Essentials
for the Journey: Prayer
Homiletical
Idea: Our world is on a journey that is leading to Jacob’s time of
trouble. With the deepening economic
crisis, we have a golden opportunity to give people the essential tools
necessary to make it through that time.
One of those tools is encouraging and teaching people how to pray. Jesus gave us the structure that serves as
the framework for our prayer life.
Learning
to Bear the Load
I have
always loved to go camping and to spend time outdoors. When I was around 11 or 12, I was in the Boy
Scouts for a short while. My family had
moved around our little rural county in
Even prior
to being in the military I had learned to pack only the essential items that
you need to survive. When I would go on
backpacking trips I would take my food out of the packaging to save weight, and
do anything I could to make the load a little lighter. My buddies and I would actually see who could
get their pack the lightest. After all,
the more you pack the more you have to carry right?
In basic
training the drill sergeants gave us a list of the items that we had to
take. My backpacking experience kicked
in and I began to realize that the Army wanted me to carry much more than I
actually needed to survive. I came to
learn that they wanted our packs to weigh a certain amount so that we had a lot
to carry on our backs. It was just one
of the sadistic things the Army loved to have us do. But even though they made us carry extra
stuff, there were also the essential items that we needed to conduct our
training in the field.
A
Journey of Trouble
Among the
things I have learned in the various outdoor experiences that I have had is
that there are a lot of people who do not enjoy hiking, camping, and backpacking. In fact there were people who I served with
that hated it when we went to the field.
The rain that we had each time probably didn’t help things either. In the Army we did not use tents. We had ponchos. Each Soldier was paired up with another one
and you attached your ponchos together and made a shelter that was large enough
to cover two Soldiers and their gear. So
when it rained the rain may not fall directly on you while you were sleeping
but it would run into your shelter and often times leave you soaking wet at
least on part of your clothing; fun, fun.
Friends,
as I look at the world economic crisis that is deepening with each passing day
I cannot help but feel that our world is quickly headed for the time of trouble
that is spoken of in Daniel 12:1.
**Read
Daniel 12:1**
When I think about that time of trouble or distress as
the NASB puts it, I feel that we are coming closer and closer to that very
time. Our planet is certainly on a
journey whose destination will culminate with the triumphant return of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Until the Lord comes back
to rescue us from the world of sin we have to face the trials of this life. But the great news is that we do not have to
face our journey or the time of trouble alone.
We have an advocate in the holy of holies that stands ready to guide us
through each trial of this life.
Enduring
the Time of Trouble
Our wonderful Savior, Jesus, has made provision for us to
be able to face the challenges that we face now, and that same provision will
be our sustenance through the time of trouble.
We must be careful friends to not fool ourselves. There are many faith groups that are telling
their members that they will not be here during the time of trouble. They tell them that they will be secretly
raptured away and only the wicked will have to face that terrible time. Friends, this is simply not true and it will
cause people to be ill-prepared to face those days. That line of thinking runs contrary to the
text of Daniel 12:1 and also of Revelation 7:3 where God’s people are sealed
prior to the destruction that will befall the earth.
If God’s
people are already in heaven then why would Michael need to stand up and rescue
His people from the trouble? If God’s
people are already in heaven then why would they need to be sealed prior to the
destruction of the earth and seas? The
answer is that they are not in heaven because they are still on the earth
awaiting the Prince of Peace to come and rescue them from this world of
sin. One author put it this way as she
spoke of Jacob’s time of trouble:
The people
of God will then be plunged into those scenes of affliction and distress
described by the prophet as the time of Jacob’s trouble. "Thus saith the
Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. . . . All
faces are turned into paleness. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is
like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of
it." Jeremiah 30:5-7. (GC p. 616)
Please note friends, that is says that he will be saved out of it. It does not say that he will be saved from it
all together. In order to be rescued
from something you have to be there in the first place. So please do not be fooled. If we are alive when the time of trouble
comes, we will have to face it, but we will not have to face it alone if we
have the essentials we need for our journey.
And prayer is going to be one of the key elements that will sustain
us. We must journey with prayer.
What does
it mean to journey with prayer? It means to master the art of praying by
following the model that Christ has given us in the Scripture. While He was here on earth He made it a point
to teach us how to pray. Christ lived
His life and made His journey through this earth by the power of prayer and we
too have to make our journey with prayer if we desire to be successful in our
Christian walk.
Transition
to the Text
Let us now turn our thoughts to the text we heard read
earlier and let us discover how to journey
with prayer by the very instruction that Christ has given us.
**Read
Matthew 6:5-8**
We can see very clearly that the Lord has some very
specific things to say about prayer. Of
course in the days of Christ it was a common problem for wealthy and affluent
people to make a big show of their spirituality. They not only did it with prayer but also
with their offerings. That is why Christ
says that they already have their reward.
They have the accolades of men so why do they need the reward of
God?
There was also a problem with the people of God
attempting to mimic the Pagans. The
Pagans were known for their repetitious sayings that they believed would cause
their gods to hear them. Christ warned His
followers to not get caught up in that type of pattern when praying to the
Father. He will not hear us better just
because we said something often enough to wear Him down. God will hear the earnest, sincere prayers of
the penitent sinner who recognizes their need of a Savior.
The
Divine Model
I want us to now turn our attention to what we call the
Lord’s Prayer. But as we take a look as
this prayer, I want us to realize that Jesus never intended this short outline
to be all that our prayer consists of.
He gave us this structure to be just that; a structure. I want to encourage you to think of like
this. I want you to picture in your mind
a skeleton. The skeleton does not make
up the person. There are many things
that must be added to the skeletal structure before you have a person. You need muscles, a nervous system, a
circulatory system, skin, hair, and many other things. Once all the necessary components are there
then you have a person.
Prayer is somewhat the same. The Lord’s Prayer is intended to be a basic
structure to teach us how to pray. We
cannot simply pray the Lord’s Prayer and think that it will suffice to give us
a deep prayer life. Just saying the
Lord’s Prayer each day will not allow us to journey with prayer. To journey
with prayer means that we learn to take the structure that Christ gives us
here and we flesh it out to a life changing, full-bodied, prayer experience
that changes the way we live. When we
take the skeleton of the Lord’s Prayer and add to it the life giving depth that
Jesus intended us to give it, we will then be equipped to journey through this
life of trouble and heartache with victory.
Thirsty
Bones
Notice how Jesus begins this famous prayer.
**Read
Matthew 6:9**
Some may
find this to be a minor point, but I want you to notice that Jesus tells us to
address the Father when we pray. Often
times I hear people pray and they address their prayers to Jesus. In this model given to us by Jesus here and
in Luke Jesus specifically tells us to address the Father. I know that some would some would argue that
Christ and the Father are one so it does not matter whose name you begin your
prayer with. I respectfully disagree.
Yes, when
it comes to the mission and methods of the salvation process God the Father and
Jesus the Son are united in their mission to redeem mankind, but when it comes
to the role that they play there is a difference. God the Father is the Almighty, Sovereign of
the universe who reigns above all.
Although Jesus is God too, He chooses to be subordinate in the role that
He plays. Hebrews makes things quite
clear by calling Christ our High Priest over 15 times. The high priest in the Old Testament was
never placed over God. His job was to
minister on behalf of the people before God.
Christ now does that very thing in the most holy place within the
heavenly sanctuary where He pleads His blood on our behalf.
Christ
knew the role that He was to play even after His ascension to heaven, and if He
had wanted us to address Him first in prayer He would have given us a different
model of prayer. Clearly he wanted us to
recognize our Father God in prayer first and because Jesus is our High Priest
we offer our prayers in His name that He might then take our weak prayers and
mingle them with His strong and mighty prayers.
Paul was in harmony with this concept also when he wrote in Ephesians 5:20 that we should give
thanks to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. So basically our prayers are directed to the
Father, but they find their power because they are offered in the name of
Jesus. This matches up also with the
last part of Christ’s model because He reminds us that God’s name is holy. If we use God’s name too lightly then we find
ourselves in violation of the 3rd commandment that tells us to not
take God’s name in vain.
Right now
we could take time to dive into the rest of the skeletal structure of the
Lord’s Prayer and talk about how to give life to those mighty bones, but I am
going to stop here for now. We will
continue this discussion when we get back together on December 27th. During that message we will dissect the
remainder of the structure that Christ has given us and we will summarize 9 key
concepts that Christ has given us here in Matthew 6.
For now and
over the next two weeks I want to challenge you to begin to look at your own
prayer life. I want you to very seriously
ask yourself if your prayer life is what it should be. Yes, we are going to talk much more in-depth
about the remainder of the Lord’s Prayer so there will likely be some things
that I will bring out that challenge you to make additional changes in your prayer
life. But that is the whole point of a
Christian walk; you cover new ground and grow in your faith and
experience.
For the
time being I want you think about your motivation for prayer. I want you to think about how often you
pray. I want you to think about ways
that you can incorporate prayer into every aspect of your life. We have admonition from Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “…pray without
ceasing.” You cannot pray without
ceasing unless you understand that prayer is more than just closing your eyes
and kneeling down in private or public.
Prayer has to become the very breath that we take. We have to come to the point in our lives
that we have God in our thoughts with each moment of the day. While we work, while we study, while we
interact with each other, while we teach, while we preach, or whatever else we
may do we have to become a people of prayer.
We have to become a people who journey
with prayer everywhere we go.
Listen
please to one more quote:
“…Jacob’s
company, unarmed and defenseless, seemed about to fall helpless victims of
violence and slaughter. And to the burden of anxiety and fear was added the
crushing weight of self-reproach, for it was his own sin that had brought this
danger. His only hope was in the mercy of God; his only defense must be prayer.”
Friends,
the very same can be said of us; that our only hope is in the mercy of God and
our only defense must be prayer. How
many of you are willing to covenant with me today and say that you will closely
examine your prayer life and seek to do God’s will as it relates to
communicating with Him through the avenue of prayer. Will you raise your hands with me just
now? Let us pray together.