that many of us have grown accustomed to the noise and we feel out of place when it all stops.

But it will come as no surprise that the Bible has a different way for us.

A more fulfilling way, and there are several principles we can put into immediate action that I would like for us to learn from today.

Let’s get started.

Let’s open our Bibles to James 4:9 and I invite you to stand for the reading and the hearing of God’s Word this morning…

James 4:8 (NIV), “Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

And May glory be to God for the reading and the hearing of His Word this morning, Thank Be To God.

You may be seated.

Contemplation is the action of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time.

When Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest whose written works have surpassed his time here on earth, went to St. Petersburg, Russia to tour the Hermitage Museum, he stood in front of a two story painting entitled “The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Rembrandt.

He ended up writing a book about it, a book I highly recommend.

I sat in front of the painting for hours just contemplating what Rembrandt meant when he painted so many years before and in turn what the implications could be for Christians in their modern day experience as they read the Prodigal Son in Luke 14.

As unique as is it is to read about this experience of Nouwen’s, it was even more unique for me when in 2004 I went to the Heritage myself and stood in front of the Rembrandt.

I took an overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg and had a pretty uneventful trip as I slept on the train.

When I got off the train, took the subway to the Hermitage Museum.

After getting somewhat lost, I eventually arrived at the museum and stayed warm in a cafe called the Gestapo Cafe.

When I went into the museum, I worked my way thru until I eventually came to a grand staircase and there on the wall was the painting.

I stood there for some time until a museum curator came to me.

She spoke Russian and I spoke South Georgian.

We did not understand each other too well.

I tried to explain about Nouwen and how standing in front of this painting was a dream come true.

She left and came back a short time later with an armed soldier, AK in hand.

I hurried along to the next items in the gallery and eventually back to my train which took me back to Moscow.

Coming back to the idea of contemplation, not only is it hard to put ourselves in the moments of contemplation where we move from doing to being, society as a whole does not value it.

Drawing near to God can be next to impossible, and sometimes it feels like there is an armed soldier standing in the way of our time with God.

And yet it is so important for us to slow down and sometimes to smell the roses, because that often is where we recognize the beauty of life and the beauty of God’s Creation and God in all that He has created.

It is vital that we come near to God so that He can come near to us.

Contemplation is a behavior we see Jesus model in the Bible.

It is very present in the times when we and those in Scripture found a peaceful, silent, calm place of prayer.

Mark 1:35, where we see Jesus walk off into the desert early in the morning to be alone in prayer.

(Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.)

Did Jesus sit in silence?

Did He sing?

Did He bring a laundry list of items with Him? Did He pray through His favorite Psalms?

We don’t know, but when I think about contemplation, stillness, and connecting with God I think about this verse, and it moves me.

Honestly, who doesn’t want a powerful and purposeful prayer life?

Who doesn’t want all the fullness and adventure a life of discipleship offers?

Listen to the way Richard Foster describes prayer;

“When we pray, genuinely pray, the real condition of our heart is revealed.

This is as it should be.

This is when God truly begins to work with us.

The adventure is just beginning.”

Prayer is an essential part of the adventure.

Prayer is our most amazing avenue for connecting with the Lord.

Think about this for a moment; you are invited to speak -- on a regular basis -- with the divine creator of the universe.

Let that sink in…

Some of you are thinking, “But I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to start, it seems so weird, etc.…”

In the words of Richard Foster again;

“I urge you: carry on an ongoing conversation with God about the daily stuff of life… For now, don’t worry about ‘proper’ praying, just talk to God.

Share your hurts, share your sorrows, share your joys --freely and openly.

God listens in compassion and love, just like we do when our children come to us.

He delights in our presence.

When we do this, we will discover something of inestimable value.

We will discover that by praying we learn to pray.”

Prayer is communing with God.

It is more than just talking.

It is stopping to hear His reply.

I believe that the principle of contemplation can help us to understand when the Scriptures tell us to pray continually.

It doesn’t mean that we are always doing more.

It means that we are devoted to a life of contemplation, prayer, and stillness.

Lift your eyes up

Psalm 121:1-2 says;

“I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come?

My help comes from the LORD,

the Maker of heaven and earth.”

The principle here is that there are times, each and every day, when we need to stop what we’re doing and look up.

We can get so laser focused on the thing in front of us, or the thing monopolizing our attention, and we forget about our relationship with the maker of heaven and earth.

We can forget about His compassionate care over every detail of our lives.

“Looking up” causes us to change our perspective and focus on something else.

Or in this case someone else…

Even Pastors are not immune to the need to stop and look up from time to time.

Sometimes we all are guilty of going so hard that we forget to invite God to be in what we are doing from the beginning.

We invite God to join us in what we’ve already created instead of inviting God to show us what He wants us to do or not do… to be or not be.