Conflicted Views

Quite a few of you who read this blog know that I am part of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  This particular church body has been known by this name for around a century and a half in the United States.  It's a church body that strives for an accurate understanding of the truths of the Bible, and then works toward a common practice in bringing that understanding to bear into the world we live in.

As you read that paragraph, you may realize that there is an impossible task that the church body has taken upon itself.  I said that the body strives for an accurate understanding of the truths of the Bible, a word which we call "doctrine."  We aim to arrive at a common understanding of the truths that God gives to us in the Bible.  That alone is a task that simply cannot be accomplished while we still live in this world.  Not only do we believe the teaching (the doctrine) that declares that we are all sinful, and therefore unable to have perfect understanding of the things of God, but we also recognize that not everyone understands the meaning of various parts of the Bible in the same way.  We already find ourselves with an impossible task of discerning those meanings and then coming to agreement on them.

Then, we add another impossible task to the challenge.  We take that group of teachings (doctrines) that we cannot ever fully agree upon, and then we try to apply them into the way we minister to a sinful, hurting world.  This is the "practice" of the ministry of God's Word to the world.  We realize that every pastor and every Christian and every congregation faces unique challenges, even as we also realize that there are challenges that are common to all.  And so, when we work to apply a group of teachings (doctrines) to situations that vary widely (practice), we often find ourselves at disagreement about the right and proper thing to do.

It's a distressing situation, and one that the church body has worked on together for a long time.  It's also a struggle that we would be wise to admit will never come to an end.  Until Jesus reappears and unites all believers into the one holy, perfect, pure Body of Christ in the new creation, we simply cannot arrive at a place of perfect agreement, either on the doctrines or the practices.  We may find that we actually share a great deal in common with one another, but we shouldn't be surprised when we find that we still don't always fully arrive at the same place.

Some of you who read this may not be part of this particular church body.  Shoot, some of you may not even be Christian by your faith.  I don't write this blog entry up as an apology for anything, but simply to shine some light upon things that you may come across in the news, or in various online forums.  It saddens me that the church body I am part of only seems to get national press when negative events come up.  We actually do agree on a significant portion of our teachings (doctrines) and their applications (practices).  We actually do engage in many ventures to share God's grace and mercy with a sinful, hurting world, and seek to speak God's truth into those situations.  We do so knowing that we won't get it perfect, but resting in God's forgiveness through Jesus, and looking to share that same forgiveness into the lives of those we minister to. 

I heard a wise person once say that if you are looking for the perfect church home, you better get used to disappointment.  There is no such thing in this world.  Thankfully, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we have a connection that will one day come to its full realization, where we will then live forever in that perfect church home.  Until then, we're going to fumble and stumble along the way, and fully relying on God's gift of forgiveness through Jesus.

February 27 Sermon

Here is the sermon from Wednesday, February 27.

Awake at Night

In one pocket, you’ve got 3 nickels.  In the other pocket, you’ve got 3 $100 bills.  At some point in the day, you reach your hands down into your pockets and discover something unsettling.  Both pockets are empty.  There’s a sudden tightness in your chest, and your stomach feels like it’s falling through the floor.  When you lay down to go to sleep that night, you know you’re going to be thinking about what happened all night.  You won’t just be able to get it out of your head.

But which one is the one that’s giving you the sleepless night?  Are you going to lay awake all night wondering who just made themselves 15 cents richer that day?  Are you really going to lose sleep over three lost nickels?  While there may be a few of us here that might venture to say yes, I would dare say that most of us would lose far more sleep over the three lost $100 bills.  That’s a much larger chunk of change.  We probably have more plans for that $300 than we do for that extra 15 cents.  One of these two is going to cause us more sleepless nights than the other, and it’s probably not the smaller of the two.

Think of this scenario, too.  You lay down to go to sleep at night.  You are perfectly at peace with how your life is going.  You haven’t had any big issues come up, and there are no major decisions on the horizon that you have to make.  How likely are you to lay awake all night, wondering about how long that peace will last?  Aren’t you much more likely to just close your eyes and get a good night of rest?  Don’t you tend to find that you stay awake at night more often when there are significant, major decisions that need to be made?  

We don’t often lose sleep over the little things in life, or when our minds are at peace with the world around us.  We’re much more likely to lose a little sleep when we face a major decision in life, or when we’ve lost something big in our lives.  The little things just don’t seem to affect us as much as the big things.  We may need to think about the little things from time to time, but by and large, we’re probably not going to find ourselves lying awake at night, wondering how we will make do without that extra 15 cents, or worrying about why the world seems to be bringing us peace at that particular moment.

Today, we heard a story of Jesus staying awake all night.  It was fairly early in His ministry.  He had been baptized by His cousin John.  He had been tempted by the devil in the desert.  He had called a few followers to follow Him and to be His disciples.  He had begun healing and teaching.  Things seemed to be proceeding along just fine.

But then, here in chapter 6 of Luke’s account of the Gospel life of Jesus, we’re told that Jesus encountered a night that He spent staying awake.  He was up all night, praying to God.  And then, as He finished up that sleepless night of prayer, He went down from the mountain, called His disciples to Him, and named 12 of them as apostles.  The way that Luke writes it, it doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal.  We’ve heard the stories about these men a few times before.  It doesn’t seem all that remarkable that Jesus would need to spend all night in prayer just prior to naming these twelve as His apostles.

But let’s focus for a moment on just how big of a moment this really was in the life of the Gospel.  In naming these twelve as apostles, Jesus was actually making a pretty significant choice.  These were the men who would be entrusted with the leadership and spreading of the Good News of His life, death, and resurrection once Jesus had ascended into heaven.  The sharing of this message of good news would affect the eternal destiny of untold numbers of people, not only during their lifetime, but in the years to follow.  This small group of men would be the starting point of a message that would spread to the ends of the earth, and would eternally affect every person born in this world.  Not exactly a small decision, when we think about it like that.

On top of that, think about some of these names that we see Jesus choosing as His apostles.  We’re familiar with some of them, and others are a little less well known.  But as we peruse those names, think about the last one on the list I read to you.  Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.  In picking these twelve men, Jesus was not only choosing those who would change the world with the message of Good News, He was also choosing the one who would initiate the whole thing.  Judas would act in a way that would bring Jesus more suffering than we could ever imagine.  Jesus knew this at the time of this choosing.  In fact, Jesus knew these names and what would happen with them even from before the time the world was made.  These men had been set aside for their tasks even before the act of creation took place.  And yet, the task that they faced was so large that Jesus took the whole night before naming them as His apostles to speak to the Father in prayer.

Jesus did what came naturally.  You and I, when we face major decisions, may face a sleepless night, but we have a tendency to approach it differently than Jesus did.  We think about what we have to do, or even, perhaps, what might go wrong if we decide wrong.  Our focus tends to be on our actions, on what we will do, and on how it will reflect on us.  That’s what tends to come naturally to us.  But for Jesus, the thing that comes naturally is to talk to the Father about it.  Even if it means that He loses a night of sleep, He talks to His Father before making the monumental choices and decisions.

Jesus seeks out the will of the Father when it comes to the big decisions and choices of life.  That’s something that you and I also make a regular part of our prayer life, even if we tend to do it without thinking about it.  As we think about the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples, one that we continue to speak still today, we reflect upon one little phrase in that prayer.  “Thy will be done.”  In fact, please turn with me to page 324 in the hymnal, and let’s read the meaning of this all together.  “Thy will be done on heaven as it is on earth.  What does this mean?  The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayers, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.  How is God’s will done?  God’s will is done when He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die.  This is His good and gracious will.”

God’s will is done even without our prayers.  That’s a good thing.  I mentioned a moment ago that we’re more likely to focus on our role and part in things that keep us awake at night.  We worry about the role that we play, and whether or not we’re going to do the right thing or make the right choice.  And as we worry about such things, it becomes easy to forget to ask God to do His good and gracious will in these things.  We get so caught up on ourselves that we forget that God might also be working through these things to accomplish something.

God’s will is going to happen.  Even when we think that we bear the full weight and responsibility of our choices and decisions, and when these things keep us up all night, we need the reminder that God’s will is going to happen.  God is going to be at work, and it’s not like He’ll only work if we happen to choose the right thing.  Regardless of the path that we choose to go down, God is going to be at work, bringing His will to bear.  

Now, I know how we also think as humans.  Admit it, there’s a part of you that likes it when someone else makes the big decision.  In a way, that takes the pressure off of us, right?  If it blows up, isn’t it nice when we can point to someone else and say that it was their problem, or their doing?  My hands are clean in this.  It isn’t my fault.  And we might even want to think that as we think about God’s will in the major choices and decisions we make in life.  “If God’s will is going to be done regardless of what I do, then it isn’t my responsibility.  God is to blame if it doesn’t work out, or if I fail to plan out responsibly, or if I don’t think things through well.”

My friends, God is going to work out His will.  But that doesn’t excuse us from thinking things through, or from planning responsibly.  Even though we have the assurance that God will work out His will, we don’t just sit on our hands and let God cover up for our lack of planning or thought.  God has still given responsibility to us in this world.  Or, think of it from this angle.  God knew who those 12 apostles would be even before He created the world.  Jesus still had to go down there and name them before God.  They didn’t get some voice from heaven telling them that they were apostles.  Jesus still had to go down there and choose them.

Yes, God’s will is going to be done.  On our part, God still desires for us to be responsible in planning things out and thinking things through.  And that’s actually intended to be a comforting thing to us.  It helps us know that God is going to be working through what we do and plan and choose.  It helps to be thoughtful and well prepared.  But that also doesn’t assure us that God is going to do what we plan.  Our best laid plans may actually be contrary to God’s will, and even if that happens to be the case, God is still going to work to bring His will to pass.  And the other side of that coin is also true.  If we have overlooked something, or not taken something into account, God will still bring His will to pass despite our limitation and shortfall.  That’s to be a comfort to us, even as we are encouraged to give thought and planning to it all.

Jesus spent the night in prayer before making the rather large choice of who would be His apostles.  Jesus did what came naturally, and in doing that, He also shows us a pretty good idea of what we would be wise to do when we come across those nights where we are awake at night.  Talk to the Father in prayer.  If it’s a choice that must be made, bring it to the Father, and ask for Him to guide you in the way that will best bring about His will.  If it’s something that’s bothering you, ask the Father what you can do that would fit in best with His will to bring the issue to resolution.  If you’ve lost $300 from your pocket, as for the Father’s wisdom in how you handle the situation and get through, and maybe even ask Him to accomplish His will in the life of the person or people who suddenly found themselves a bit wealthier.  

Jesus spent that night in prayer, and then made the choices that would change the eternal destiny of countless people in this world, you and I included.  Jesus picked those who would bring the message of the Good News of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to you.  God’s will would be done in the rescuing of humanity from sin, death, and the devil.  Even as Jesus was awake all night, praying, He was planning how God’s will would reach all the way to you with that message of Good News.  God’s will has been done in your life.  You have been given the benefits of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  His night in prayer was not spent in vain, and you are living proof of that.

Last week, I tossed out the challenge to take some quiet time with God each day of the past week.  I hope that you found the time to engage in such an exercise, and that it went well for you.  I find that I can’t really bring a similar challenge to you this week.  If I did, it would have been along the lines of, stay up all night and spend the whole night praying for God’s will to be done.  But I can tell you how I would have responded to a challenge like that, and your response probably wouldn’t have been all that different from mine.  So what I offer you this week is more of a suggestion.  The next time you find yourself awake at night, with something racing through your mind, why not do what Jesus found so natural to do?  Take it to the Father in prayer.  Ask Him to bring His will about, and be reassured that He will do so, no matter what it might be that you are facing.  If you’re going to be awake at night thinking about it, why not bring it before your Father, and ask Him to accomplish His will in the situation?  I won’t guarantee that you’ll suddenly find peace, but I can tell you that God will indeed accomplish His will, and that you will very likely get to see it as events unfold.  And don’t be surprised when God’s will ends up looking differently from what you expected.  Give thanks that God isn’t bound by our planning and the things we ask for.  

Sermon for February 24

Here is the sermon from February 24.  The text upon which it is based is Luke 13:31-35.

February 24, 2013

Prepare Our Ears: Listening To Jesus

They were a really wonderful couple.  Both had winning smiles, friendly personalities, and were just really likeable.  They were the kind of people that you could sit down with and talk about things for hours.  Both were rather popular, and had good work ethics.  You could tell that they really thought about things when you would talk with them, and even though they might not arrive at the conclusions that you had hoped, it only seemed to make you feel that much more protective about them.

And yet, as you spent time with them, you could also see that not everything was wonderful in their lives.  Just like any other couple, they had their challenges and difficulties when it came to sharing a life.  The only problem was, they didn’t really seem to have the tools to work together on those challenges and difficulties.  There were things that each one saw in the other that they wished were different, but it just seemed like they didn’t have the courage to talk about those things with each other.  That still didn’t change the fact that they were likeable and friendly.  But you could see the strained lines in their smiles at times.  You could hear that hurt in their voices when they would touch upon the things that they didn’t talk about as a couple.

They were the kind of people that you opened your heart to, and that wormed their way in so easily.  And so it was, when they started coming around less frequently, you knew something was wrong.  When you would try to get one or the other to talk about it, you could feel the heartache in their voices as they would try to change the subject, and your heart would just ache for the pain that they each were feeling.  You wished that you could help them through the difficult times, but when you would attempt to help, they would change the subject fairly quickly.  You could tell that there were some raw wounds there, and neither of them was really ready to open them up, clean them out, and let the healing begin.

They wormed their way into your heart.  You felt the ache for them.  And one day, that ache reached a peak when one of them talked to you.  “It’s all over.  We just can’t make it work anymore.”  And you knew that their hearts were breaking, but yours was hurting almost as much.  They were like family.  You wanted nothing more than to sit down with them, to bring healing into their lives, especially in their relationship with each other, but they just didn’t seem to be willing to do it.  In their eyes, another way seemed better, even though that other way would be just as painful.  And your heart ached for them as they went on down the path they had chosen, hurting, and your heart hurt right along with them.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”  Do you hear the heartache there?  Do you hear the pain of knowing that Jesus wanted nothing more than to bring healing to His people, and yet, they had rejected God’s way in order to go down the path that they thought would be the best one?  For centuries, God had been calling out to His people.  “Let me show you what it really means to be my people.”  And for centuries, those same people had failed to listen to God’s voice, and had been going the way that seemed best to them.

The heartache of Jesus that we hear today in our Bible reading from Luke 13 isn’t new.  It stretches all the way back to the very beginning.  In the third chapter of the Bible, we already see that heartache and compassion of God toward His human creation.  Adam and Eve had decided to follow their own hearts and minds rather than live as God had outlined.  And then we are told that they tried to hide from God.  As God came walking in the garden looking for them, we have the first cry of heartache from God.  “Where are you?”  The man and the woman weren’t eagerly waiting to spend time with their Creator.  God knew exactly where they were.  They weren’t hiding from Him.  But their first indicator that God was experiencing heartache came as He had to ask the question.  “Where are you?”

And that refrain continued through the centuries.  God wanted to send a man by the name of Jonah to a foreign city, where God knew that His grace would be received, and Jonah decided that he didn’t like the way that God was pointing.  And so God ended up having to call Jonah to repentance and faith, just like He did the people of Nineveh, who ironically repented much quicker than Jonah, one of God’s own people.  And then, as the people of the nation of Judah were being conquered and marched off into exile for their failure to hear God’s compassionate cry to return to Him, He still spoke out to them.  Jeremiah’s message would often be, “Return to me.”  And Ezekiel, living at about the same time, would spell it out even more powerfully.  “I don’t desire the death of anyone who walks away from Me, but I would much rather they return and receive the life that I have created for them.”

These are just a few examples of the heartache of God as His heart ached.  His people were hurting, and God wanted to make things right.  The only problem was, they kept going down roads that brought even more pain and heartache to their lives.  They couldn’t bring themselves to believe that God’s design and will were much better than their own thoughts and ideas.  And so they wandered, and wandered, encountering heartache and pain, all of which was also found in God’s heart.

Compassion has a price.  As you get into the lives of others, and you see the places where they are hurting, your heart cannot help but hurt along with them.  Compassion has a price.  You can’t stand idly by and be unaffected when they worm their way into your heart.  Compassion has a price.  When you want to help them to make things better, your heart is going to go through the same aches and pains as theirs, perhaps not as intensely as theirs, but when you are truly compassionate with them, you cannot help but feel some of the ache and pain.

Compassion has a price.  It’s a heart that not only aches and shares their pain, it’s one that does so willingly, and knowingly.  Compassion has a price.  And no one knows that any better than our God and Lord, Jesus.  Compassion has a price.  And Jesus didn’t only share in the heartache and pain that His people endured.  Jesus would see the price, and know that it was so much more than any of His people realized (including you and me), and Jesus would march forth willingly to pay that price.

Compassion has a price.  For Jesus, it wasn’t only sharing our heartache and pain, it involved taking our heartache and pain upon Himself.  It involved bearing the brunt of the pain and suffering that our heartache and pain causes, even including the physical beating that it brings about.  It involved the shedding of His lifeblood, all to do what was right for His people.  All to show God’s compassion toward His human creation.  

Compassion has a price, and Jesus willingly paid that price to its maximum.  And as Jesus did that, He didn’t do it only for the city of Jerusalem.  The price of compassion is one that stretches all the way back to the man and the woman in the garden, and stretches all the way forward to the day when Jesus reappears.  The price of compassion reaches from the city of Jerusalem all the way to the ends of the earth.  The price of compassion that Jesus paid on the cross still reaches all the way to you, today, here in our community, as Jesus shares your heartache and pain.

God’s compassion is for you.  And the good news for you this morning is that you have access to that compassion that stretches beyond time and place.  God shares His compassion in the places that He has set aside to deliver it to you.  He has shared that compassion with you as He claimed you as His very own child in the washing waters of baptism.  He shares that compassion with you as you hear His sweet words of forgiveness.  He pours that compassion into your life as you open your mouth to receive the true body and blood of Jesus in the supper that He set aside as a means of delivering that compassion to you.  God’s compassion is for you.

Now, if those were the only ways that God shared compassion with us, it would be enough.  The thing is, God wants His compassion to overflow into the lives of His human creation.  He gives us sure and certain places where we have access to it, but He also works to bring it into our lives in other ways, as well.

We experience God’s compassion in our friendships here with our fellow believers.  You’ve probably had at least one or two occasions in life where you were experiencing heartache and pain, and one or two of your brothers and sisters in Christ were here to share that heartache and pain with you.  They comforted you.  They cared for you.  Their heart ached with yours.  They supported you.  They prayed for you and with you.  They showed their care in ways that truly touched home.  And as they did that, they were also sharing God’s compassion with you.

God’s compassion becomes a living thing, not just through baptism and forgiveness and the supper of Jesus, but also through every single one of our brothers and sisters in Jesus.  We see that compassion some today, as we pray for those who hurt, and as we lift up and comfort those who mourn loss in their lives.  We see it in another way down at the other end of our building, as some of God’s people show compassion by giving a little of the substance of life so that others may have their lives sustained.  God’s compassion becomes a living thing, not only through God’s means of delivery, but through every act of compassion that God’s people engage in as we live our lives together.

In some ways, that seems overwhelming to us.  We have to face the fact that we simply cannot be God’s compassion to every single other person.  Only Jesus can be God’s compassion to all people.  What we find is that we’re much like the picture painted by what is most likely a familiar story to us all, but is a good one to describe what we’re thinking about today.

A boy and his friend were walking along the seashore.  It was low tide, and every once in a while, the boy would reach down, pick up a starfish, and throw it back out into the water.  After he had done this a few times, his friend asked him why he was doing it.  The boy replied that he knew that the starfish would die up here on the shore, and so he was picking them up and throwing them back out into their home, so that they would survive.  His friend looked at the miles of shoreline that lay ahead of them, and asked the boy why he would do that.  After all, think about all the starfish on the miles of shoreline that wouldn’t know the boy’s compassion.  What kind of difference did it make if the boy threw a few back?  Reaching down, the boy picked up a starfish, looked his friend in the eye, and said, “It makes a difference to this one.”  

Compassion comes at a price.  Jesus alone can pay the price of compassion for all of His human creation.  It’s great that we, as God’s people, want to show compassion for many.  But there are miles of shoreline, and we are but few.  To focus on the shoreline and the thousands of starfish that lie ahead seems overwhelming, as it should.  We are not Jesus.

But in your life, God gives you the opportunity to show His compassion to a few.  You cannot toss all the starfish back into the ocean, but this week, you will encounter one or two that need that compassion.  Who will be your starfish?  Be warned.  Compassion has a price.  They might worm their way into your heart, and as you hear of their pain and ache, your own heart might start to ache along with them.  But you then have the opportunity to share God’s compassion into their lives.  It might not happen in a few minutes, or hours.  It might take days, weeks, months, or even years.  Your heart may ache with them through ups and downs.  Compassion has a price.  Jesus has paid the big price on the cross and in His resurrection.  It’s a great joy that we get to share God’s compassion through Jesus, even though it may mean that our heart aches along with them.  The ache of compassion is far better than the ache of separation, though.  May we constantly be discovering this, for the sake of Jesus, our Lord.  Amen.

Prayer and Intimacy

A number of years ago, I read a book with my wife and a few other couples.  In this book, it talked about developing a prayer life together as a couple.  I remember one of the assertions that the book made.  It said that there is nothing more intimate than developing a prayer life together with each other.  At the time, I struggled a little bit to understand what the author meant by that saying.  After all, saying a prayer together at mealtime doesn't seem all that intimate.  Neither does offering a brief prayer to God just before falling asleep at night.

As the years have gone by, I've grown to understand a little bit more about that statement, though.  I would be the first to admit that my prayer life has lots of room for expansion.  And as I think about that, I think I start to realize the connection between prayer in a marriage, and the intimacy that the author wrote about.

Imagine praying with your spouse (or, if you aren't married, your boyfriend/girlfriend, and as you read the rest of this post, when I say 'spouse', you can substitute boyfriend/girlfriend).  It's kind of easy, and not very intimate, to simply ask God to watch over you during the day, or to keep you safe at night as you sleep.  Doesn't seem very likely to build up your intimacy with each other, does it?  However, think about asking your spouse to pray for an area of sin in your life that you are struggling with.  That starts to get intimate.  After all, we often try to cover up some of our weaknesses or our sinful attractions from others, including our spouse.  It takes a great deal of humility to ask your spouse to pray for an area of your life that they may or may not know about. 

A part of intimacy is learning about the intimate secret spots that we each have in our lives.  As we start to pray about those along with our spouse, we truly are inviting a greater intimacy into our relationship.  We're baring our soul for them to see.  Truthfully, this is a difficult thing to do.  We don't always like what is hidden in our hearts and minds, much less want someone else to see it.  And yet, as we share those things with our spouse, and as we approach God in prayer with them, we invite closer intimacy with our spouse.

If you start thinking that your marriage or relationship could use some greater intimacy, how about thinking about this kind of prayer life as part of that growth?  It might be easiest to start with some smaller things, and then work to build up to those bigger things that may present more of a struggle.  I would highly suggest this, not only to married people, but to pre-marriage relationships.  What better way to prepare for marriage than in developing a prayer life together, as well as growing in your intimacy with each other?  I really do wish more couples would engage in such practices before they even start thinking about marriage.  I honestly believe that more marriages would be more intimate and lasting than what we typically find around us today.

The Sacrifices of Lent: A Dedication to Prayer

Every year, as Lent rolls around, I choose a topic or theme for both my Sunday messages and my Wednesday messages.  This year, for the midweek theme, I am taking God's people through a look at prayer, specifically looking at some of the times we are told about Jesus praying in the Gospels.  We then look for parallels in our prayer lives, or see if there is something that we can learn and implement that would be useful in our prayer life.

Today I don't want to spend a lot of time giving thoughts or ideas about prayer.  Instead, I simply want to focus on the sacrifice that it takes to dedicate ourselves to prayer.  I have frequently heard people say that they wish they had a stronger, more fervent prayer life, and I often find myself wishing the same thing.  And then, when you read through many of the prayer books out there, you end up feeling even more guilty because the author drives home the importance of prayer and basically lambasts everyone who isn't doing it in that way.

What kind of sacrifices are called for when it comes to an active prayer life?  That depends on what you hope for your prayer life to look like.  For someone who is just getting started, it may mean sacrificing a few minutes of time in the evening to actually start doing it.  For a seasoned veteran of faith, that sacrifice may mean taking extra time to pray for individuals who are in need of prayers, or who expand their prayer circle beyond their own selves and families, but to different parts of the world.  In other words, part of the sacrifice involves the growth of our prayer life, looking not only to deeper needs that we see or experience, but also growing the group of individuals or missions that we pray for.

Again, my goal here is not to make you feel guilty about your prayer life, nor to give you some sort of "guide" on what your prayer life should look like.  The main question for today is, what sacrifices are you prepared to make if you desire to expand your prayer life?  As you think about them, make any adjustments that you see, and then keep lifting those prayers up to our God, who is our mighty warrior and who rescues us from our sin.

February 20 Sermon

Here is the sermon from February 20, Lent midweek worship.

Alone in A Crowd

As we journey through this Lent season toward the cross of Jesus and the empty tomb, we’re going to be focusing on prayer during these worship times during the middle of the week.  Each week, we’re going to hear a little bit about Jesus and His prayer life.  Most of these stories will probably be fairly familiar to us, but we’re going to specifically look at some of the things that the stories tell us about Jesus’ prayer life.  We’ll reflect on His practice of prayer time, and then see how it draws a few parallels in our lives.

However, I do feel like I need to be clear on a few things before we really get into our series.  In my experience, when we focus on prayer, it seems often to have an unanticipated consequence.  Rather than teach about prayer, or encourage God’s people to be active, sermons about prayer instead seem to cause God’s people to feel guilty about their prayer life.  Maybe you’ve experienced this at some point, too.  You hear a great sermon on prayer, but once it wraps up, you don’t so much hear about the particular emphasis of prayer.  Instead, you feel guilty that you haven’t been praying like that.  Maybe you feel guilty that your prayer life isn’t perfect, like the one that got illustrated for you.  And so, instead of the sermon encouraging you and exciting you for a more fervent prayer life, you walk away feeling more beaten down about your prayer life.

That is not at all my intention throughout these midweek sermons.  I won’t deny that it benefits us all to reflect on our prayer lives, but if you walk away from these sermons feeling even greater guilt, please let me know, because it means that I haven’t done my job like I’m supposed to.  I don’t want you walking away feeling guilty about your prayer life.  Instead, I want you to be encouraged to simply be active in your prayer life.  I may toss out a challenge or two, and those tend to fit in pretty well with the season of Lent.  As we reflect upon our need for a Savior from God, it’s good to sacrifice a little time and effort to take up a challenge that could very well end up being a big boost to our faith life.

Now, with all that said, there’s probably one more thing I should add.  What exactly do we mean as we talk about prayer for the next few weeks?  After all, there are a lot of different images and pictures of prayer out there.  Prayer as conversation with God.  Prayer as us talking and God listening.  Prayer as our attempt to convince God to change His mind.  Prayer as a means to tap into God’s power.  You’ve probably heard of some of these, and could probably add more to the list. 

From a very simple standpoint, when we focus on prayer, we’re going to approach as us human beings pleading with God.  We plead with God because He’s the one who is the giver of all things, and we stand in need of receiving everything from His hand.  That goes for the things that support our body and life, as well as the things that restore our relationship with God.  We need food for the body, and we need God to feed our souls, and so we plead with God for those things.  We recognize that we haven’t really deserved them, but that we receive them completely out of God’s gracious disposition toward us.

This definition actually brings us to where we are starting today.  We have a regular prayer as part of our worship life together that we pray pretty much every single time we come together for worship.  It’s come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer.  We teach it to our kids as they grow up, and we have it included in our little book of instruction we call the Small Catechism.  And as Jesus teaches us that prayer, He starts off with these words.  Our Father in heaven, or as we tend to say it, Our Father, who art in heaven.  

What do these words mean?  Well, if you’d like to see the Small Catechism definition of it, you can find it on page 323 in our hymnals.  In explaining this introduction, we learn these words.  “With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.”

Just imagine, for a moment, the kind of prayer life that these words describe.  Boldness.  Confidence.  Sadly, I think most of us here wouldn’t exactly use these words to describe our prayer life.  And I think I should point out that these words aren’t intended to describe our prayer life.  They point out our confidence and our boldness in talking to our God.  He’s our dear Father.  He’s the one who has not only made us as our Creator, but who has given us new birth through our baptismal waters.  He has given us new life, and therefore we can have boldness and confidence in approaching Him as our Father.

In that kind of sense, prayer is really little more than us approaching our God and asking Him, Dad, can we talk?  It’s not so much that we are looking for Him to fix our problems for us, but more along the lines that we just want someone to listen to us.  We want to know that we are valued enough that someone  really does want to listen to us, to hear what we are thinking, not so much that they are going to solve our problem, but that we are worth enough to them that they give their time to listen to what we have to say. 

“Dad, can we talk?”  It’s kind of like a plea, dad, do I mean enough to you that you will listen to me and what I have to say?  And that’s the kind of invitation that Jesus tells us that we have with our God when we address Him as our Father.  That’s the kind of relationship God wants to have with you.  He wants you to know that you are valued, and that He does want to listen to you as you approach Him.  

When you think about it in that kind of way, doesn’t it make a lot of sense that Jesus would spend a lot of time in prayer?  Today we heard the story about Jesus cleansing a leper.  More and more people kept hearing about the great things that Jesus was doing.  Great crowds were gathering around Him.  And yet, in the midst of the crowd, it almost seems like Jesus wanted to be alone.  Alone with His Father.  Alone with the one who would listen to Him as He talked.

It’s kind of interesting that we aren’t really told much about times like this, where Jesus went off alone to pray.  We don’t know what He prayed about.  We don’t know how He stood or sat, or whether He spoke out loud or in the silence of His heart.  But one thing does come out from our Bible reading today, and really throughout His whole three years of ministry.  Jesus would seek to be alone with His Father.  He often went off to desolate places all by Himself, and there He would pray.

Alone.  Quiet time.  Nothing and no one to disturb His thoughts or His concentration.  The sense of connecting with someone that you spend one on one time with.  Jesus went off all alone to be with the Father.  There weren’t crowds around Him, asking for one more healing, or one more loaf of bread.  He could focus on His Father, sharing His thoughts with Dad, pouring out His heart and soul if He so desired.  He could take as long on something as He liked.  He simply connected with His Father.

Think of the last conversation that you were in with more than one person.  Let’s just say it was you and two others.  What tends to happen in conversations like that?  You hear what one person says, and as your thoughts are forming in your head, the other person speaks up.  Now, everything you were thinking kind of moves aside to take in the things that the second person has in mind.  You were focusing on what the first person was saying, and now you have to refocus.  And then back again.  

Jesus would go off alone to spend time with the Father.  Maybe there’s something to that kind of one on one time with the Father.  And that brings me to something that I’ll bring before you once or twice this Lent season.  A challenge.  It’s an opportunity for you to try something that you might not have done in the past, or that you might have tried, but it just wasn’t the right time in your life to try it.  Over the course of this Lent season, you can probably expect one or two of these challenges.

We think of Lent as the season where we hear about Jesus’ sacrifice for us.  Part of the Lent tradition involves us sacrificing something for our God to grow us in our relationship with Him.  And that’s the point of the challenge that I’m putting before you today.  It’s to give you an opportunity to try something that you might not have done before, or that it just wasn’t the right time.  It’s the opportunity to be encouraged to try something and simply see how it goes.

What’s the challenge?  For the next week, until we come together for our next midweek worship time, adopt a quiet time each day for prayer.  Intentionally focus your thoughts for your time of prayer.  It doesn’t matter if it’s only 2 minutes or twenty minutes.  And you can do it however you want.  Write out the things you want to focus on, or just order them in your head.  Take a prayer book of some kind with you, or just make them up as you go.  

But here’s the challenge.  For the next week, adopt a quiet time for prayer.  Start off with something simple, like, “Dad, can we talk?”  The point of this isn’t to come up with some elaborate way of having quiet prayer time, but in doing something comfortable to you.  The key point to it is simply to set that quiet time aside.  Focus your thoughts in some form or fashion, and then do it.

Jesus withdrew to desolate places to pray.  As we think about that today, our key is to get away from the things that so easily distract us from focusing and ordering our thoughts, and put them before God.  It’s being alone, even as we find ourselves in the crowds all around us.  And then, it’s turning to a dear Father who really wants His children to sit down and ask Him, Dad, can we talk?  Thanks be to God that Jesus has shown us that we have that relationship with our God, who we have the joy and privilege of calling our Father.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.