When I first decided that we would go through a sermon series on the spiritual disciplines, I had in mind a series of about six messages. One on the Bible, one on prayer, one on fasting, one one worship, and a couple other ones in there as well…. But it certainly seems that God had something more in mind.
As it is, this is now message #8 and we’ve really only talked so far primarily about the Bible and about prayer – just two of the many healthy habits that we want to look at. But I think it’s been good! At least, it has been for me anyway. Particularly when it comes to prayer. Prayer has never been something that I’ve felt has been one of my strong points. Of course, as Christians we know that prayer is important – and so I’ve certainly tried to integrate prayer into my personal life and my family’s life and our church life, but honestly, it’s never been something I just naturally do. I really have to make that effort.
And I think a big part of my struggle has come become of how I understood the purpose of prayer. I mentioned in last week’s message – why do we pray when God already knows what we need and has promised to provide it? Can’t we just trust Him? When you think about it that way, it almost seems like praying for three hours each day like Martin Luther is almost a lack of faith! Why must you pray so much – can’t you just trust God? And so for much of my life, I’ve convinced myself that I have more of an ‘attitude of prayer’. Maybe I don’t always put words to my prayers, but I have this attitude of just trusting God.
And it’s great to have that kind of trust in God, but I think that still misses the point of prayer! So these last few weeks have been really good for me as I’ve dug into the whole question of why do we pray? What’s the purpose of prayer?
And I know that I haven’t fully answered those questions yet in these messages, but I hope that as I’ve been sharing what I’ve been learning, I hope that God’s been stirring up a desire in you to learn more about the why and how of prayer in your own life.
So this morning, I want to share with you yet another aspect of prayer for you to think about this week. And for me, this is really what has helped me understand why God invites us to pray.
Over the past several weeks we’ve been looking at the spiritual disciplines – or the Healthy Habits – that Christians have been practicing for centuries in order to help them develop and maintain a close relationship with God. Things like Bible reading, prayer, worship, fasting, times of silence and solitude, giving, serving – all those that we do (not because they earn us salvation or forgiveness or favour with God) but because these are the things that help us know God and to hear his voice and to become more like His Son Jesus. In other words, these are the things that help us remain in Him and He, in us – like it says in John 15:5…
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. ” John 15:5
All of these spiritual disciplines or as we’ve called them – these “Healthy Habits” – are tools that help us remain in Him. They help us stay close to and connected with Jesus – who is the source of our life, our joy, our peace, our love – everything. Apart from Him, we’d have none of that. We’d be like a branch that has been broken off from the tree, that just withers up and becomes dry and brittle. We don’t want to be like that. We want to have His life flowing through us so that we can produce fruit and lots of it!
And so these healthy habits are exactly how we do that.
Last week we talked about the purpose of prayer. And we discovered that praying really isn’t about getting answers to our prayers. Prayer isn’t like popping coins into a cosmic vending machine – where we put the prayers in and expect the answers out.
Prayer doesn’t work that way – and if you expect it to – you’ll undoubtedly be disappointed in prayer. Prayer isn’t so much about changing your situation – it’s more about changing you.
Now God certainly may change your situation – but at the same time, He may not. But when we go to God in prayer, and we tell him our concerns and our issues and we make our requests – and then when we leave that all with Him and just trust Him to do whatever it is that He knows is best, that changes us. It grows our faith and our trust in Him. As we see how He answers (either yes or no), we learn to see things from His perspective. We see his goodness and his faithfulness and his wisdom and his sovereignty. And as we see all that, God works within us to change us from the inside out. Richard Foster writes…
“To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue that God uses to transform us…. In prayer we learn to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves, to do the things He wills.”
Richard Foster ~ Celebration of Disciplines.
That’s the purpose of prayer. It’s not just a way of giving God our grocery list of things we want Him to do for us, but it’s how God changes us to become more like His Son, Jesus Christ.
A great example of this I think, is King David. Probably most of you know how the Bible describes King David as a man after God’s own heart. Well, these past couple of weeks as I’ve been studying up on prayer, I’ve come to the conclusion that David’s prayer life probably had everything to do with that!
As I read through the Psalms and as I read through the story of David’s life – I can’t help but notice how David was always praying!And if this statement by Richard Foster is true, then it’s no wonder that David was known as a man after God’s own heart – because if prayer had taught him to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things God desires, to love the things God loves, to do the things God wills – well, that sure sounds like the definition of a “man after God’s own heart”, doesn’t it?
So today, I want to share with you just a quick example from the life of David of how he made prayer his healthy habit – how his relationship with God was shaped by prayer – how through that, He himself was shaped by prayer. And hopefully, along the way, I can point out a few practical tidbits of how we can develop this lifestyle of prayer as well.
Well, here we are two weeks into the new year. That means that 27% of all the New Years Resolutions have now been broken! I don’t know if any of you have made any new year resolutions this year (If I remember right – I don’t know that any of us did last year when I asked.) But if you did, I sure hope you’re able to stick with it longer than two weeks.
This week I was reading an article about the business model of gyms and fitness centres. And the article said that these businesses bank on people to sign up for gym memberships in January and then never show up. That’s a key part of their business model. The article said that…
If gyms operate at more than 5% of their membership at any given time, no one can use the gym. They want them to sign up, but they know that after the 15th of January, they won’t see 95% of them again.
That’s pretty incredible! But not too surprising, because I think a lot of us can relate.
I think all of us recognize the value of staying healthy and fit. Now certainly there can be those factors out of our control that prevent that, but generally speaking, all of would like to see ourselves healthy and fit and physically able to do all the things that we’d like to do.
And so most people would agree that it would be good for them to exercise more. Going to the gym would be beneficial. It would be a good habit to get into to. But yet, despite the knowledge in our head of how valuable physical activity and fitness is, very few people actually make it a priority to exercise or go to the gym or do all those things that are required if we want to stay healthy and fit.
Many of us have really good intentions – and we may go through short bursts of time of making the effort – but in the long run, very few people actually stick with it and make it a part of their lifestyle.
And I think we have a similar experience when it comes to the spiritual disciplines.
Over the past several weeks we have been looking at the spiritual disciplines (or the healthy habits) that Christians have been practicing over the centuries in order to cultivate a deep, meaningful relationship with God. We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the Bible (because that really is the foundation for everything we believe – we have to know and understand and apply this book to our lives), but today I want to look at another healthy habit – and that is prayer.
And prayer, I think, is very much like exercise. Everyone knows that it’s important, and everyone agrees that they really should do it more often, but yet, very few people make it a priority so that it becomes a central part of their life.
And so I spent some time this week trying to figure out why that is. Because every Christian I know agrees that prayer is important. They have the head knowledge that prayer should be central to every Christian’s life! But yet, almost every Christian will tell you, “I really don’t pray like I should. Maybe I pray some, but I really should pray more.”
Now of course, there are some exceptions. There are some people out there that just have amazing prayer lives – and usually, you know exactly who those folks are. They just seem to be so in-tune with God. Even in the midst of great struggles and trials, these folks aren’t shaken at all. It’s like they have this unwavering trust in God. And these folks tend to be so wise and patient and loving and kind. It’s like they’ve been mentored by God Himself! That’s the result of a lifetime and a lifestyle of prayer.
So why aren’t there more of those folks? Why isn’t every Christian like that? What is it about prayer that makes it so difficult to adopt as a lifetime habit? We know how important prayer is, and yet we struggle to make it a central part of our lives! Why is that?
4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5
This is the passage that we started looking at nearly two months ago. By now that might just be a distant memory for you, so I thought I’d better do a little bit of a refresher before we continue on with today’s message.
Back when we started this series, I talked a little bit about how we tend to grow less healthy and less fit over time unless we do something about it. I think that’s true for most people. At least it is for me! My job doesn’t require me to do a lot of physical activity – although this week has perhaps been an exception as we’ve moved and cleaned and setup and done all that stuff…. But generally I spend a lot of time working at my desk or visiting folks around the kitchen table – those aren’t very physically demanding activities.
To compound the problem, the cold of winter tends to encourage me to stay indoors, rather than outdoors. And on top of that, I’ve discovered that there are lot of really delicious things to eat in this world! So for me, it takes intentional effort to stay at least relatively healthy and fit. If I don’t want to get completely out of shape, I need to intentionally develop some healthy habits.
So maybe I need to practice eating a little more healthy. Maybe I need to get into the habit of exercising on a regular basis. Maybe I need to drive a little less and walk a little more.
But the bottom line is, if I want to stay healthy and fit, I need to develop some healthy habits.
And as we’ve been going through this series, we’ve discovered that the same is true spiritually speaking. If we want to stay spiritually healthy and fit – that is, if we want to remain in Christ, staying close and connected to Him so that we produce much fruit like that verse says – then likewise, we need to develop some healthy habits.
And that’s what this series has been all about. What are the healthy habits that Christians have been practicing for centuries that can help us develop that deep and meaningful relationship with Christ? What are those Spiritual Disciplines – as they are often known as – that help us stay connected with Jesus so that we can produce much fruit?
Well, actually there are a whole variety of those practices – Bible reading and prayer and worship are some of the more common ones – but there are also some other very valuable practices like fasting or times of silence and solitude that maybe aren’t so common these days, but are still very healthy habits when it comes to cultivating a deep relationship with God.
Now the most recent spiritual discipline or healthy habit that we’ve talked about has been reading and studying the Bible. We’ve spent a couple of weeks talking about the message of the Bible, how we know the Bible is true and that its actually the Word of God as it claims to be. We talked about how God’s Word transforms our lives. It changes the way we think – it shows us God’s eternal perspective – which in turn, complete changes the way we live our lives.
And we ended our last message with a warning from James 1:22 which says
“But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.”James 1:22
And that was really a lead into today message – which is how do we read and understand the Bible accurately – so that we can be sure that we actually do what it actually says? If we’re going to obey God’s Word – if God is going to change the way we think and transform our lives through his Word – if we are basing our entire lives and our eternal future on the words in this book, then we need to make sure we’re accurately understanding and applying what the Bible actually says.
I think it’s fair to say that everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to be a success. That’s hardwired into us. No one wants to be a loser. No body wants to be a failure. We all want to succeed. We want to do well.
And we see this in every aspect of our lives. When we play sports, we want to take home the championship trophy – not just the participation award. When we play board games or video games, we say we play for the fun, but still, we want to win. In war – no one goes into battle being okay with losing –if we’re going to fight, we want the victory.
We want to succeed in our careers. We want to have succeed in raising our kids. We want to succeed at being a good husband or a good wife.
We even want to succeed as Christians. Nobody wants to be a lousy Christian – we want to be a successful one. We want our church to succeed. Clearly there is something hardwired into us that drives us towards success.
But the challenge in all areas of life is knowing what determines success. We have to know what the objective is.
Because if you’re a football player, successfully running the ball to the end of the field is a measure of success – but if you’re a golfer, it’s not. You’ll probably get kicked off the course if you’re out there tackling the other golfers, stealing their ball and running it down the fairway.
We have to know our objective – We have to know what constitutes success in whatever it is that we’re doing. If we don’t know what the objective is – if we don’t know what determines success – then we’re gonna have a really hard time being successful.
As a church, we need to know what determines our success. Are we successful because we’ve outgrown this space and need to move to a larger space over at the Hall? Is that success? If we get to the point where we need to build our own building, is that success? If we get to the point where we offer more programs and have greater attendance and have more baptisms and have a bigger facility than Crossroads – is that success? Or are we measuring success the wrong way?
We need to know what determines our success – or we may spend all of our time and our energy and all our effort trying to be really good…at the wrong thing!
And this totally applies to each one of us personally. We already mentioned how every one us wants to be successful in life. We want to be a successful in our work, we want our marriage to be a success, we want to raise our kids successfully and I think, as followers of Christ, more than anything, we want to be a success in that. At the end of our lives as we stand before God, I think each one of us wants to hear God say “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
So it’s really important that we know what determines our success. To use our golf analogy, I don’t want to spend my life running running the golfball down the fairway, weaving around and dodging the other golfers like a football player (and being really good at that) – when all along I should’ve been practicing my putt. I want to know and do what it takes to be successful in God’s eyes – because that’s what really counts.
So today, I want to do two things.
Since this is the last service in this building before we move over to the Hall, I want to talk a little bit about how we can have success as a church. How will we know if we are being successful? Are we successful just to keep existing? Are we successful when we reach a certain number in attendance or dollars or sq footage or new believers? What is the measurement of success for our church?
And then, also being New’s Years Day, I want to talk about what it means for you to have success inthis new year. What do you need to do in order to be successful in 2017? Were you successful last year? What’s the measurement of your success?
Last week we spent some time looking at the Bible. Of course, that shouldn’t be too surprising. I think I’d have some serious questions about the validity of our church if we didn’t look at the Bible every Sunday! However, last week, our topic was actually the Bible itself.
And we asked some big questions. What exactly is the Bible? What’s it all about – what’s the main message? How did we get the Bible in the first place? And perhaps more importantly, how do we know we can trust it? As Christians, the basis for what we believe about God, about ourselves, about our world, about the meaning of life and how to live it abundantly, about eternity – all of that is found in the Bible. So it seems to me that I want to know with certainty that what I’m basing my beliefs on is true.
And for myself – I’m convinced that it is. I’ve personally spent quite a bit of time researching and seeing for myself – if the evidence truly adds up. And my conclusion is… it does. The evidence seems pretty indisputable to me. But don’t just take my word for it. Check it out for yourself!
We mentioned just a few of the evidences last week. One of them was the continuity of the message of the Bible. Even though the different parts of the Bible were written over a span of 1600 years by 40 different authors on three continents and in three languages – yet somehow, every one of those 66 books of the Bible fit together perfectly to make up one big story – the story of how God loved his creation so much, that despite their constant rebellion and failures, God chose to redeem them. He did that ultimately by sending His Son Jesus Christ, to be born in a stable, laid in a manger, and to one day die on a cross in our place, rising again three days later, so that through Him, we can find forgiveness and eternal life. That’s the message of the Bible – and you find that message throughout the Bible – everywhere from Genesis to Revelation.
We also very briefly touched on the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible and the way the Bible agrees with history, geography, and archaeology. There is just such a host of evidence that I have to conclude that, not only is the Bible true, but it is in fact, as it claims, the Word of God – recorded and preserved over the ages for me and you. But again, don’t take my word for it. That’s just my conclusion. Do your own research and find out for yourself.
Because if the Bible is true and if the Bible is the Word of God as it claims, then the ramifications are huge. If the Creator of the Universe has given me a book that contains all the truth I need to know about Himself, about myself, about my world, about life and how to live it abundantly, about eternity – then I want to know and understand what this book says!
If we are convinced that the Bible is true and that it is God’s message for us, then what should we do with that message? How do we make sure that we understand it correctly and how do we apply what it says to our lives? Should the Word of God actually make a difference in our lives – and if so, how does it?
And so my goal for this message is to give you some tools and teach you some methods for how to discover what’s in the Bible and how to get it off the pages and into your life so that it can actually transform you.
And that’s kinda the important bit right there. I’m not here to convince you to study the Bible just so that you can have a head full of knowledge. Knowledge is good – but it’s not our end goal. The end goal is to know and become more like our Creator. The goal is to strengthen and build our relationship with God. That’s the point of all these spiritual disciplines that we’ll be talking about over the next several weeks as we go through this series on “Healthy Habits”. I’ll tell you right now that reading your Bible is pointless unless it changes your relationship with God. Praying is pointless unless it changes your relationship with God. Going to church is pointless unless it changes your relationship with God.
Doing these things simply out of obligation or habit without actually engaging with God is like taking your car to the mechanic on a regular basis – but not allowing him to make any changes! How ridiculous would that be? Can you imagine going through the effort and paying the cost to take your vehicle into the mechanics every week – but never allowing him to make a single change to your vehicle? That would be ridiculous. That would be stupid!
But often I think we’re guilty of doing exactly that when it comes to these healthy habits. We go through the motions of reading our Bible or praying or going to church or whatever else we do, but we do it without the real intent of connecting with God through those activities. We forget that the purpose of all those things is to help us draw near to God and to abide in Him.
Remember that verse we read in John 15 a few weeks ago?
5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5
That’s why we do these things – to remain in Him. To stay connected with God. To know Him and become more like Him. If we’re not interested in doing that, then why are we doing all this ‘religious stuff’? All of these religious activities that we take part in – if we’re not trying to know God and become more like Him through those things – then it’s complete foolishness! We’re just driving our car back and forth from the mechanic shop!
But on the other hand, if we are seeking to know God and to become more like Him – to build and strengthen our relationship with Him, then these spiritual disciplines – these healthy habits – are some of the best ways you can do that! Without that desire, these practices will be empty and pointless. But when you go into it looking to connect with God, these practices will quickly become some of the most joyful, fulfilling moments of your day!
