Temptation Will Beat You, Unless…

Posted on September 10, 2024 by salooper57

Viewing time: 23:44. Subject: Role of prayer in facing trials and temptations.

This sermon follows Jesus into the Garden of Gethsemane. It unpacks his instruction to “Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation.” But the thrust of the sermon is the worthiness of Jesus to receive our worship and adoration. (Text below.)

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And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Mark 14:32-42)

I am about to violate a sacrosanct law from the secret rulebook every preacher follows: I am going to make the application before I preach the sermon. But I’m doing it for a reason: On this Communion Sunday, I don’t want to close with the application for us but with the adoration of our Lord Jesus.

So, here is the application. You will soon be hearing about a weekly prayer opportunity at Cal Road. For about eight weeks, we will meet to pray for our church using the Scriptures as our prayer guide. We will be asking for the very things that God desires to give. And we will watch and celebrate when he answers our prayers. I urge you to come to these prayer meetings. If they are not at a time you can attend, start your own prayer meeting and invite some friends to join you. It is not enough for us to learn about prayer. What matters is that we pray. That is the application. Pray! Pray with one another.

Now to our text. Just prior to the events we just read about, Jesus was celebrating Passover with his disciples in the large, upstairs room of a home in Jerusalem’s temple district. He had taken extraordinary precautions to keep the location of his Passover meal secret—even from the disciples. Towards the end of the meal, Jesus looked at Judas and said, “What you do, do quickly.” Judas had been frantically looking for an excuse to leave so that he could alert the authorities to Jesus’ whereabouts. Jesus gave it to him. He got up and went out into the night.

It would not have taken long for Judas to reach the High Priest’s residence and to set things in motion. A posse (for lack of a better word) would need to be assembled. It would take time, perhaps a few hours, before they were outfitted and ready. After receiving their orders, they would be sent out under the command of the High Priest’s personal assistant. A few minutes after that, the house with the upstairs guestroom would be surrounded. Then a lead team would burst through the door and find it … empty.

When the intelligence Judas provided proved unreliable, he was in trouble. According to Matthew’s Gospel, Judas had already taken the authorities’ money, and he had failed to produce results. I suppose he did some fast talking, all the while wracking his brains, trying to think of where Jesus was likely to go.

In Luke’s account we learn that after Judas left the upper room, Jesus instituted the “Lord’s Supper,” and then gave his disciples some final instructions. Before Judas had time to return with the posse, Jesus wrapped up what he was saying, sang a Passover hymn with his disciples (probably the Great Hallel, comprising Psalms 113-118), and left. Just think of Jesus singing these words on the eve of his crucifixion: “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? … The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. … O LORD, save us; O LORD, grant us success … The hymn ends with these words: “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 118:29)

They left the city, crossed the Kidron, and started up the Mount of Olives. Verse 32 tells us that they stopped at a place called Gethsemane, which is Hebrew for “Olive Press.” John refers to the place as a grove or a garden. A municipal statute barred people from keeping gardens in Jerusalem – fertilizer was banned in the Holy City – and so rich people kept gardens just outside the city gates. One of those rich people seems to have been a friend of Jesus, for this was one of his favorite places to go.

Jesus knew that when Judas found the upper room deserted, this would be one of the places he would think to look. The disciples entered the Garden and Jesus told them to sit and wait – probably near the entrance – while he went on to pray. Then he signaled to Peter, James, and John to follow him, and they walked together into darkness.

Peter, James, and John. They had been among Jesus’s earliest disciples. They were the only disciples with Jesus when he raised the synagogue ruler’s daughter back to life. They were alone with Jesus the Mount of Transfiguration. They had seen his glory in a way no one else had.

Perhaps they thought that this life they were embarking on was all about glory. James and John, expecting the revolution to begin any day, had tried to maneuver their way into the highest cabinet positions in Jesus’s government. Their eyes were set on glory.

And Peter. Peter was always telling Jesus what to do. When Jesus told him to row his boat out into deep water and let down the nets, Peter said, “But Master, we’ve been fishing all night and haven’t caught a thing!” After the miraculous catch of fish, he said to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man.” Much later, when Jesus first told the disciples that he would suffer and be killed, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Suffering was not on Peter’s agenda.

Only an hour or two earlier, Peter had contradicted Jesus yet again. When the Lord told the disciples, “You will all forsake me,” Peter insisted that, although those guys might forsake him, he never would. When Jesus countered, “Peter, before the night is through you will have denied me three times,” Peter gainsaid him: “I will never deny you. I will never forsake you. I will die with you first.” There was in Peter a pride, a willfulness that had to be broken before he could become the Rock Jesus had named him. After this night, it would be broken.

But I think there was another reason the Lord took these three men. They were dear to him, and he wanted someone to be with him when he faced the hour of his trial. He didn’t want them to fix things for him; he wasn’t looking for answers. He just wanted them to be there.

Sometimes when our friends are in trouble, when they are going through a divorce or diagnosed with a terminal illness, we are afraid to be with them. We think, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t have any answers.” But people aren’t usually looking for answers at such a time; they are looking for love. Jesus didn’t want his friends’ answers; he wanted them.

As they walked further into the Garden, he began, verse 33, “to be greatly distressed and troubled.” The verb translated “greatly distressed” is common in the gospels. It is the word that is used of the shepherds in the fields around Bethlehem when the angels appeared to them (the word the King James translated, “sore afraid”). It is frequently used in the gospels to describe people’s response to Jesus’ miracles. It means to be astounded or confused. The Greek scholar Gerhard Kittle says that the main idea is one of perplexity. Now think of that: the Lord of glory perplexed! That is a word that is never used of him, except here. There is dreadful darkness in the Garden.

That adjective “troubled” is a strong word. The King James translates, “very heavy.” It has the idea of bearing an overwhelming weight of sorrow, of staggering under intense emotional pain. Jesus tells the Three Friends, “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.”

They had seen him endure misunderstanding, persecution, bodily assault, political scheming, and physical exhaustion. They watched as he stood peacefully before a gale, calmly awaited the onslaught of a screaming demoniac, and walked confidently through the midst of a bloodthirsty crowd. But they had never seen him like this: deeply distressed and troubled. Overwhelmed with sorrow. As terrible as what followed on Calvary would be, we have the distinct impression that it was here in the garden that the battle was decided. Later that night, in the halls of Caiphas, he would again be Master of the situation. Before the Roman procurator, he stood with incomparable dignity. Nailed to a cross, he responded with grace and forgiveness. It was here – in the Garden – that the attack, the onslaught – came with overwhelming force.

“And going a little farther,” vs. 35, “he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.” The normal posture for prayer was standing, with hands raised to heaven. But Jesus fell to the ground in an agony of soul that we cannot conceive. He had lived his entire life to do the Father’s will. When he was twelve years old, he answered his mother, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49, ESV marginal reading). “For I have come down from heaven,” he said on another occasion, “not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”  “‘My food,’ he told his disciples, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work’.”  The constant temptation he faced was to circumvent the Father’s will. Each of the temptations in the wilderness revolves around this idea: You can save the world, you can convince them you are their Messiah, you can have authority over all the kingdoms of the earth, without becoming obedient unto death.

In the wilderness, empowered by prayer and fasting, and full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus vanquished that temptation. But the devil did not give up: Luke says that he left Jesus until “an opportune time.” This is that time. Jesus came to the Garden to implore heaven, but at his feet the very gates of hell opened before him. He prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me.” The cup from which he shrank was not merely death, but the bearing of humanity’s sin, and the separation from his Father that would entail.

We cannot know the extent of his suffering. We have not, as the author of Hebrews wrote, “resisted temptation to the shedding of blood.” We cannot know what he knew, nor feel what he felt, for we are sinful and our ability to know and to feel has been significantly degraded. Our estrangement from God has deadened powers that were innate to us. Our capacity for both anger and joy has been dulled. Even our capacity for sorrow– by the mercy of God – has been blunted. But Jesus was sinless. He had a larger capacity for feeling than do we. He knew greater joy and – as here – deeper sorrow than we are currently capable of experiencing.

Three times he prayed. A man whose wife was dying once told me that he prayed for her once and never did so again. To keep praying, he said, would demonstrate a lack of trust. But our Lord asked three times. Who could accuse him of lacking trust? The apostle Paul, too; he wrote, “Three times I asked the Lord to take this from me.” It seems that the biblical approach is to keep praying until God answers.

You may think, “But God did not answer. Jesus went to the cross despite his prayers.” But he was answered. Listen to what the author of Hebrews wrote about this scene: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”

Did you catch that? He was heard. But the author of Hebrews goes right on to say, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”  He was heard, but still he suffered. He was answered, but the answer was … no.

We somehow get the idea that prayer is only answered when we get what we want, when we escape hard times. But God heard Jesus, and he didn’t escape. Luke writes that an angel came to him and comforted – or, better, strengthened – him. God’s answer was strength to do the Father’s will. When Jesus rose from the ground that third time, peace had been restored. He was in control once more. Calm, strong, ready, not because he would escape suffering, but because he had won through temptation and would submit to his Father’s will.

Look back to verse 37. After his first struggle in prayer, Jesus returned to find his friends sleeping. He said to Simon, verse 38, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Watching and praying are not a last resort for those who have already fallen into temptation, but a protective measure to keep them from falling.

If we are to win through our trials, we must pray before the crisis arrives, as it surely will. Before the crisis arrived, Jesus prayed. We find the same thing in the wilderness. We read that he fasted and prayed for forty days and was then tempted by the devil. We get the wrong idea and think the devil took advantage of Jesus after he had fasted for forty days because he was vulnerable. On the contrary, he was fit, equipped, and mighty in Spirit because he had prayed. In the prayer he taught us to pray, we say, “Lead us not into temptation,” but if we wait to pray until temptation is upon us, we will be saying, “Lead us out of temptation” (or worse, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”)

Jesus’ trial did not wait for him to come to it; it came to him. Verse 42: “Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer.” Just so, your trials will find you. If they find you tomorrow, will they find you prepared? Will you, in the words of an older generation of preachers, be “prayed up?” Jesus had long before faced the issue of whose will he would obey. The author of Hebrews tells us that he came into the world saying, “I have come to do your will, O God.”

If you wait until you are already in the fires of trial to pray, it will be too late. To complain that God didn’t help you after you have already fallen into temptation is like complaining your seatbelt didn’t work, even though you waited until after the accident to put it on. Don’t wait to settle the issue of obedience until after the trial has arrived.

Jesus warned Peter that he would fall into temptation if he remained prayer-less. But Jesus, though tempted with a force we cannot comprehend, did not fall into temptation. He entered it on his guard and triumphed over it because he prayed; his entire life was an ongoing conversation with his Father.

St. Paul says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” This is true because the essence of temptation is not tied to some particular sin – lust or stealing or blasphemy or coveting. Temptation comes in a myriad of forms but, whatever its form, its essential nature is to try to satisfy our deep needs and real desires in ways that are inconsistent with God’s character and will. The very heart of temptation – from Eve until today – is always, “God’s will, or mine?” For Jesus in the garden, the temptation was not, “Man’s salvation or my comfort.” The question was not, “Can not he for whom all things are possible do this some other way?” The question was “Will I do it God’s way?” He conquered the quintessential temptation with the prayer, “Father, not my will, but your will be done.” It is a terrible thing – I hope it is not true of any of us – to be in the habit of saying to God, “Not your will, but my will be done.”

You have already heard the application: pray! If our Lord triumphed through prayer, can we triumph without it? I will give no further application, but rather an invitation to join me in adoring the Son of God.

Our Master stood the test. He did not fail. For us and for our salvation, he endured the anguish and remained faithful. Temptation that would have swept us away like a flood, could not move him. The tidal wave of temptation struck the Rock of ages and he disappeared beneath it. But when it receded three days later, he rose from the wreck and ruin unbroken and unbreakable. The Captain of our salvation has triumphed! He is the holy one and true, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the faithful and true witness. He is the Lion of Judah and the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. The man of sorrows has become the joy of all the earth. Fix your gaze on the author and perfecter of our faith who for us and our salvation came down from heaven … to be lifted up on a cross. Worship and adore our great God and savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Doubt Wisely

Posted on September 7, 2024 by salooper57

A young friend called me one day in a panic. He was overwhelmed with doubts about the Christian faith, he told me, and he did not know what to do. I asked about the content of his doubts. He replied that he was doubting everything, including the existence of God, the nature of Jesus, and the reliability of the biblical text.

I asked my young friend, who had recently been leading a ministry to twenty-somethings in our community, how long he had been having these doubts. He had been dealing with them for some time. I asked him what he had done about his doubts, and learned that he had been watching YouTube videos, mostly by atheists, who addressed the very issues he was facing.

I discovered that my friend was excited by his doubts. He felt like he was living dangerously. He was ready to separate from his parent’s religion and to escape its moral code.

His doubts began over the appropriateness of same-sex sexual relationships, spread to the six-day creation teaching his parents espoused, stumbled into politics, and then overflowed into everything else he thought he knew about Christianity. He began to deconstruct the faith he had been taught. He ended by denouncing it.

I don’t think the trailhead leading to my friend’s atheism started with his doubts; it started with unhealthy and largely unrecognized desires, like the desire to outshine others. The seeds of doubt would not have been harmful had they been planted in healthier soil. Everyone doubts, but some people doubt wisely while others doubt foolishly.

I owe the phrase, “Doubt wisely,” to the English Romantic poet John Donne. Besides being one of England’s greatest poets, Donne was also a member of Parliament and, later, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. This famous preacher and church leader believed that doubt plays an important role in the human search for truth.

Photo by Tobias Aeppli on Pexels.com

According to Donne, truth, like a craggy mountain peak, is difficult to attain. Those who reach her “about must and about must go.” There is no straight path up the mountain of truth for us. It is rather a switchback on which one must inevitably confront doubts. Doubts, like great boulders on the path, may safely be encountered when one is searching for the truth. But they will crush the person who is avoiding, or trying to manage, the truth.

My friend did not doubt wisely. He did not attempt to research the things he had been taught, to find out if they were sourced in the biblical writings, or if they were add-ons supplied by society. For example, instead of rejecting his parent’s faith because it was associated in his mind with the acceptance of a political party’s candidate, he could have discovered what the Bible actually teaches about leaders. Instead of listening to what YouTubers say about a six-day creation, he could have read what the Bible says, and learned how reputable scholars have explicated its key passages.

Instead, he listened to what aggressive atheists claimed the Bible says—people whose education was practically devoid of biblical scholarship. My friend was not wrong to doubt, but he failed to doubt wisely.

He assumed that his Christian parents were naïve. Whether he was right or wrong about that, I don’t know. But he was wrong to think that all Christians are naïve, while other people – including those he watched on YouTube – are clearheaded, logical thinkers.

The great English man of letters Malcolm Muggeridge was right when he claimed that we are living in one of the most gullible ages ever. But Muggeridge went further than that. He claimed that the serious believer is less likely to be gullible than the worldly person. True believers can carefully examine their doubts since they know they are standing on solid ground. The worldly person, carried on the shifting currents of contemporary thought, must cling to the flotsam of today’s transitory ideology.

To “doubt wisely” one must first believe wisely. People, standing on God’s revelation, aided by the eyewitness testimony of the apostles, to which they have added their own experiential proofs, have a body of evidence that helps them believe wisely and, paradoxically, doubt wisely.

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Proud of Jesus?

Posted on September 1, 2024 by salooper57

I posted an article yesterday (https://shaynelooper.com/?p=4314) about my journey from embarrassment to pride over Jesus. I’d love to hear if other people have been on this journey. Are you proud of Jesus? Do you want others to know that you are connected to him? Share your thoughts in the Comment Section.

We’ve had a gay pride now for a few decades. It’s high time for Jesus Pride. It’s time for Jesus’s people to stand up and stand out. We have so many reasons to be proud of our Leader.

Be proud of Jesus. He is the greatest person to ever walk this earth, and you (by grace alone) have a share in him!

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From Shame to Pride: A Journey of Faith

Posted on August 31, 2024 by salooper57

I was navigating this world as a newly converted Christian. One of the guys who sat across the table from me in study hall – there were so many of us that study halls took place in the cafeteria and the performing arts center – had learned I was “religious” and had taken to calling me, “The Preacher.” But I didn’t preach. I was silent about my faith.

One Sunday at church, I heard something that worried me. Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” It was as if he was speaking directly to me, for I was ashamed of Jesus.

The biblical writers and the early Christians they wrote about did not have that problem. They boasted about Jesus. They said things like, “We cannot help but speak about what we have seen and heard.”

I am no longer ashamed of Jesus. I am, in fact, proud of him. Some people are proud of their favorite college football team, some are proud of the presidential candidate they support, while others are proud of their accomplishments and possessions. I am proud of Jesus.

We will not be proud – or ashamed either, for that matter – of someone unless we have some kind of connection to him or her. I greatly admire Albert Einstein for his remarkable mind and his transformative work in physics, but I am not proud of Einstein. Why would I be? Other than having visited the town where he lived, I have no connection to him, no share in Einstein.

But I do have a connection to Jesus. I cannot take credit for that. He initiated it; I merely responded. But I’ve thrown in my lot with him. I am one of his people; I have a share in Jesus.

There are so many reasons to be proud of him. Long before the suffrage movement and women’s liberation, Jesus promoted the importance and worth of women. Unlike other rabbis, he taught women and included them among his disciples. It was to a woman that he first announced that he was the Messiah. After the resurrection, he first revealed himself to a woman.

Jesus stood with the poor and the marginalized. He recognized and proclaimed their value in a religious culture that despised them. He not only offered the poor his charity, which was common enough; he offered them his friendship, which was exceedingly rare. And he assured the poor that they were special to God, regardless of what the religious professionals said and did.

Jesus was remarkably brave. When a screaming demoniac rushed him, Jesus fearlessly stood to await his arrival. In the midst of a sudden and brutal storm at sea, when commercial fisherman were losing their heads and giving themselves up for dead, Jesus remained perfectly calm. When the authorities came to arrest him, he offered himself up so that his friends could escape.

Jesus was absolutely brilliant. His teachings are incomparable. No other person, no school of thought, no intellectual movement in the history of the world has impacted humanity so greatly as Jesus.

Jesus gave up everything to help people who did not even acknowledge him. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris seek power so that they can help people. Jesus gave up power so that he could help us. St. Paul says, “Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor.” Though he was just, he was willing to suffer injustice. Though he was blameless, he died for our sins.

Let other people boast about presidential candidates and football heroes, I’ll boast about Jesus. As people once said about him, “He has done everything well.” And he is everything I aspire to be.

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Worth the Wait (Heb. 11:8-16)

Posted on August 27, 2024 by salooper57
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To be good at prayer, we must get better at waiting. This sermon explores the relationship between waiting, faith, and answered prayer. Click the link above to watch it or read it below.

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If I am on the highway and approaching a toll gate, I survey the road in front of me the way Peyton Manning surveyed a football field. I take in how many vehicles are in each line. I subconsciously note the kind of vehicles. (That spotless, 12-year-old, Buick will probably move more slowly than 10-year-old Charger with the dented front bumper.) I choose my lane and commit. Sometimes it is a completion. My lane moves fastest, and all is right in Shayne World. Sometimes it is an incompletion: another lane moves faster than mine. Sometimes it is a sack: the toll gate doesn’t open and I get sandwiched in a line of cars.

If I’m running errands and need to make four stops while I am out, I plan my route so that there is as little overlap as possible. I estimate the time of each stop. I take into consideration traffic flow. I do my best not to waste a single minute.

It is a game for me, but a game I take too seriously. I am good at rushing; I am not good at waiting—but I am getting better.

To be good at praying, we need to get better at waiting. This is a theme repeated throughout Scripture. Even the greatest of God’s people needs to wait. Hosea wrote, “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God” (Hosea 12:6).       

This is the prophet Jeremiah (Lamentations 3:22-25): “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (Only those who say, “The Lord is my portion,” can go on to say, “I will wait for him.”) And then verse 25: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him.”

To God, Isaiah says: “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.” (Isaiah 64:4).

Christians are, almost by definition, those who have “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Jesus left his first followers with instructions to “wait for the Gift my Father promised…” (Acts 1:4). The church didn’t begin by doing but by waiting.

Waiting is the rule, not the exception. St. Paul tells us that “creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:19) – and we wait with it. Waiting is a skill we must master, especially when it comes to prayer. Prayer is more like slow roasting than it is like microwaving. Rush it, take the prayer out early, and it won’t be done. The psalmist said to God, “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation” (Psalm 5:3, NIV).

It is clear in Scripture that those who pray must learn to wait on God, but we are not good at it, and we do not like it. We would rather rush around. God’s Old Testament people were the same way. The prophet Isaiah says to them: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. But you were unwilling” (Isaiah 30:15).

Instead of waiting on God, which requires faith, they rushed into action and missed the good things God had planned for them. “Therefore,” the prophet says, “the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”

I’ll mention two more things before we read our text from Hebrews 11. Even Jesus, Son of God and Lord of men, had to wait. In fact, he is still waiting. After writing about Jesus’s great sacrifice, the author of Hebrews says that he is: “waiting … until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.” (Hebrews 10:13). How about that? Even Jesus waits.

God himself waits. In that passage from Isaiah, we read that all who wait for God are blessed. But just before that we read, “The Lord waits to be gracious to you.” We are keeping the God of the universe waiting—waiting for us to be capable of receiving his blessing. Even God waits.

There is no getting around it. Everyone waits. One man who did it well was Abraham, the man of faith. That is no coincidence, for faith is essential to waiting. Without faith, we cannot please God (as the author of Hebrews put it), but neither can we wait for him. When faith fails, we run ahead and try to force things to come out right on our own. We see this correlation between faith and waiting in the story of Abraham. He can help us understand the role of faith in waiting and the role of waiting in the lives of God’s people.

Let me read what the author of Hebrews says about Abraham in Hebrews 11, starting with verse 8. Take note of the repeated refrain, “By faith…”

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised…”

In other words, they were still waiting. The power to wait on God comes from God and reaches us through faith. Faith itself is not the power but rather the transmission line that conducts the power. The electricity in your house is not produced by the electrical wires that run to and within your house, but by the power plant. But when the wires are broken, you lose power. When faith short-circuits, you lose a different kind of power: the power to “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Ps. 37:7).

“Abraham, the man of faith” (as the Apostle Paul called him) was able to wait because he believed; he trusted God. He was not so much waiting for things – land or descendants – as he was waiting for the Lord. Persons inspire faith; events and things do not. Because “Abraham believed God,” as the Scriptures repeatedly and emphatically state, he was able to wait. Trying to make yourself believe in a good outcome will not help you wait; believing in the good God will.

In verses 8-10, we are given the when, what, where, how, and why of Abraham’s faith. We find the When in verse 8: “By faith Abraham, when called . . .” Faith is not something we can manufacture from our own resources whenever we find ourselves in need of it. Faith is voice-activated. It is triggered by God’s word.

Today’s Smart TVs are voice-activated: just speak and your favorite show will appear. All you need is an internet connection and the proper apps installed – which is to say you’ve downloaded the necessary software. Faith works in a similar way. When the necessary download (God’s Spirit) is installed, God’s word activates faith. When God called Abraham, his voice made a faith response possible. It was when God spoke to him, that Abraham was able to believe.

That was the when of faith. Next, we find the what. The text says (verse 8): “he obeyed and went.” The what of faith has two components, one of which is the same for every believer and one of which can vary from believer to believer. Whoever you are, at whatever point in history you’ve lived, in whatever strata of society you’ve occupied, the what of faith is always obedience. When Abraham received the call that makes faith possible, he obeyed.

The original language here is as economic as possible: just four words. Translating it into English requires a few more: “By faith, having been called, Abraham obeyed.” You could substitute your name or mine (or any believer’s) for Abraham’s: “By faith, having been called, Aaron obeyed.” “By faith, having been called, Jean obeyed” or “Dan obeyed” or “Andrea obeyed.”

The first component in the what of faith is a given that is always the same for every believer: obedience – “the obedience of faith,” St. Paul called it. The second is a variable, which differs for different believers (or for the same believer at different times in his or her life). Abraham obeyed (the given) and went (the variable). Shayne obeyed (the given) and preached (the variable). Aaron obeyed (the given) and forgave (the variable). Jean obeyed and told a friend about Jesus. Dan obeyed and gave money. Andrea obeyed and went to visit her neighbor. The first element of faith, obedience, is a given for you and me. The second, the variable, will often be different.

This is where we get into trouble. We overlook the first element of faith – the given, obedience – but insist on the second, the variable. Here’s what that looks like. The Lord speaks to me about giving a sizeable gift to the church. I hear him, obey, and give. All is right in Shayne World. But then I start thinking that other people should be doing what I did. If they don’t, they cannot be good Christians – and maybe they’re not Christians at all! I assume that Aaron’s and Jean’s and Dan’s and Andrea’s “andvariable” must be the same as mine.

This leads to an ugly legalism and to a judgmental spirit that Jesus strictly forbids. We should all be doing the things Scripture clearly teaches, but there is room for diversity in things Scripture is not clear about, and in matters of personal guidance – the and variables – we must expect diversity.

Next, there is the where of faith, which might better be called the wherever of faith. The end of verse 8 tells us that Abraham “did not know where he was going.” That is not surprising, for in faith there is always an element of not knowing. The unknown gives faith room to breathe and grow. The unknown may be about the where (as it was for Abraham) or it may be (and frequently is) about the how or even about the when or why, but there will be an unknown. Without it, faith has no opportunity to function. Yet we do everything in our power to eliminate the unknown. If we could, we’d wrap faith up so tight in a straightjacket of certainty that it couldn’t breathe.

Next, we have the how of faith: “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.” The when and where and what inevitably lead to the how. If we hear God when he speaks, follow where he leads, and obey what we know, the how will eventually become clear. The danger for us is that we will demand to know the how before we say “yes” to the what. You can call that prudence or common sense, but it is a faith-buster. It makes faith impossible.

For Abraham, the how meant living like a refugee in the land promised him. Verse 9 says, “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.” A more straightforward translation is, “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise.” Had Abraham insisted on knowing the how before he said yes to the what he might never have left the city of Ur. But God always gives grace for us to live the how, even to thrive in doing so, once we’ve said yes to the what.

Now we’ve come to the why, which we discover in verse 10: “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Abraham could live in tents like a refugee while waiting and praying for the land, and for descendants to occupy the land, because he was looking forward to the city with foundations. He could succeed in the insecurity of the present because he was certain of the security of the future. He remained confident, as only people of faith can, that God “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Abraham was taken by God into a big story. He was promised the Land, descendants to dwell in the land, and a particular descendant who would bring blessing to all the people of the earth. That is a big story and big stories take time to unfold. Never forget that you too have been taken into a big story.

Now all of this raises a question: why did God make the promise 25 years before he intended to fulfill it? Why make Abraham wait so long? Waiting is uncomfortable. It is tedious. Pretty much everyone everywhere hates to wait. So, why not make the promise a few days – a few hours – before delivering on it?

For that matter, why make us wait at all? Why not answer the moment we pray? If God operated that way, just think how strong our faith would be!

But would it? Does the child whose parent gives her everything she wants when she wants it become more trusting or more demanding? Does she develop the mindset that will help her become a compassionate, faithful, and strong person? Probably not, for people are shaped in the waiting. Waiting is an indispensable tool in character building. You can no more build character without waiting than you can build a house without a hammer.

God has us wait because it is in the waiting that we come to know him. It was during the 25 years that Abraham waited that he grew so close to God that Scripture calls him “the friend of God.”  How did they become friends? They waited … together. Abraham didn’t just wait for God; he waited with God.

God also has us wait because it is during the waiting that his Spirit adjusts our prayers until they align with his will. This alignment is not just a matter of praying for the right things but – more importantly – becoming the kind of person who can – and regularly does – pray for the right things.

Another reason we wait: God gets greater glory from receiving our trust than from answering our prayers. I’ve often heard people say things like: “Just think how much glory God would receive if my friend was miraculously healed.” Yes, but he will receive even greater glory if you and your friend continue to trust him – and even increase your trust – while you wait.

But how do we do that? It happens with us in much the same way it happened with Abraham. First, we hear God’s word to us. Remember that faith is voice-activated —God’s voice. If, like Abraham, we obey his word to us, faith will grow. But we must expect to wait for things that we want badly, things that we are desperate to have, even things that God intends to give. Waiting is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule. Expect to wait.

Understand too that waiting does not mean wasting time. Abraham worked while he waited. He was a man of action as well as a man of faith. When we divide faith from work, we do injury to both. Faith is the root; work is the fruit. Faith is potential energy; work is kinetic energy. Faith is the flame and work the light that proceeds from the flame.

The relationship between faith and prayer is like the relationship between flame and light. If faith declines, prayer dims. And faith always declines when we wait for things rather than for God. If you are having trouble praying – struggling with doubt and ready to give up – you might be in the wrong waiting room. You’re waiting for things rather than God. Refocus your waiting on the Lord. Adopt the attitude of the prophet Micah: “But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” (Micah 7:7).

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Faith and Prayer (Mark 9:14-29)

Posted on August 21, 2024 by salooper57
22:00 Minutes

(This sermon finds that it is not enough to pray in the moment of need. The faith we need grows in a praying life – as Jesus’s disciple discovered for themselves.)

When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked. A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” “O unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” (Mark 9:14-29)

The section preceding our text is absolutely packed with allusions to the Old Testament. St. Mark clearly wanted readers to equate what is happening here with what happened on famous mountain in Israel’s history. The links between the two are fascinating, and we’ll explore them when we Go Deep on Wednesday at 6:30.

Our text ends with Jesus’s explanation that “This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out only by prayer.” This kind – the stubborn, tough, pernicious kind –comes out only by prayer. Jesus was speaking about an unclean spirit, but there are other things that torment us that can only be effectively handled by prayer. There are marriage problems that won’t be resolved if we don’t pray. There are financial predicaments, relationship impasses, job difficulties, and health setbacks that can only be overcome by prayer.

There is something odd about verse 29—but here I am starting with the end of our text, and we really should begin at the beginning. We’ll return to that odd thing before we’re done, but first we need to get some context.

Jesus had taken Peter, James, and John up a very high mountain where they had an experience which, as far as we know, no one else has ever had. On that mountain, they stood in the presence of two of history’s great heroes, Moses and Elijah, even though they had lived (in one case) hundreds and (in the other) more than a thousand years earlier.

But that was only the beginning. They saw Jesus transfigured before their eyes. They could hardly bear to look at him—it was like looking into the sun; he was awesome. They were confounded. Frightened. And then they heard the voice of God address them directly, and they nearly came undone.

They never forgot what happened on that mountain. At the end of his life, knowing that his death was near, Peter was still talking about it. It was his mountaintop experience. And yet this wonderful, unforgettable event on the mountain was followed by chaos and confusion in the valley. That often happens.

The mountaintop is not an escape but a preparation. It is not a place to live but a place to be readied for service. Peter wanted to build shelters and stay there, but Jesus did not oblige him. We occasionally (by God’s grace) ascend the mountain, but we inevitably (also by God’s grace) return to the valley. That’s where we live; that’s where we do good.

Jesus took three disciples with him up the mountain, but he left the other nine in the valley to carry on the work. When they returned to the Nine, they could see that a crowd had gathered around them, and it was not a happy crowd. There were experts in the Jewish law there and an argument was in full swing.

Because people were focused on the argument, the crowd didn’t notice Jesus until he was quite close. When they did see him, they ran to him, and something about him caused people to marvel. Mark does not tell us what it was, but some people think that Jesus looked different after the transfiguration, the way Moses looked different when he came down from Mount Sinai (Exodus 34).

Jesus walked right up to the Nine and asked them what they were arguing about. It is possible that the experts in the law had challenged their authority to perform exorcisms. Whatever the case, before the disciples had a chance to answer, a man in the crowd interrupted.

He had brought his son to Jesus, but Jesus was gone, so he asked the disciples to expel the unclean spirit that was ruining their lives. “But your disciples,” the man said, “don’t have what it takes.” Imagine how the disciples felt as this guy blurted this out in front of all those people.

But the distraught dad was apparently not the only person talking, for Jesus did not answer him;he answered them. I think that means that other people were all talking at once: the disciples, the indignant scribes, people in the crowd. There were accusations and recriminations – it was chaos.

Amid all the clamor, Jesus says (literally), “O unbelieving generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I bear with you?” Note that word, “unbelieving.” It is important to the story. Jesus then says of the man’s son: “Bring him to me.”

When the spirit saw Jesus (I don’t know how a spirit sees – was it through the boy’s eyes or in some other way?) it convulsed the young man. He fell to the ground, rolled around, and foamed at the mouth. Jesus immediately turned to the dad and asked, “How long has this been happening to him?”

The dad said, “From childhood.” Think of that. Years of anxiety and fear, always on high alert, always worried about what other people are thinking. And the great sadness the dad felt for his son in his torments, the helplessness, and, eventually, the hopelessness. And then someone told him about Jesus, so he brought him his son, but what he found were nine disciples who weren’t up to the task. His hopes, which had risen, was dashed and his faith was nearly extinguished.

The disciples, I’m sure, made it harder for this man to trust Jesus. I wonder if we ever make it harder for people – our children, coworkers, and neighbor – to believe? If, like the disciples, we argue, get angry, and act just like people who don’t belong to Jesus, we are making it harder.

Listen to this dad’s words: “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” There is not much faith there – but there is a little. Faith figures prominently into this passage, into Jesus’s teaching, and into effective prayer. The principle is this: “According to your faith be it done to you” (Matthew 9:29).

Facing a seeming impossibility, the disciples once said to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” Do you know how Jesus answered them? (I paraphrase.) “You don’t need great faith. You need genuine faith. If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Be lifted up and cast into the sea, and it will be done for you!”

Can so little faith really lift so massive a mountain as a critically ill child, a critically ill marriage, an impossible job situation, an extreme financial need? Can it really be true that a little faith is all that’s needed? How can that be?

A little faith is enough, as long as it is genuine, but only because it is joined to Jesus’s great faith. The one who “ever lives to intercede for us” also intercedes with us when our prayers align with God’s will—and his intercession makes all the difference. When we wear his yoke, he does the heavy lifting. When Jesus says to this dad, “Everything is possible to the one who believes,” the one who believes and for whom everything is possible is preeminently Jesus. The desperate father’s smidgeon of faith is joined to the great faith and faithfulness of Jesus the son of God. “This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4).

The word of Jesus to this dad revived the dying embers of his faith – a word from Jesus can do that – and he cried out, “I believe!” then immediately added, “Help my unbelief!” And Jesus did help his unbelief. If Jesus sees even a spark of faith, he will tend it, help it, blow on it until it becomes a fire.

I want you to notice something it took me a long time to understand. Within the same person at the same moment, belief and unbelief can coexist. We are a little like an old-style hard drive in a 1980s computer. We can have bad sectors. We can be tooling along, trusting God, when suddenly we access a bad sector – that is, we discover a part of our life where unbelief dominates – and we crash.

Most of us struggle to face the fact that these bad sectors – these areas of unbelief – exist in our lives. And because we don’t face it, we don’t understand why our genuine efforts produce so little fruit for Christ.[1]

But Jesus is willing to help us. The man’s prayer, “I believe; help my unbelief,” is one that I have often prayed. And the Lord has helped me. And he will help you too.

Jesus aided this man’s belief and helped his unbelief by answering his prayer. Actually seeing God answer prayers greatly helps our belief and systematically dislodge our unbelief. In this case, Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to leave the boy and never come back. But notice that the answer to this dad’s prayer did not at first seem very encouraging. The spirit shrieked, sent the boy into prolonged convulsions (the Greek says something like, “much convulsing), and then came out, leaving him lying on the ground, looking to all the world as if he were dead.

Sometimes things look worse after the Lord answers our prayers. But if we stop trusting at that moment, we’ve stopped trusting too soon. With the frightened dad looking on, Jesus lifted the boy and he arose (both words regularly used for resurrection), and the father’s faith was helped.

Jesus then went into a house and his disciples followed him. As soon as they were alone, the Nine asked him (verse 28), “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” They had driven out demons before; why had they failed this time?

Pay attention to Jesus’s answer in verse 29 (this is where we find something odd). “This kind can come out only by prayer.” Only by prayer. Not by rituals. Not by smarts. Not by a powerful personality. Only by prayer.  

Let’s be clear about that. There are some things – uncleans spirits, deeply-rooted addictions, relationship conflicts – that are only driven out by prayer. That was Jesus’s own word. So, here is the odd thing: Jesus didn’t pray. Remember the story: he saw a crowd running towards them and quickly cast out the unclean spirit before they arrived.   

He didn’t pray … at that moment, but he did pray—day after day and sometimes night after night, year after year. Jesus’s life was characterized by prayer. It was punctuated by times of prayer. Jesus is not here talking about praying on the spot but about praying before you’re in a spot. This kind does not come out by praying in the moment but by praying (as Paul would later put it) “at all times with all prayer and supplication” (Ephesians 6:18) from a life that is increasing in faith.

I’ve known people who seemed to think if they tried really hard to believe and spoke very loudly when they prayed, their request would be answered. I haven’t seen them succeed any more than the prophets of Baal did when they tried the same thing. Prayer that has power is never the prayer of a moment; it is always the prayer of a life – a life connected by a thousand cords to Jesus.

At four places in the New Testament record, we hear Jesus tell his followers, “When you pray …” He took for granted that they would pray. But those words brought something definite to the disciples’ minds that might not come to ours. They understood “When you pray” to refer to the three times every day when they said their prayers. That was their practice and Jesus didn’t put an end to it (though he did instruct them to do it differently).

We will never know the power of prayer if we only pray when we feel like it. Powerful prayers don’t appear magically in an emergency. They come out of a praying life. I was once stuck in a small village in Senegal because the taxi I was riding in had broken down. It was our third car repair of the trip. I was anxious to get back on the road and get our 13-hour cross-country trip behind us – thirteen hours crammed into the back of a small Renault station wagon without A/C in 100-degree heat. Finally, the car was ready. Together with five Africans, my friend and I stuffed ourselves into the car. The driver started it up but, before we could get on the road, the call to prayer rang out over the loudspeakers. Everyone, including the driver, bailed back out of the car, unrolled their prayer mats, and said their prayers, as they do five times every day.

It was three times a day for the people to whom Jesus was talking. When they heard him say, “When you pray,” they naturally assumed he was talking about those regular prayer times. When you read Jesus saying, “When you pray…” does anything definite come to mind? Do you have a regular prayer time? A twelve-second prayer before a meal is good, but it’s like a twelve-second fill up at the gas station. It won’t get you far.

Jesus said, “When you pray,” because he expected his people to pray. His disciples knew from watching him that the power to live well is gained, at least in part, through prayer. It’s no wonder they – men who had been praying all their lives – asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.

When Matthew tells this same story, he includes a part of Jesus’s answer that Mark leaves out. Mark records Jesus saying, “This kind comes out only by prayer,” but in Matthew he begins his answer with, “Because you have so little faith.” Faith is a spiritual muscle that is strengthened (in part) by praying and seeing answers. People who don’t pray don’t have the strength they need when they need it.

Jesus, whose faith in his Father was unbreakable, prayed regularly. He once went on a 40-day prayer retreat. He sometimes prayed through entire nights. He got up early in the morning to pray. And, no doubt, he joined his family, friends, and neighbors in the three daily times of prayer.

I am not suggesting that you go on a 40-day prayer retreat or spend entire nights in prayer (though I am not suggesting that you don’t, either). I am suggesting that you have a regular prayer time each day. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between time spent praying and power, but there is a relationship. I can’t promise that if you pray three times a day you will have power to move the mountain of illness or financial need or marriage troubles. I can promise that if you don’t pray, you won’t.

Some people try to pray as they go, which is the kind of prayer we looked at last week, and is essential to living the adventure with God. But in my own experience, I have found that I am much better at praying as I go if I have prayed before I left. The two kinds of prayer are symbiotic. Our planned prayer time empowers our unplanned prayers and our unplanned prayers enrich our regular prayer time. If I cut out one, the other invariably suffers.

There are stubborn, difficult things in life, in relationships, and in church that will only come out by prayer. If we don’t pray, they won’t change. Learn to pray. Ask for help. Read books on prayer. Make yourself a prayer schedule. Form a prayer group. But just do it. Pray!

Blessing/Sending (1 Thessalonians 5) Now may the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.

[1] Dallas Willard says something very like this – only says it better – in Renovation of the Heart.

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Fasting or Feasting: Spiritual Nourishment at Church and Home

Posted on August 17, 2024 by salooper57

Over the years, I’ve seen people come to our church from other churches. At some point, I learn the reason they left their church. Sometimes it is because they moved away. Sometimes it is because the pastor they loved moved away and the new pastor is changing everything. Often, they are looking for a church with better programming (for children, teens, or seniors).

The reason I have heard most often, though, is this: “I didn’t get fed there.” They did not appreciate what the preacher served on Sunday mornings. As a preacher myself, I have often wondered at this response.

Can a pastor speak for twenty, thirty, even forty-five minutes and not give the flock anything to feed on? What is he or she doing in the pulpit for all that time, if not feeding the flock?

When people say they are not being fed, what they may mean is that they dislike the spiritual food the pastor is offering. Perhaps it is dry and tasteless. It has no zing. By the time people are in the car and on the way home they have already forgotten what they were served.

It could be that what the pastor presents is nutritious but boring. There are good ingredients – the teaching is true and biblically accurate – but the ingredients are not combined in the right order. Or something essential has been left out.

It could be that what the pastor presents each week is tasty but not nutritious. People lap it up – the funny stories, the tearjerker illustrations – but there is nothing that will stick to the bone. It is comfort food for the spiritually obese. People get full but they never grow strong.

It could be that the fare a pastor serves is spiritually unhealthy. It might be filled with artificial ingredients – ideas that taste like biblical truth but are man-made rather than God-inspired. Their sermons might even contain traces of theological heresy that slowly poisons those who take it in.

There may be another and quite different reason why people say, “I didn’t get fed there.” They did not care to eat. The pastor may cook up a delicious and nutritious spiritual meal and present it with real artistry. But the person may have no appetite for nutritious spiritual food. They may be stuffed with intellectual and emotional junk food. “I didn’t get fed there” might only be a way of saying, “I’ve lost my appetite.”  

Where this is the case, the preacher might be a great orator like John Chrysostom, a theological giant like Martin Luther, or a prince of preachers like Charles Spurgeon and people still won’t be fed. A banquet is served but the family goes hungry nonetheless.

When people say they were not being fed at church, I wonder if they are feeding themselves at home. As important as it is to have a preacher at church who presents truth that is divinely-inspired, relevant, and appealing, it is even more important to have church members who know how to feed themselves at home.

It is the men and women who have learned to nourish themselves on Scripture during the week who derive the most benefit from a sermon on Sunday. They have discriminating tastes. They recognize artificial ingredients, spit out poisons, relish a hearty meal, enjoy a satisfying after-dinner treat.

This means that churches must do more than prepare a tasty and nutritious spiritual feast on Sundays. They must also teach people how to prepare their own spiritual meals at home. They must give people simple recipes for getting the most out of the Scriptures. They must teach them how to marinade a biblical text in prayer, until all its flavors burst forth. And they must share in the feast their members prepare.

Church members who are well-fed at home during the week are those who most enjoy the spiritual meal that is served at church on Sundays. They have a hearty appetite, know good spiritual food when they find it, and recognize poor imitations for what they are. For such people, the call to worship on a Sunday morning is an invitation, a “Bon appétit,” that portends a rich repast.

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Prayer: It Doesn’t Need to Be Boring

Posted on August 13, 2024 by salooper57
23:43 seconds

Prayer does not need to be boring. This message was preached on 8/4 at California Road Missionary Church. It is based on Colossians 4:2-6. If you have trouble being consistent in your prayers, this text might be just what you need.

For those who prefer to read the ms. (there are always differences between the written version and the spoken one), you can read below. Be sure to post comments!

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Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:2-6)

A great problem with Christianity in America (and perhaps elsewhere) is that it is boring. Christians spend an hour or more each week in a church service with two-hundred-year-old music and a preacher who drones on for thirty or forty minutes.

Christians read (or are supposed to read) a book that is thousands of years old, which hardly anyone understands. And they are required to pray. But the moment they close their eyes, they either drift off to sleep, or their mind rushes to its worries or escapes to its fantasies.

But guess what? Bible reading and prayer are not inherently boring. They are only boring when bored people are doing the reading and praying. They bring their boredom with them. If we pray boring prayers, it probably means we are leading boring lives. Jesus’s praying was not like that, but then he led an interesting, sometimes intense, and always purposeful life.

Our desire to follow Jesus has been thwarted by a misconception. We think the Christian life is about doing religious things like going to church, reading the Bible, praying—and in some circles, giving ten percent of your income to the church and teaching a Junior High Sunday School Class.

What we’ve done – or our adversary has done to us – is separate the Christian from the life. It is as if we have a life – our real life – to which we add Christian things, like church attendance, Bible reading, and prayer. But a life does not become Christian because a person does religious things; it becomes Christian when a person does everyday things “in the name of Jesus Christ” (Col. 3:17). It was everyday things that the apostle was writing about just before this section on prayer: how one treats a spouse, relates to children and parents, and works a job. 

If prayer is boring, it is because bored people are praying about things that have little to do with “real” life. Boredom is a serious condition. Bored people are easy prey for distractions, addictions, and temptations. So much of what happens today on the American religious scene is focused on alleviating Christians’ boredom.

Until prayer is released from religion and taken into everyday life, it will be boring. It is significant that, while prayer is mentioned over 160 times in the New Testament, it is hardly ever spoken of in connection with a religious service. The only time that I can think of is when Jesus said, “Do not be like the hypocrites who love to pray in the synagogues” (Matthew 6:5).

That means that prayer needs to make its way out of the church building and into our homes, workplaces, and relationships. When was the last time you talked to God when you were at work? Or talked to God about work when you were at home? When was the last time you talked to God about how to love your spouse or be patient with your kids? When prayer is locked up in church, it grows pale and sickly, and is soon too frail to accomplish anything.

But for the person who does whatever he or she does in the name of Jesus (that is chapter 3, verse 17), prayer is not a matter of religious devotion but of personal necessity. You cannot do whatever you do in the name of Jesus without prayer. Now, I am not talking about going off by oneself to pray, though there is a time and a place for that. I have gone on annual prayer retreats for years, and I spend a half-day in prayer once a month. Jesus frequently went to the mountains or into the countryside to pray. Paul went into Arabia.

Private prayer is important, but in this passage, Paul is not talking about going away to pray. He is talking about going about your day to pray—doing your normal things, but all the while communicating with God. And not just when you have something to pray about, but when God has something for you to pray about. You see, when God wants to get something done, he begins by looking for a person who is ready to pray. Prayer is the foundational way we work together with God.

The phrase (v. 2), “Continue steadfastly in prayer,” translates an interesting Greek construction. It reads something like, “As to prayer, kept in readiness.” We find this word in Mark’s Gospel (3:9) when Jesus, “told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him.” “Ready for him” is the same word we have here.

We find it again in Acts 10, where the Roman centurion Cornelius kept a soldier at the ready, in case something should come up. In Romans 13, Paul uses this word for government officials who “give their full time to governing,” as the NIV puts it. It could be translated, “who are always on call.”

God wants us to be on-call for prayer, so that we can engage with him whenever and wherever we are: work, home, restaurant, doctor’s office. He is in those places and is already at work there, and he wants us to join him in what he is doing. This kind of prayer is the catalyst of adventure.

You are in the checkout line at the supermarket. The woman in front of you is losing patience with her four-year-old. God calls you to pray for her, for peace and perspective. While you are praying, he may or may not bring something to your mind to say. But only if you “continue steadfastly in prayer,” that is, only if you are on-call to pray, will you be able to participate with him. Otherwise, you will miss the opportunity.

You are at work, and a co-worker is talking about money problems. If you are on-call you can pray for him. You are at home when an ambulance drives down your street, sirens blaring. If you are on-call, you can pray for the EMTs, the person they are going to help, and for the family of that person.

But prayer is not a substitute for action. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him.” The kind of prayer Paul is talking about is not a substitute for action; it is preparation for it.

Now look at the next part of the sentence: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it…” That is a verb, a participle: literally, “watching in it.” “Be on-call for prayer, watching in it.” Watching for what?

We watch for the things God wants us to pray about. He wants us to join the adventure, to live in the world with him, and prayer is the door through which we enter the adventure. And so, we go through our days with our eyes open, ready to pray at the whisper of the Spirit. Out of that prayer will come action and out of that action will come answers – wonderful answers that will encourage us and others to trust God. Some, who have walked this way many years, have become keenly attuned to God’s call to pray.

When Jim Stegalls was nineteen, he shipped out to Vietnam. He carried a small Gideon New Testament in his shirt pocket, though he never read it. For him, it was good-luck charm. While in Vietnam, Jim saw friends die, and the fear of dying grew inside of him. He was in country when he turned twenty. He was still there when he turned twenty-one.

On February 26, 1968, Jim woke up with the certainty that he would be dead before nightfall. He couldn’t explain it, but he was sure that he was going to die. That day his base came under attack, and Jim heard an incoming rocket. He actually told himself, “Three seconds to live…two…” and then…

A friend shoved him into a grease pit, there was a terrible crash, things falling all around him, and he waited for the explosion. It didn’t come. He couldn’t get out of the grease pit – he was trapped – so he waited, worried all the while that the rocket with which he now shared a room would suddenly detonate. It took five hours for an explosives team to come and safely defuse the rocket.

During that time Jim read his pocket Testament. He started in Matthew 1 and he read through chapter 18. He later said that when he got to verses 19 and 20 of that chapter, he knew he would be alright.

After Jim returned home, he visited his wife’s grandmother, who told him about a night when she had awakened in terror. All she could think about was Jim, in Vietnam. She began to pray to God to spare his life. Because of her arthritis, she couldn’t kneel, so she lay prone on the floor, reading her Bible and praying all night.

Just before dawn she read Matthew 18, verses 19-20: “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

She called her Sunday School teacher, who got out of bed and went to her house to pray with her for Jim. They kept praying until they felt sure that God had answered.

After telling Jim that story, Grandma opened her Bible to Matthew 18 and showed him where she had marked that passage. In the margin she had written: “Jim, February 26, 1968.” Things like that happen to people who live the adventure with God, who are on-call to pray, and are watching.

What do we watch for? We watch for God to open doors for us to share Christ with others. Verse 3: “…At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…” We pray for clarity as we relate to others. Verse 4: “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” We pray for the people we meet, for opportunities to express God’s love and purpose to them. Verse 5: “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” We pray for grace and wisdom. Verse 6: “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”                                                                                              

This is not an exhaustive list of things to pray about. These are just a few things. But we watch everything. We understand that our prayers won’t make God act, but we know that’s alright because he is already in action. So, we keep our eyes open to see what he is doing. A teacher once told his students that experiences with God cannot be planned or manipulated. “They are spontaneous moments of grace,” he said, “almost accidental.”

One of his students piped up, “If that is so, why do we work so hard doing all these spiritual practices?”

His teacher answered, “To be as accident-prone as possible.”2

So, we watch for people and things to pray about, but we also watch for answers. The psalmist says, “In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation” (Ps. 5:3, NIV) That man lived the adventure. He was watching to see what God would do in response to his prayer.

I see answers to prayer regularly. If you do not, it does not mean there haven’t been answers. It may just mean that you were too distracted to notice. “Be on-call in prayer, watching in it.”

We respond of God’s answers with thanksgiving. Our verse says, “Be on-call in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is the lens through which we watch. Without it, we just can’t see clearly; hence, we cannot pray powerfully.

Before I had cataract surgery, when I was in the barbershop getting my hair cut, people would come in and sit down and start talking, occasionally to me. “Hey, I liked your column this week!” And I’d say “Thanks.” But all the while, I’d be wondering who that person was. Without my glasses, I was as blind as the proverbial bat.

When it comes to recognizing our opportunities and God’s answers, without the lens of thanksgiving, we are as blind as the proverbial bat. Thanksgiving is the lens that corrects spiritual myopia. If you’re not thankful, your missing answers and opportunities.

A few years ago, a man came home to find eight thieves in his house. I suppose they were a gang of teenagers. They fled, but the homeowner gave chase and managed to push one of them into the backyard pool. He immediately realized that the guy couldn’t swim, so he jumped in and pulled him out. He saved his life.

The thief returned the favor by pulling a knife on the homeowner. He still wanted to rob him, even though the man saved his life. So, the homeowner knocked him right back into the pool.

Are we all that different from the ungrateful thief? We demand things of God, then when we get into trouble, we ask for his help. Once he has helped us, we go back to demanding things. It would serve us right if he threw us right back into our troubles, but he usually doesn’t.

Paul says, “Be on-call in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is not one more of a long list of virtues you need to add to your life. Rather, it is like the paper on which that list of virtues is written. Thanksgiving provides the backdrop on which the other virtues – courage, faithfulness, perseverance, patience, joy – are displayed.

Do you know what kind of person is consistent in giving thanks? A thankful person. If you’re thinking, “That may be the lamest thing I’ve ever heard,” let me tell you why you’re wrong. To be the kind of person you want to be, that God wants you to be, it is not enough to give thanks. Anyone can do that for a short time. You need to be thankful. There is a big difference. When it comes to following Jesus, it’s always more about who you are than what you do.

How do we become thankful people at the core of our beings? Well, we live the adventure we have been talking about. On-call for prayer, watching in it. It is transformative. But let me give you three suggestions that may be helpful for living that way.

First, to live this kind of life, we must be convinced that God is here, is already at work, and wants us to join him in what he is doing. We can’t live this adventure without that confidence. We need more than head knowledge. This needs to be our basic operating assumption. If you are not convinced about this (and most of us are not), ask God to convince you.

Secondly, when you don’t see God at work around you (which will be much of the time since we are all spiritually myopic), choose to walk by faith, not by sight. You cannot do this if you are focused on circumstances, so lift your eyes above your circumstances. I have been lost in the woods before, tried to guess my direction and ended up more lost that ever. But when I looked above the trees and saw the westering sun, I knew which way to go. As the sun towers above the trees that hemmed me in, so the cross towers above the circumstances of life. Trust God’s love. Look up. Look to the cross.

Thirdly, living this way takes practice. The easiest place to start practicing is with thanksgiving. Don’t worry if it does not feel natural. That takes time.

You might be able to walk over to the piano and play a few notes, or even a song or two, without being a pianist. Just so, a person can give thanks without being thankful. But if you ever want to be a real pianist, you must play the piano, and you must play it often. If you want to be truly thankful, you must give thanks, and you must give it often. Practice giving thanks. In good times – meals, warm house, good kids, health. In hard times – sickness, loss, anxiety, disappointment. When you give thanks in hard times, it moves knowledge and commitment from your head to your heart, from what you do to who you are. So, start thanking God for working out his purpose for you in everything. Practice makes perfect.

“Continue steadfastly in prayer being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”

Blessing/Sending (Philippians 4) Rejoice in the Lord always. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Our Lord is near. Don’t be anxious about anything, but in every situation, bring your requests to God by prayer and petition with thanksgiving. And the peace of our God, which far surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

               2 Philip Yancy, Prayer (Zondervan, 2006)

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Who Is Your Favorite Apostle?

Posted on August 10, 2024 by salooper57

Everyone is taking surveys these days. Political advocacy groups are always calling with their carefully crafted questions, devised to show their candidate in the most favorable light. Online retailers, restaurant chains, banks, and research organizations all use surveys. That led me to wonder: If there were a survey for everyone’s favorite apostle, who would win?

I found a thread on Reddit in response to the question, “Who Is Your Favorite Apostle?” Many people mentioned Peter, citing the remarkable turnaround the flawed apostle made after Jesus’s resurrection. A few mentioned Andrew, who first introduced Peter to Jesus. Others mentioned John, the brilliant apostle whose spiritual discernment was extraordinary. Some Reddit users preferred Doubting Thomas, who became the Apostle to India.

Matthew would have been an interesting choice. After making some terrible life choices, he turned his life around and followed Jesus. Though no one in the Reddit crowd mentioned him, James the brother of John had the distinction of being the first apostle to be martyred. Simon the Zealot is another possibility. He was a political hothead whose efforts were redirected to the kingdom of God.

No one on the Reddit thread chose the Apostle Philip, my personal favorite. That is not surprising. Not counting the lists where his name appears, he is only mentioned in four New Testament passages. He is, nevertheless, my favorite. I wish I were like the brilliant John, but I identify with Philip.

Philip, I realized years ago, was the dull point of the apostolic band. When Jesus and his disciples found themselves in a deserted wilderness with thousands of hungry people – probably festival-goers from the Galilee region – Jesus asked Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for all these people to eat?”

Jesus was not serious about buying bread – an impossibility in that wilderness. He “asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.” But poor Philip was oblivious to Jesus’s intention and burst out, “That would cost a fortune!” If Jesus was testing him, he failed the test.

A couple of years later, things had become very serious. The hostility directed toward Jesus from government and religious leaders – the two were largely the same – had reached fever pitch. Jesus and his disciples were in Jerusalem for the biggest religious festival of the year, and the net was closing around Jesus. He had warned his disciples repeatedly that he would be arrested, humiliated, and killed.

On the very eve of his arrest, Jesus encouraged his disciples: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” He invited them to trust God and to trust him. He told them that his Father God was just like him, and, since they knew him, they knew God.

That was when Philip, befuddled yet again, said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Show us the Father? Bring the infinite God into this small, upstairs room and put him on display? Capture the Eternal One in a moment of time, like a lion in a cage? Once again, Philip just didn’t get Jesus.

So, why is he my favorite apostle? Because I am not a great leader like Peter. I don’t have a brilliant mind like John. Like Philip, I am sometimes a dull point. I don’t always get Jesus. But Jesus gets me, just like he got Philip.

He literally got Philip. Of the twelve apostles, Philip is the only one, at least as far as we are told, that Jesus went after to make his own. In John’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus went and found Philip. He wanted him. He chose him.

Jesus didn’t choose Philip because he was brilliant. He didn’t go looking for him because he couldn’t get along without him. There was nothing extraordinary about Philip, at least nothing that other people could see. Jesus chose Philip because he wanted him.

That means there is hope for me, an ordinary guy, who brings nothing special to the table. Yet, Jesus wants me too and went looking for me. That is a source of infinite hope.

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Prayer: It’s Not an Individual Sport

Posted on August 7, 2024 by salooper57
View Time 32:45.

I promised the video for this sermon when I posted the ms. Thanks, Noah Lee, for your work on the video.

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