sermon september 29 2013.pdf

7/27/2019 sermon September 29 2013.pdf

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Today is the fourth Sunday of a six week sermon series called, “Delighting in the

Divine.” This is a series on prayer. The aim of this series is for all of us to go deeper in our

prayer life, that is to take a step forward or even a leap forward in our prayer relationship with

God.

There is a lot at stake in this series. Ultimately we’re confronting the question, “why do

we pray?” A lot of reasons. But the main reason is to grow in love for God. As disciples we

want to be passionate in our love for God — so we pray.

After worship today I’m going to lead a disciples at Chain of Lakes group over at the

Lovell Buidling. In the group I’m going to talk about how I want each of us to become the

person God desires for us to be. We do this from the inside out — we let the Holy Spirit work in

us and come out of us. When people encounter us they say there is something different about us.

We have a sense of joy and purpose and direction. We know who we are following and we

know our identity in Christ. Because of our faith we’re making a deep impact.

To become that person we have to go deeper in our prayer life. We’re not called to be

stagnant. Faith is not having a tiny belief and trying to be a moral person and maybe putting in

our time on Sunday if it’s convenient to us. Faith is a 24/7 proposition.

So we pray — to grow in our love for God.

Why do we pray — to grow in our love for God. Let me ask you that again. Why do we

pray? To grow in our love for God. ………..

I can’t imagine anything more important than our prayer life.

Because this is important we’re sharing all sorts of resources with you.

One resource is this brochure. I want to encourage you to get it out. In this resource is a

devotion. This week in the devotion I shared six different ways to pray. .



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SLIDE

Monday — Breath prayerTuesday —It’s all yours

Wednesday — Prayer of Desperation

Thursday — Prayer walkFriday — Lectio DivinaSaturday — Intercessory Prayer

I want to ask you this. Could all of us pledge to pray like this during the week. I think it

would be cool to know that everyone at Chain of Lakes is doing a breath prayer on Monday, that

we’re all doing the “it’s all yours” prayer on Tuesday. Would you make that commitment?

Second resource I want to share is the best books on prayer

Four books

1. The Bible —full of prayers. On October 13 I’m going to share a listing of many prayers in the

Bible with you

SLIDE 2. Soul Feast by Marjorie Thompson. The sub-title is “An Invitation to the

Christian Spiritual Life” This book is about different spiritual practices. Excellent chapter on

prayer

SLIDE 3. Prayer by Richard Foster. The sub-title is “Finding the Heart’s True Home.”

Came out in 1992. Wonderful book that shares many different ways to pray. Today’s sermon

was influenced by the book

SLIDE 4. Prayer by Philip Yancey. The sub-title is Does it make any difference. This is

the best book on prayer that I’ve ever read. He takes a hard look at prayer and asks the hard

questions. Then he provides the answers. Sometimes the answer is I don’t know. It’s the most

honest book I’ve read.



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A third resource is our prayer group. The group gathered to pray yesterday. It was

disappointing that only three of us came. The group is led by Kristel Peters and Heather

Butterfield. They are gathering again on October 12.

Why do we pray — to grow in our love for God

One important point I’m communicating in this series is the importance of spending time with

God.

Jascha Heifitz was one of the greatest violinists who ever lived. I grew up playing the

violin. When I heard him play I was like “wow.” As a teenager listening to him play the violin

was like watching Harmon Killebrew hit a 450 home run in old Met Stadium or seeing Fran

Tarkenton go on a scramble.

Jascha Hefitiz said this about practicing:

SLIDE If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the

public knows it. (Jascha Heifitz)

I think we can apply this idea to prayer.

SLIDE If I don’t pray today, I know it; if I don’t pray for two days, my family notices; if

I don’t pray for three days everyone notices.

We eat two or three meals a day for our physical nourishment. We spend time with God

each day for our spiritual nourishment. If we don’t eat we eventually starve; if we don’t pr ay we

eventually spiritually starve. If we don’t pray the light of our own love diminishes.

Today I’m sharing a practical sermon— seven ways to pray.

First method of prayer doesn’t take a lot of time. Breath prayer. A breath prayer is when

we breathe in or breathe out a phrase about God. We pray the phrase every time we breathe.

We’re going to pray the breath prayer tomorrow.



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Let’s practice a breath prayer right now. Let’s use the 23rd psalm.

SLIDE The Lord is my Shepherd. Say that.

Now let’s pray it. Close your eyes.

Breathe in and breathe out.

As you breathe in pray, “the Lord is my shepherd.” You don’t have to say the words out

loud. Pray them. Let’s do this for 15 seconds. Breathe in “The Lord is My Shepherd” Breathe

out.

WHY WOULD WE DO A BREATH PRAYER — TO GROW IN OUR LOVE FOR GOD

A second method of prayer is the Prompting prayer. When we hear or see something that

prompts us to pray.

On Monday night Amy, Hannah and I went to the Twins game. Watching the Twins

should prompt prayer.

When we go to Target Field we always park in the same place. We have about a ten

block walk to Target Field. As we were walking to Target Field an ambulance came by. When

Amy saw the ambulance she did the sign of the cross.

That is a prompting prayer. When she sees an ambulance she does the sign of the cross.

The sign of the cross is a form of prayer. You don’t have to do the sign of the cross. If

you saw an ambulance you could pray for the situation.

You could be prompted by something else.

Everytime you hear an airplane —“Lord, thank you for this glorious world”

Everytime you see the color orange —“Lord, you are marvelous” At the start of every hour set an alarm, “Lord be present to me during this hour.”

You can decide your own prompt.

WHY WOULD WE DO A PROMPTING PRAYER?



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Breath prayer and prompting prayer take hardly anytime.

Format of prayer.

Third —we’ve taught you the ACTS method.

SLIDE

A — Adoration —this is when we praise God for a quality of God’s— Lord we praise you for your

steadfast loveC — Confession —we acknowledge particular sins. If we can’t think of a sin, then we can confess

pride.

T — Thanksgiving — we give thanks for something.

S — supplication or petition. We pray for something specifically

WHY WOULD WE PRAY USING THE ACTS METHOD — TO GROW IN OUR LOVE FOR

GOD

Another acronym that I’ve shared is PPL

SLIDE

P — Praise

P — petition

L — let go. Say the Doxology to the Lord’s prayer and conclude by praying, “It’s all yours.”

WHY WOULD WE PRAY USING THE PPL METHOD — TO GROW …

You can take either of these formats and pray them.

Let me review.

First way to pray is the breath prayer

Second way to pray is the prompting prayer

Third way to pray is ACTSFour way to pray is PPL

A fifth way to pray is to use a prayer sheet. A prayer sheet is a way to organize your own

prayers. You can use an existing prayer sheet or make up your own

I’ve developed my own prayer sheet. I’ve used it for a long time— maybe seven or eight

years.

SLIDE This is what mine looks like. I fill this prayer sheet out every day

Date:



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Prayer focus for the week:

Praises for God:

Thanks:

Sins I confess/personal issues of growth I am working:

Family

People in the church and the world:

Decisions that I’m making:

Particular ministries in the church:

Places in the world:

Petitions:

My day today:

WHY WOULD WE USE A PRAYER SHEET? TO GROW IN OUR LOVE FOR GOD

A sixth way to pray is to write out our prayers. We might be inspired as we’re reading

Scripture to write a prayer. Many people have beautiful journals called prayer journals in which

they write their prayers. Their written prayers are really prompted by the Spirit. Sometimes our

written prayers reflect our heart.

Many of you have shared with me that a significant obstacle to your own prayer life is

distractions. You sit down to pray and your mind is going a thousand miles a hour. You finish

your prayer time and it feels like you haven’t really talked to God—all you’ve done is focus on

the thoughts in your own mind. Or there is noise in our residence and it’s hard to focus on God.

Who has issues with distractions in your prayers?

One way to deal with distractions is not to focus on our mind, but instead to focus on our

breath.

Just focus on our breath. Breathe in and breathe out.



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Try that with me. Close your eyes and breathe in and out. Let’s do this for 15 seconds

Focusing on our breath can slow our mind down.

Another way to deal with distractions is to let the distractions become our prayer. If our

racing mind will not stop racing, let our racing mind become our prayer. Lift whatever our mind

is focusing on to God as a prayer. In that way we’re not fighting our racing mind, we’re going

with it.

Another distraction we can experience is the noise in our own house. Who has had this

happen. We’re praying and a baby starts crying or a car zooms by or we hear someone from our

family walking around. Let the distraction be our prayer. Pray for the distraction. In this way

we’re not fighting the distraction, but instead work ing with the distraction.

Sometimes we can ask God, “what are you saying to us through the distraction?”

Richard Foster shared the story of how he was leading a worship service in a home on a

hot summer evening. He was encouraging everyone to “wait on the Lord” through silence. The

stillness of the moment was interrupted by the homeowner’s cat scratching at the screen door.

RF shared that

SLIDE

The more I tried to ignore the cat, the worse it got. I prayed that God wuold do something — send

the cat away, magically open the door, and other more drastic prayers that I shall not mention,since you may have a fondness for cats. Page 86

He went on to write

“Strangely, it never occurred to me to get up and let the cat in!”

Later someone mentioned the cat. Many people mentioned how distracting the cat had been in

their ability to focus on God. Then Bill spoke up.

“I was just wondering what God wanted to say to us through the cat.”



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What is God saying to us through the distractions

A seventh way to pray is to pray for a long period of time. Try praying for a half hour or

a hour or maybe even more.

If this seems impossible let me give a way to do this.

A long time ago I was listening to a radio show on NPR and a man shared that everyone

who is alive should watch the sunset every day for thirty minutes for thirty days. What a

beautiful spiritual discipline. Just find a place to watch the sunset and spend thirty minutes

observing what is happening. Just watch.

Many of us are working when the sun is setting. I get that. Some of us are not. Some of

us have the time to watch the sun set. If watching the sun set doesn’t work, watch the sun rise.

You could set up a chair on our property and watch the sun rise in the east. Put your chair at the

Community Gardens and watch the sun rise for thirty minutes. That is prayer.

Maybe we all can’t do that. We can take the idea and apply it to praying for a longer

period of time. Just sit still for thirty minutes. Start out with some breath prayers to slow our

mind down. If that doesn’t work allow our mind to be our prayer. Just pray.

What do we do for thirty minutes. Try one of these methods.

Breath prayer, go through the ACTS method, try the PPL method. In the devotion I taught you

about Lectio Divina. What a delight

WHY WOULD WE PRAY FOR A LONG PERIOD OF TIME —TO GROW IN …

SLIDE

Seven methods1. Breath prayer

2. Prompting prayer

3. ACTS

4. PPL5. Prayer Sheet



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6. Write out our prayers

7. Pray for a long period of time — 30 minutes or longerThese are methods. They are means to a wider end of abiding intentionally with God.

Let me close with this story that was at the beginning of Richard Foster’s book on prayer

SLIDE

“One day a friend of mine was walking through a shopping mall with his two-year-old son. The

son was in a particularly cantankerous mood, fussing and fuming. The frustrated father triedeverything to quiet his son, but nothing seemed to help. The child simply would not obey. Then,

under some special inspiration, the father scooped up his son and , holding him close to his chest,

began singing an impromptu love song. None of the words rhymed. He sang off key. And yet,

as best he could, this father began sharing his heart. “I love you,” he sang. “I’m so glad you’remy boy. You make me happy. I like the way you laugh.”

SLIDEOn they went from one store to the next. Quietly the father continued singing off key and

making up words that did not rhyme. The child relaxed and became still, listening to this strange

and wonderful song. Finally, they finished shopping and went to the car. As the father openedthe door and prepared to buckle his son into the carseat, the child lifted his head and said,

“simply, “sing it to me again, Daddy! Sing it to me again!”

This is what God wants from us. To abide in God we are letting God sing to us how

much God loves us. When we pray we are like a little boy shouting to God, “sing your love to

me again. Sing your love to me again.”

sermon september 29 2013.pdf

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