Northside Church - Sydney
Ditto Week 3: Pray as Jesus Prayed
We're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, a great clip from the film, " License to Ed." And you can thank Graham Agnew for that one. That's one of his favourites. And I love Robin Williams the pastor in that, you know, at the end of it. He says, "No, I'm not a doctor, I'm a pastor, what you need is Adfilling a bit of ice." And we're panning it all in a bit of ice. I love the way he says, you know, "That stuff doesn't work, but it'd be cooler if it did, right?" And, you know what, I think deep down we can often approach prayer exactly the same way. That when we come to the brokenness of life, and I'm not talking about potential broken noses and that sort of thing, the brokenness, and when we're trying to do ministry, we're trying to do life, is that that's our default reaction, right? Just to pan it all in a bit of ice, and that'll fix it. And we just try whatever we can in terms of fancy words in order to stitch it all back together. But it would be good if that stuff worked, right? Look, it can and it did, it did for a guy who was as human as I am today, his name was Jesus Christ. And what we've been learning in this series did, though, is that anyone that claims to live in him, claims to follow him must walk as Jesus walked. And we can write that off really quickly, we can go, "Jesus was God, right?" You know, "No one can walk like Jesus, he's perfect." We can't pray like Jesus. And yet I said in the first week that our Christology shapes our mission. And that's just fancy words for saying how we see Jesus affects whether or not we will be like Jesus. I think Robyn Williams didn't have a clear picture of who Jesus really was. You see, four core convictions that have come out of this series is that Jesus didn't dip into his divinity in order to live out his humanity. In other words, he didn't play some God card whenever he got in trouble and played the God aspect of stuff whenever he got in trouble. He was fully human, like you and I. And what that then means for us is that the same resources that Jesus had, prayer, are the same resources you and I got tonight. And if that's the case, Jesus now becomes a model for how we do all of our life together, right? It's that Jesus shows us how life is truly meant to be lived in perfect obedience to God with the same resources. And then the fourth conviction being, if that's the case, then we underestimate all the time or God wants to do in and through us, right? So in that sense, what could, what would happen if I prayed just as Jesus prayed? All sorts of stuff, who knows? But tonight we're going to have a look through at how Jesus prayed in that sense. We're going to have a look at Luke's Gospel, just a short verse, chapter 11, verses 1 through till 4. It says one day when Jesus was praying in a certain place, when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John, toward his disciples." And then he said to them, "When you pray, say, 'Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us and lead us not into temptation." We know it well, it's the Lord's Prayer, that's what we call it. And yet tonight, tonight's not going to be an exegesis, pulling apart exactly what the Lord's prayer means. Instead, I want to focus around one statement that came out of that passage, and it's this one, and it's this question, "Why did the disciples say to Jesus, 'Lord, teach us how to pray?'" What I found absolutely fascinating is when I went back through all the Scriptures and tried to find it all, you know, that is the only thing that Jesus asked, sorry, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them. I don't know about you, but if I was with Jesus, and I was one of the special 12 that got to hang out with him, I'd be asking all sorts of stuff. First of all, tell us how to teach me how to turn water into wine. Teach me how to, "Lord, teach us how to walk on water. Lord, teach us how to cast out demons. Lord, teach us how to heal people." They were seeing all this stuff. Why is it that these guys, when they're hanging out with Jesus, didn't ask him to say, "Lord, teach us how to do miracles. Teach us how to do cool stuff." The one thing I ask is perhaps from someone who is a Christian, maybe one of the most boring questions you could ask Jesus. Teach us how to pray. Why would they do that? And I think the insight that's coming out of the Scriptures tonight is that it's because, I think those closest to Jesus understood that the very thing that made him different, totally different, and radically different was not so much his miracles and all the amazing, cool stuff he did, but his prayer life. I mean, for these guys, they were Jewish boys, like they believed in God. They already would have known how to pray to God. They already would have been praying to God. And so in that sense, it must have been something about how we prayed, and there must have been something about the results of when he prayed. Stuff happened when this guy prayed. And so therefore, if we're to pray as Jesus prayed, what would that look like? What are the trademarks of his prayer life in that sense? And so tonight I want to give us a helicopter view of what Jesus' prayer life looked like if you go throughout all of the various gospels, and I've been encouraging all the guys in the groups and the studies, is to read through one of the gospels and read Jesus' life like a whole story. And so often we preach and teach the message of Jesus, but we don't look at the man Jesus. Skim across the gospels, read the story. You're going to start to see some of these things. For Jesus, his prayer life first and foremost was a time of learning. Jesus was always learning in prayer. If you read through all the four accounts of Jesus' life, it might not stand out to you, but I'll give it to you. I don't know if you'll notice, but the busier that Jesus got, the more that he withdrew to go away and pray. I mean, over 40 times in Scripture you'll find that Jesus, like it says in Luke 5, 16, often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. I mean, if you didn't know where Jesus was, if he wasn't with these disciples, he was praying. Where's Jesus? He's off praying again. How else did Judas, the one that betrayed him, knew where to find him in the garden of Gethsemane? Jesus was off praying. It seems counterintuitive, right? If your ministry's going gangbusters, people are getting healed and people are starting to follow you, and you're looking more popular than a one-direction concert in Martin Place, you know, why would you withdraw out of that? You know, we want to be famous, right? In our humanists, remember Jesus was human as well, you'd want to be amongst all of that. Why does he withdraw so much? What does he know that we don't? Or has he got avoidance issues? Maybe that's, you know, he's just, he's just, look, for Jesus' prayer was a time of learning where the power really is. That's what we see in his life. Jesus wasn't the energizer bunny, right? He just couldn't keep going and going and going. For Jesus got tired, Jesus got hungry, Jesus got frustrated, and so for him, God himself knew that as a human, he had limitations. Even God himself knew there was only so much that he could do. Why he needed a power outside of himself in that way. That's why E.M. Bound says that prayer is the real work. Evangelism is just the mopping up. Guys, if you want to case study, then turn to Acts chapter six. And in there in the early church, so these are people after Jesus ascended up in their heaven. These are Christians like you and I. Church is going off. It says in those days, the number of disciples were increasing so much that there were fights amongst the food distribution. And the 12 apostles had a real issue because they said it's not right of us to be neglecting our ministry in order to wait on tables. I'm thinking I can relate to these guys. You know, like these guys said, we can't get tied up in the busyness of just doing everyday work. We need to focus and specialize. They say, let us devote our time to the teaching of the word and what? Prayer. And what happens? The church goes gangbusters, continues to grow, continues to explode. Here's the question, what the heck is Jesus and the 12 apostles doing in the midst of ministry success when they're withdrawing all the time? They're dropping the clutch. Now, if you don't drive a manual, I'm sorry, I'm going to lose you for about the next three minutes. But when I first learned to drive a manual car, it's always such a tricky thing to try and find the clutch point. And you get so focused on trying to just get the car started with our bunny hopping and stalling and looking like an idiot. That when I was first learning how to drive a manual, I was very overzealous. Once I finally got that clutch in, I was off, I was in first gear. And I'm driving along the road and the engine is cranking and I'm like, this is awesome and the engine's really, I'm always hitting the rev limiter and yet I'm going at 20 kilometers an hour. And in all my craziness of just trying to understand how to get into that, I hadn't learned how to shift up gears into switch gear and to go any faster. And so I, the faster I wanted to go, the more I was redlining and the more the engine was screaming at me and the more I almost blew up the whole engine, you see. Look, for us, when we come to this concept of prayer and the busyness of life, you know, the clutches are very thing that disconnects the wheels momentarily from the engine and the craziness in order that we might be able to shift up a gear. And what happens suddenly going at twice the speed with half the amount of effort. You see, what Jesus was doing when he was withdrawing 33 times in the gospels to go and pray, go and pray, it wasn't avoidance, he was dropping the clutch. He was disconnecting from the busyness of his life and the pressures that were in on him, not to, not, not dropping the clutch and dropping the ball, but he was disconnecting from that for a moment so he could refresh and be renewed and understand that if there ever was going to be any leverage and power and capacity in his ministry, it was not going to be through his own human strength, but it was going to be through God's. So guys, I've got to ask you tonight, what's your first reaction when the busyness of life begins to squeeze you? You know, you inclined to continue just to push the accelerator harder as I did and just redline the engine or you're going to drop the clutch, step back for a minute, withdraw, or understand if you want to build capacity and power for God in your life, then really, if we want to get supernatural results, it's never going to happen from natural means. If we want to get supernatural results, it's never going to happen through natural means, and yet every time in ministry, you know, how do we talk in church? Oh, it's full on, it's crazy, I'm getting pressured, I'm getting squeezed, I'm guilty of it in my own life, and yet the word of God has convicted me tonight, that if I want to see supernatural results in our ministry in this place here, it can't be by pushing the accelerator in any harder. I'm treating my ministry and I'm treating church like the way I treat first gear on the first car that I ever drove. So guys, prayers of time are learning that that's where the power really comes from. The prayer of Jesus was not only a time of learning, but it was also a time of listening. It was November of 2003 when I had one of the most surreal moments that I've had in my life. It was, it's probably not that exciting, but I'll tell you anyway. I had been away on a working holiday for a year and I was flying back into San Francisco Airport in the Boeing 777, and I've got my little wheelie bag, and I came through, you know, when they open up the door there in the plane and you just sort of step over that threshold into the big, funny, gray tunnel type thing, right, that I don't, what do they call that? Aerobridge, thank you, Michael McQueen, who travels 10 times a week into state, of course. And so I walked into the Aerobridge and I kid you not, from that point when my foot had gone over the threshold, I could hear the voice of my father who was waiting to pick me up, talking to his best friend about 50 meters up the corridor in a busy airport that's raging at about 90 decibels. How is that humanly possible? I'd never experienced anything like it in my life. The answer is that through a lifetime of relationship with my earthly father, I learned to instinctively know my father's voice, to the point that I could be in the craziness of an airport and I could hear him 50 meters away. Now guys, I don't want to come to prayer. We sort of think, and people say, "Good doesn't speak to me. I don't hear God. Look, I don't think it's so much the volume of God in your life that's a issue, but learning to discern his voice amongst the background voice. I don't think it's a matter of God having to speak any louder in your life. Carla, our wonderful new connect leader that we heard about tonight, still got her training wheels on. It's awesome." She was showing her group or insisted that they watch it, so I hope they did about a Numa DVD, Rob Bell, that great teacher. He says in this Numa DVD noise, he says, "I was reading about this guy named Bernie Krauss, who records nature sounds for film and television. He was saying that in 1968, in order to get one hour of natural sound, like no airplanes or no cars, that would take about 15 hours of recording time. And he was saying that today to get the same one hour of undisturbed sound or silence, it now takes him 2,000 hours of recording time. Guys, our prayer lives and our everyday lives are like airports. We have so many voices that are constantly intruding in on us that it takes us hours to get a little bit of silence. What do we do about it? Psalm 5, 3 is probably a good starting point where it says, "In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice. And in the morning, I lay my request before you, and I wait expectantly." You actually have to wait expectantly to hear the voice of God. Jesus did. After feeding the 5,000, all the people suddenly realized that this guy was Israel's new food bowl, so to speak. And so they wanted to make him king by force. What sort of great king that just could continue to produce food and all sorts of wonderful goods free of a carbon tax and all that sort of stuff. You know, like appropriate for today. And so after feeding the 5,000, they all try and chase him down. And he says to the boys, go and push your boat out into the lake. And it says, Jesus again in the scriptures. Jesus again went up to a mountainside and prayed. Now what's fascinating is when you read through that story and you work out all the timing, it's just one verse between each. A lady goes and walks on water and the disciples see him. It says later that night, Jesus was up there. You ready for it? For nine hours. What was he doing up there? Naughts and crosses in the sand. Listening to his iPod. No, he was waiting expectantly. Jesus understood the prayer was a time of listening to the voice of God. Frank Loughback said, "The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that they say amen and run away before God has the chance to reply." Listening to God is far more important than giving him our ideas. And so guys, I've got to ask you to tonight, how many hours will it take for you this week between listening to the latest Katie Perry beats or between listening to nine news or deal or no deal or the pressures of a pushy boss. Not me, of course, Graham Agnes. Wonderful. Or listening to a teacher at school or if you're really spiritual, how much time you're going to find between the five other podcasts that you're going to listen on top of this message this week. What are you going to do aside from all those people on train to live their life between the white headphones of death? What I'm asking is tonight, what will it take this week for you to carve out just one hour of space to listen to the voice of God? Because Jesus at the pinnacle of his ministry, the pinnacle of his ministry found nine hours. Jesus learned to invest in spending time to learn how to listen to the Father's voice so instinctively in the airports of life, in the craziness and the busyness of us. He could hear it 50 meters away. He knew him that well. Jesus understood that prayer was a time of listening. And then Jesus not only realized it was a time of learning, a time of listening, but also that prayer was a time of loving. Have you ever gone through and studied what Jesus actually prayed for? And compared that to what we pray for in our prayer requests in life? You know, when I went through and I had a look, I realized that Jesus actually spent most of his time praying for other people. He was praying for kids and the disciples rebuked him and he said, no, let the little children come to me because he wanted to pray for them. He spent time praying for sick people and people that needed to be healed and people that needed to get well and he spent time praying for his best friend Lazarus who came out of a tomb and he spent time maybe up on that mountain praying for his disciples as they're straining against the oars on the lake and John 17 even prays for those that one day might believe in him. Jesus spent most of his time praying for other people and what it shows us is that his purpose in prayer or his posture, you know, his position in prayer was not so much to always be asking God for things. We call that petition. He wasn't always asking God for things but he used prayer to deepen his love for God and his love for other people. I mean, why else does he say Matthew 5, pray for those that persecute you? Pray for those that hate you because it's really hard to hate someone when you're praying for the good of someone. He's a smart guy, right? It's something that it changes our heart and here's the thing, the purpose of your prayer will often, it'll often reveal what your hope is tethered or attached to. The purpose of your prayer, why you're praying, will reveal what you're really focused on. You know, on one hand people, look, it's okay to offer petitions to God but look, even non-Christians offer up petitionary prayers to God when there are time of crisis, right? And when we're at the end of our rope, of course we're going to cry out to God and ask him to help us. But the real question is when things go well, when life is going off, does your heart default to a prayer of praise? Let's say thanks God for all the amazing stuff that you're doing. You see, the answer to that is going to show you whether your hope is caught up in your circumstances or if it's caught up in God. So, I don't know about you but if you, look, if you ever had someone in your life when they've come up to you and asked for things, there's normally one or two different responses that you're going to have for them. It's, I'd love to do that for you or it's nick off but in more kind of words. You know, when someone comes to ask you to do something, and when you see a person like that, when you say, look, I'd love to do that for you or on the other hand, you feel used and abused by them. Look, if a person uses you, it's someone who comes up to you only when they want something from you or they need something from you and they just want to take something from you. And then when things go good, you never see them again, right? Ever had people like that in life? And you feel used. See the difference? One person loves you, supports you, the other person's just using you. One person serving you, the other person's just abusing you. So here's my question. In other words, are you treating God the same way that you'd hate to be treated yourself? Do you only ever come to him in times of prayer when you just want something from him? How do you know that your prayer posture like Jesus is right, it's simple? Do you only pray when you're in trouble when the times are in crisis or do you pray with a posture of heart, of loving gratitude and grateful submission to him? You know, you're going to have the right posture of prayer when you pray as much whether you're happy or whether you're sad. So prayer for Jesus was a time, not only of learning, but of listening, but of loving, loving God and other people. Finally, guys, prayer for Jesus was a time of leading. Look at these key events, a little bit of a pop quiz for the class, so he depends out. One of these all got in common, his baptism at Capernaum, he changes the course of his ministry again in Mark chapter 1. Everyone's chasing after him, he's healed a stack of people, and he says, "Fight, let's go and preach in another town." And the disciples say, "Are you serious?" We had the feeding of the 5,000, they try and make him king by force, and then he says, "I'm going up to an amount again to pray." That was before he walked on water, and then he walks on water. Then there's the upper room before he's arrested, and then there's Gethsemane before he goes to the cross. What are these things having common? You know, every major turning point in the life of Jesus was either preceded by or occurred smack bang in the middle of prayer. You want to go through and read all the gospels and see all the amazing stuff that he did. Anything crazily amazing that Jesus did happened, either straight after prayer or in the middle of prayer. And when it comes to some of them, of course you're going to need prayer. Look at the way that he chose his 12 disciples. It says that the crowds are getting bigger, he needs to appoint leaders. He goes up onto a mountainside to pray for all night, praise for him all night. Why did he pray for him all night? Look at the group that he puts together, some fishermen, a disposed tax collector who worked for the Romans, and then there was Simon the Zealot who was out to kill the Romans. And so think about it quickly for a sec just between Matthew and Simon the Zealot. One was collecting money for the Romans. The other one wanted to kill the Romans. How do you think those two are going to go together when they get together? Jesus comes down after a night full of prayer and he says, "You two boys are going to have a seat on my board of directors." They're going to kill each other. It's going to be like Gina Reinhart and Roger Corbett at Fairfax this week. You know what I'm saying? These guys would have been at each other's throats. And here's my question to you. Does that sound like that a group of leaders that you would naturally choose if you had to go and raise the team? And yet he spent all night in prayer. And here's why, because of course we naturally look to the talented and the famous and the gifted and the popular and the good-looking, but the counterintuitive nature of Jesus in his key life decision shows us this, that in his humanity Jesus didn't know what his next step was, but he knew where to get the next step. And that was in prayer. And so prayer for a time of Jesus was being led by the will of the Father. So guys, to what degree do you turn up in prayer to God and ask him to lead your life in these key decisions before you ever make them? Prayer is a time of leading. So that's it. Go and do likewise. You know what? As I finished tonight, God sort of just, he was showing me that it's not so much how Jesus prayed or what we had there, but why Jesus prayed. Why did he pray all the time? You know, he's learning, listening, loving, leading. That's how he prayed, but why would God need to pray all the time? What was he doing all that time throughout the Gospels? It's what he and E.T. have in common, right? They're both always trying to find a way to phone home. You see, E.T., if you haven't seen, I'm glad you've just got it, girls. That's awesome. Stay with me. See, if you haven't seen E.T., it's a story of an alien and a young boy, Elliot, and E.T. suddenly falls ill. And he's getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And after a while, E.T. begins to move into this trance-like state where he says, "E.T.E. phone home. E.T.E. phone home." And Elliot just doesn't know how to make him any better. And so E.T. gets together this funny little tin can and an 80s bit of technology called a speaking spell. And he tries to pack together this communication device in order to call back home. And yet he gets sicker and sicker and sicker. But he was always saying, "E.T.E. phone home." I tell you what I've put it. I've said it before. It's the gospel according to E.T. Anyone who's a Christian realizes that they're an extraterrestrial. They realize that this world's not our true home, guys. The very fact that Jesus was constantly praying to a god and a father in another world shows us that. In fact, 1 Peter 2.11 says that, "Dear friends, as aliens and strangers of the world, as E.T.E.s," he's saying, "You're not meant for here. And so we're always falling ill to the effects of being outside the home for which you were created for." And so our greater problem, our greater problem, guys, is that we need, like E.T., some form of device like the speaking spell to communicate beyond the sphere of this world. For the home that we're meant for, Romans 8.34 gives us that. It says, "Christ Jesus, who died more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." You know what Romans 8.34 is saying? That says, "Interceding for us." Saying tonight, "Jesus Christ is your speaking spell tin can." It's saying that, right now, He's praying for you. That Jesus is your communication link back home. It's a wonder and mystery of prayer and that through Him, you can call back to that home for which you were built. Guys, and so if you're wondering, right now, if there's someone here tonight going, "I wonder, I wonder how, I wonder if I should be a Christian." Look, let me put it to you this way. If there is something deep within you that knows that you're not made for here, that there's got to feel like there's something more, that there is a God or something or someone that you just need to cry out to in a moment of crisis or in a moment of thinking or wonder the world, if you can answer yes to that, then here's what you need to do. Phone home. Say a prayer tonight. Ask Jesus Christ in your life. Establish that communication link with the God that you're created, the One who's put you here in the first place. It's what Jesus was modeling all the time in praying out aloud to His Father in front of His friends that are disciples. And friend tonight, if you're a Christian, look, I just want to say tonight, can you and I rediscover the priority of prayer in Jesus' life? I mean, His ministry began with prayer when His baptized. His ministry ended with prayer when at the cross He said, "Father, forgive them." They know not what they do. It spanned His entire life. And tonight it begs the question, if it was such a priority in the life of Jesus, why isn't more of a priority in our lives? And I say that not to condemn or to guilt you into it. It's because it's something God's been challenging me with this week. Why isn't it more of a priority? Is your posture out? You're always asking God for things all the time. Is the posture of prayer out? Do you need some more praised prayer and not a petitionary prayer? Oh, guys, I mean this with all sincerity and genuineness. Or is there some sense of, I guess, arrogance or lack of spiritual insight in your life this week? That brings you to a point where you go, "You know what, like Robert Williams, it'd be great if that stuff works, but I don't need it." That's what God is challenging me with this week, is that if God Himself and the person of Jesus prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed, then it must mean that there's something in that for all of us. You know, what could I do to pray to Jesus as a prayed? Study the life of Jesus this week. One gospel, skim read it, see what He did as a pastor over in the States last year said also, "Don't underestimate the power of one hour." There's one hour, not nine, that you could devote to prayer in your life this week. Why? Because, guys, look, if anything like my heart, I know our heart of our community here. If we want God to shake the walls of this place with His presence, if we want God to move into friends life and family members life and young people's lives and turn this world upside down, it's probably not going to happen if we sing a little bit sweeter next week. It's probably not going to happen if I get all revved up more energetic and I preach a little harder next week. It's probably not going to happen if we decide just to serve a little longer or harder next week, but it's going to happen if we as individuals in a community like Jesus decided to pray.