Series: Walking in the Way of Jesus... 6 Values of Discipleship... "Prayer"

Sunday Sept. 16, 2012                           Mark 11:12-14, 20-26

 

Pr. Jim Harrish tells a story of a man who came home from work one day to find that his wife had hung a plaque on the wall that read: “Prayer Changes Things.”
It reads: Prayer changes us.
               Prayer changes others.

               Prayer changes the church.

               Prayer changes the world.

Within 24 hours the plaque had been removed. She asked, what’s wrong? Don’t you like prayer? He said, Sure, I like prayer… I just don’t like change.

Prayer

We begin today reflecting on the 6 values of walking in the way of Jesus…. These Values… Prayer… Worship… Learning… Serving… Relationship Building… Generosity are meant to help us, to encourage us, to empower us in growing and living our lives closer to God thru Jesus.

God tells us in Duet. 6… “The Shema” to love our God with all our heart, soul, and strength. To memorize his laws, to teach them to our children, and to talk about them all the time.

The values of walking in the way of Jesus are the values God desires us to live by. In fact, we say we do this… we even tell our kids they are to learn these values… the truth is… as the church we don’t do these values very well. What we say and what we do is often times two different things, and in part the reason the church is not attractive to younger groups of people. Our young people see through all of this… they see the hypocrisy. We as Christ followers need to do better… and why we need to re-examine what we value.

Today we begin by reflecting on the Value of “Prayer”

Prayer… seems like a no-brainer… of course we pray! Yet… many of us struggle with prayer. We struggle to find words that express what were feeling. We struggle with inadequacy… being worthy enough… speaking. We struggle with whether or not we are even in the right posture. Yet… Jesus tells us in our story today that “Everything you ask for in prayer will be yours, if you have faith.”

People have told me… Pastor I prayed, and I prayed, but I don’t seem to receive. I prayed for God to heal my mother… father… or whomever… but God didn’t heal or God wasn’t listening…. because they weren’t healed. This is an issue for us as Americans because we tend to get what we want… we’re a very impatient people.

Kathleen Norris in her book “Amazing Grace” says, “sometimes people will say things like, Your prayers didn’t work, but thanks, as if a person could be praying for only one thing. A miracle… A cure… but in the hardest situations, all one can do is to ask for God’s mercy, Let my friend die at home, Lord, and not in the hospital. Let her go quickly, God, and with her loved ones present. One Benedictine friend, a gentle, thoughtful man who has been in constant pain for years and is now confined to a wheelchair, says of prayer, Often… all I can do is to ask God, Lord, what is it you want of me? From him I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine. To be made more grateful, more able to see the good in what you’ve been given instead of always grieving for what might have been. People who are in the habit of praying know that when a prayer is answered, it is never in the way that you expect.”

Jesus’ friends had difficulties with prayer as well. Jesus asked his friends to go with him to pray… they often weren’t overjoyed. Jesus wanted them to stay awake and pray with him in the garden… they couldn’t… They even ask Jesus how to pray, then teaches them what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. Actually… Jesus taught them two forms of prayer.

o    1^st Individual Prayer… Mark 1:35… Jesus gets up early in the morning to go into the desert to pray… go out in nature.

o    Matt. 6… Jesus tells his friends to go into a room alone and pray… Jesus instructs them to take time alone to be with God.

o    Jesus took time to be alone with his father.

Most of us don’t have a problem here… most of can do this because it’s private… no one is looking.

But Jesus also taught that they… Jesus’ followers are to pray together as a group… in the same room. Luke 11 Jesus teaches them as a group… around a meal to pray.

o    The context of Luke 11 is that they are at Mary & Martha’s house sharing a meal.

o    For Jesus… group prayer is a prayer that opens them up to the kingdom of God, and to seeing what God sees… from which they through God will move mountains.

Let’s start by talking about What Prayer is Not.

Pr. Mike Foss states, “Prayer is not a special formula… prayer is far more than a single creedal formula that makes us feel good.”

And prayer is not for God’s benefit, but for us to share our lives as a trust & dependence on God. Prayer is not limited to special people… like pastors or those trained, or prayers like the ones someone reads from a book… you know canned prayers… for me there not prayers because they’re not ours!!

Robert Capon says, “Prayer is not going to God (he’s already in you), or seeking God (he’s already found you), or opening yourself to God (you couldn’t keep him out if you tried), or becoming spiritual (he’s already sent you the Spirit… who would rather show you Jesus than help you display your spiritual prowess). And it’s certainly not buttering God up with abject apologies for your existence… because in his Beloved Son, he already thinks your dandy. Prayer is just talking with someone who’s already talking to you.”

What is Prayer?

            Pt. 1: Is a Conversation with God.

Just like talking to your parents, or family, or friends… simply having a conversation with another person. It’s not all that difficult… we all talk to people. Prayer is the same thing… it’s talking to God in our language. When I fully understood this it became much easier to pray. It didn’t matter how I spoke it… if it was coming from my heart, that’s all God wanted… and it’s about God, not about whose hearing me.

Pt. 2: Is Connecting to God.

Becoming one with God… drawing close to God thru prayer. Seeing what God sees. God desires to be close to us, and God desires us to be in conversation with Him. Are you connecting with God on a regular basis? God desires to connect with you.

Pt. 3: Is an Attitude of Love.

It’s an opportunity to become intimate with God and others. Prayer is an opportunity share our lives, to dump our baggage, to let go of ourselves and join in with God. To be honest about our lives and to seek forgiveness and grace thru love.

Pt. 4: Is about Talking & Listening.

Prayer is a two-way conversation… our words… our language… our hearts… our hurts and pain… our ears and our ears collectively. Too often we do too much talking and not enough listening. If fact… it is our biggest problem and why we often miss what God is doing and wants to do with us.

Why is this Important for Community?

Pt. 1: To place Trust in God’s Hands

Prayer is an opportunity to let go of ourselves and our self interest. To trust in God to let go of our agendas and to be open to God’s agenda.

Pastor & Theologian NT Wright wrote about the Lord’s Prayer, “What then might it mean to pray this kingdom prayer today? It means, for a start, that we look up into the face of our Father in heaven, and commit ourselves to the hallowing of his name, that we look immediately out upon the world the he made and see it as he sees it. The kingdom come: To pray this means seeing the world in binocular vision. See it with the love of the Creator for his spectacularly beautiful creation; and see it with the deep grief of the Creator for the battered and battle-scarred state in which the world now finds itself. Put those two together and bring the binocular picture into focus: The love and the grief join into the Jesus-shape, the kingdom-shape, and the shape of the cross, then you begin to understand prayer.

Pt 2: To Listen & Discern God’s Direction.

What are Cross’s Values? What is Cross’ Mission? In what ways does Cross change? These questions and others need to be asked and to be blanketed in community prayer. How would a congregation know if what it wants to do is what God wants them to do? How would you know if God really wants you to do this or that ministry if you didn’t have a team of people praying to discern if it’s the right thing to do? How would you know? Community prayer outside of praying on Sunday morning is the only way you will know.

Back in 2002 while on internship at Spirit of Joy Lutheran, Orlando, Fla. They had the rug pulled out from underneath them when the developer of the development told them they couldn’t build in the spot he was going to give them. It was a spot in the middle of the town center he was building. After this they gathered to pray and discern what God was up to. They were a congregation that dreamed big, and they believed they had discerned that God wanted them to be in the middle of a town so that they could serve the community. So… they gathered a team of pray-ers and gathered at a former Builder Square on Tues evening to pray and to discern what God wanted of them. They had an inclination that maybe God was calling them to this corner of Orlando, perhaps in the Builders Square building… do you know how big one of these building are? 100,000 sqft. They continued praying at this spot until I left and for 2 years until God spoke through another developer about the bowling alley across the street. A 30,000 sqft building of which they bought and of which 2 years later they are doing a tremendous ministry on one of the busiest corners in the Orlando area.

Pt. 3: Faith Communities that pray… Grow.

If Cross is going to grow spiritually and numerically there must be a prayer team that gathers weekly to pray. To pray for God’s direction… for her leaders… for her pastor… ministries… the concerns of the community… her people… others. To pray for the spirit to come and open us up to the ways of Jesus… in other words… to change us.

Closing:

If Prayer is an important value in walking in the way of Jesus and if Prayer is important for Cross Lutheran, and if Cross Lutheran is serious about the value of Prayer..,. then I encourage you to develop a prayer team that meets weekly. Community Prayer is a must if you are going to discern your values… your mission… and who your next pastor will be.

I’d like to close with one final story.

There is an old expression all of us have heard: Prayer changes things. We like the sound of the saying because it doesn't tell things exactly like it is. Prayer changes things, yes. But even more fundamentally, prayer changes people. Even more particularly, prayer changes the pray-er. Many of us want to be converted, but we don't want to be changed. To pray is to be continually converted, yes. But to pray is to be continually changed.

See You Out on the Road