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:: A Call to Prayer

1/18/12 – HS

I told you I would share a bit of what God taught me while on Sabbatical and one of those areas He really pushed in to my heart was regarding my communication with Him.  We know this as prayer.  Here’s the short story – I really enjoy reading the Bible.  In fact, I really enjoy reading the Bible and all kinds of other Christian books and books on ministry.  And I would rather read than pray.  And so even though I’ve always been consistent in meeting the Lord in the mornings, a lot of my time with Him centered around reading His Word.  Not bad, I guess, other than this tug on my heart to pray – and pray more.

I’ll be honest – it is always awkward to teach on prayer.  First, because I don’t feel all that confident – not even like I could teach as an “expert” but that I have so much room to grow in this area that I don’t feel all that confident teaching on it.  And if I had to guess, most of you may say the same thing.  Because we know the Bible has a lot to say about prayer and we know we should be praying – but I would guess most of you are frustrated that you don’t pray enough.  Or even at all.  Am I right?

And so know my heart – I’m not up here to tell you what the Bible says and then try to put a guilt trip on you to pray more.  Because chances are you know what it says, you’ve been coming to church, you’ve known that you are to pray, and yet you’re probably frustrated on some level about your prayer life.

So let me tell you what God has been teaching me.  And in doing so, hopefully you will have a shift in your thinking when it comes to prayer.  Now I can’t really do that.  As always, my goal is simply to present God’s Word as truth and then you have a decision to make.  But I’m always praying that the Holy Spirit will do a great work here in our high school ministry.

I think there are really three categories when it comes to praying.
1.  Duty
Chances are most of you view prayer as something you need to do or half to do.  And to a degree that is true, right?  But what I’ve learned is that there isn’t much joy in duty.  Think of it this way.  I love my wife.  But what if my response was – “Hi honey I’m home (because that is the right thing to say) and come here so I can kiss you (because that is what all good husbands are supposed to do) and please tell me about your day (because I really am not that interested but I know I’m supposed to ask).  How successful to you think our relationship would be?  How many would see that and go, “Wow, there’s some real love going on in that marriage there.  I hope to have that one day.”

Let me throw out a question and hear your responses.  Do you think God would rather us pray out of duty or not pray at all?  Now that may seem like a bit of a trick question and at times I think I have not really known the right answer.  Years ago I would have probably said “Duty”.  But I stand here today and would actually say that I believe God would rather us not pray at all, than to simply pray out of duty.  Why would I say that?  1 Samuel 16:7, “The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Motives matter to God.  In fact, they matter greatly.  So then the question becomes, “How do I get the right motives?”  Good – we are going to get to that one after the next category.

2.  Discipline
That word scares most of us unless you are type-A, hard-charging personalities that actually enjoy discipline.  Now let me say from the start that I want to be careful with this category because obviously discipline is not a bad thing.  But I do want to show how in prayer it isn’t the best thing.

You guys know that I love to run.  And when I say I love to run – I really mean it.  I look forward to getting home, grabbing my iPod, lacing up my shoes and pounding the pavement.  Some days I don’t want to run, but I do it anyway.  That’s discipline and usually discipline in a good way.  But here’s what I know – I couldn’t run consistently just for the sake of discipline.  I don’t think discipline could sustain my running habit.

Have you ever been to a gym in January?  It’s the worst time for any gym or health club.  When I used to work out at Premier regularly, I hated January.  Why?  Because that is when everybody got on their health kick for New Years.  Waiting for a machine or the weights was horrible.  It was crowded, but here is what I always knew.  February was coming… and it would die down.  Most people’s discipline didn’t last beyond a month.  It couldn’t sustain them as a motivating factor for trying to lose weight or get healthy.

3.  Delight
So my hope is to try to move us away from duty or discipline and into delight. Because I think the best motivator out there isn’t duty or discipline, but rather it’s delight. If you delight in something, you will be far more apt to be disciplined at something rather than just trying to create discipline in your life in the hope that it will bring about delight. If you love something, if you love doing something, you’re much more apt to do it and actually build things into your life that enable and empower it. If you don’t delight in it, then regardless of what kind of discipline you put in place, you’re going to stumble, fall, fail and eventually give up.

I love coming home from work.  I open the door and hear “Daddy… Daddy (echo)” and then my two little boys in a full-on sprint around the corner to get to me.  They jump into my arms because they have been waiting all day for me to get home.  For a dad, there is no greater feeling in the world.  Now think this through with me.  As much as I love my three boys – none of them has ever perfectly pleased me.   There hasn’t been a single day when any of them haven’t sinned or failed to keep our rules (much less God’s rules) perfectly.  Yet, when I come home, they come running.  They still love me and want to hang with me despite their failures and shortcomings.  Why?  Because even though there are times that I can hurt them, say an ugly word to them or times that I have to discipline them – they know that I love them.  I delight in them.  I ask them every night when I tuck them in “How much does Daddy love you?”  Cole always says, “As high as the moon.”  Then I say, “Will Daddy always love you?”  Yes.  “When you are good?”  Yes.  “What if you are bad?”  Yes, Daddy, you will always love us.

The main issue in our prayerlessness is we have a problem believing and grasping that God likes us, enjoys us and delights in us. I don’t think we have any problem at all with the big idea that God loves us.  You’ve been singing, “Jesus loves me this I know” since you were little.   But if I pushed in to the depths of your heart, I bet you struggle with the truth that God delights in you, rejoices in you and loves you.  I think this is where some of you find yourself with Jesus.  You love the idea that Jesus loves you, but you don’t love Jesus.  You have a lot of head knowledge but very little heart transformation.  And God cares about your heart.  Jesus wants to transform your heart.  Give you new desires and a new delight.

Matthew 11:28 is a well known text and in it Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  This is an uncommon invitation. Jesus Christ says, “Hey, if you’re exhausted, if you’re bitter, if you’re lonely, if you’re angry, if you struggle, come here.” What an invitation!

Now, you’ve got to hear this invitation as it relates to prayer. Because the invitation isn’t, “Start doing what’s right.” The invitation is, “Come to Me. You’re not doing what’s right.” So the solution to our need – what weighs heavy on us and what exhausts us is not us trying harder at overcoming those things, but it’s rather us coming to Jesus, walking with Jesus, being in a relationship with Jesus that overpowers our affections.

I think it’s really important for you to dial in and understand that, when it comes to prayer – the answer isn’t to will yourself to prayer harder and not struggle in prayer anymore.  Because if that worked, you would have done that already.  So we have to start with delight.  We have to believe that Jesus is more lovely than anything else we can give our time, energy or attention to.  He is worth chasing after and communicating with because of who He is and the joy He brings to our lives.  And then as Jesus becomes greater and more magnificent in your life… as He becomes your greatest delight and love, your communication will follow your heart.  As Jesus becomes more spectacular, why would you choose a lesser joy over a greater joy?  Your prayers will reflect your desires – they will become a delight.

My heart for you, for me and for us as a high school ministry is that understanding the delight God has in us based and built on Jesus Christ would lead us to boldly approach Him in prayer.  That our lives and this ministry would be known by our fervency and devotion to prayer.  And my hope is that we might join God in where He is working – for that is where we will find our greatest delight and He will receive the most glory.