Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
We are a small church plant in Denton, TX. Jesus gave a command: to love one another as he loves us. He goes on to say that "everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." We work to make care for each other, for our city, and for our world the utmost priority in our lives. Love is more than simply a feeling or even a philosophy for us, it is a lifestyle commitment that guides where we live, what we do, how we treat people, and ultimately who we are. This is our church. These are some of our recorded sermons if you'd like to listen.
I am Leslie Rowe, and I'm on staff here with Denton North Church. I'm gonna tell a story first that doesn't make me look very favorable. So if you've never met me before, please just take my word that this is not normal for me. But yesterday, at our ornament exchange, I was explaining the rules to all the women, and so I was saying there's so many of us. The 2nd person that touches the gift.
Leslie:The gift is gonna be dead. However, the 1st person, number one. Whenever we get to the end, can pick anything even if it's already dead. And I said, a lot of people don't like that rule, but it's my house, my rules. So fast forward, I stole a gift when I took a gift.
Leslie:Yes. I am a thief. And at the end, Kenzie Mars has number 1. She's looking at all the gifts and everything, and then she says, I want yours. And I'm pretty sure the only reason she did that is because I said my house, my rules.
Leslie:She didn't even want my ornament, that we had a lot of stealing going on yesterday at the party, and it it was a lot of fun. We had 26 women there yesterday, so we had a really good time. As Josh said, today is the wrap up of our sermon series on prayer. So this if you're just now joining us, you're getting in on the end of this sermon series. And what we're gonna do this morning is we're gonna review what we've learned, and we're gonna make a plan to continue growing in the practice of prayer.
Leslie:For I was reading an article in News and World Report this week that started me thinking about how people will do anything to get close to, and I use close very loosely, a professional sports figure, actors or actresses, Broadway stars, performers like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Bad Bunny, anyone who is famous in their eyes. And the article told the story of a 24 year old woman and her mother who bought constructed 300 level tickets to the Taylor Swift concert for 2,000 dollars each. $2,000 each. To cover the cost, this young woman said that she took $3,000 out of her savings And her mother paid the other other $1,000, paid for her daughter to fly from Florida to St. Louis, first.
Leslie:And then they drove from Saint Louis to Chicago, and then her mom paid for a night at a hotel. Taylor Swift was in concert here in Texas this past March April, and people went bananas just to get inside AT and T Stadium. Think about this for a second. Obstructed views obstructed views started at 500 dollars, and floor seats went for 2,000 and above. The average purchase price for a ticket to the heirs.
Leslie:Tour was $1600. Now that is those figures I'm quoting for or including resale amounts, not just face value, but what a lot of people had to pay. When her shows in Arlington sold out, some people drove to Houston or even further to see her. Some people drove to Houston just to see her a second time. People did everything they could for the privilege of forking over that much money just to be close to her and see her performance in person.
Leslie:And I'm not talking about people I just read about in an article. Some of these things people I know and love did. Also, this is not just a Taylor Swift from US News and World Report also said that Beyonce's average ticket price in 2023 was $1800. Now don't hear me be judgmental of people who went to the Taylor Swift concert. That's not my point.
Leslie:We all have our deal. My point is that we're enamored with famous people. We're excited about any small amount of attention they will throw our way. We do crazy things to get close to them, and here's the thing. They do not love us.
Leslie:They do not care for us in a personal sense. They don't know us our think about us. For most of us, they've never done one thing for us that we didn't pay them a lot for. On the other hand, the creator of the universe invites us not just to talk to him, but to have a relationship with him. We don't have to pay for it.
Leslie:We don't have to make an appointment. We don't have to be put together, Dressed for Success. And on the other hand, we don't have to be sad, broken, and desperate. We don't have to be the one with the greatest need or prove our value. He doesn't have bodyguards to protect himself from us.
Leslie:He has more power than any other person, country, weapon, you name it, in all of creation, and he uses it for our good. He can heal us, and if he chooses not to, he will raise us from the dead at the resurrection. He can intervene when we're suffering because sin has broken our world, but if he doesn't intervene. He will sit with us, cry with us, comfort us, and continue to work to save as many as possible before everything is made new, and there will be no more death or mourning or addiction for sickness or violence or racism or abused children or cancer, unbearable pain, crying, or poverty, whatever it is you want to add to the list. He is the famous one, but he is close to us at all times.
Leslie:And the kicker is that a lot of times, we don't even talk to him. We don't pray. We can't focus on the one who knows our name and how many hairs are on our head because he loves us as individuals. We can't be honest with the only one who can redeem and restore what our sin has broken. We can't trust a God who doesn't give us exactly what we want when we want it.
Leslie:And many of those things are not sinful things we're asking for. Even though he has given us life, breath, redemption, beauty, relationship, and restoration, both in this life and in the life to come. And he did that at a time when we were his enemy, when he has already given us the best he has when he gave us his son, Jesus, when he enters into our suffering with us rather than choosing not to be removed from or unmoved by our suffering. And I'm so struck by how the songs that we sang and the things that were talked about this morning went along with all of the things I wanted to tell you this morning. Many of the songs that we me saying one of them in particular talked specifically about the fact that he loved us when we didn't of him.
Leslie:I think that that's important because I think that indicates that the spirit was working on this message to you. This is not just my sermon, and I hope it never is. But this morning, I feel certain that this is a word from the spirit. God gives us all the time we want. He never tells us he's too busy for us or that he has bigger issues than ours to contend with.
Leslie:He wants to shower us not only with his love and affection, but also with his comfort, encouragement, and forgiveness. He wants us to be whole, complete, and secure as we learn to trust him with every area of our life. We put our hopes, dreams, trust, and faith in the wrong things and people all the time. Yet the God of the universe who owns and controls everything, who never slumbers or sleeps, we have doubts about. We must remember God is always near.
Leslie:He cares, and he loves us, and that's why prayer matters. If you don't remember anything else day. I want you to remember prayer matters. And if you're not talking to God, who are you talking to? If you're not listening to God, who are you listening to?
Leslie:Think about that as we wrap up our series on prayer this morning. So I just wanna do a quick review of what we've talked about. So starting at the big picture. We've been talking about apprenticeship to Jesus, how we are with Jesus. We want to be with Jesus so that we become like Jesus so that we can do what Jesus did.
Leslie:And there are for you, and we've been talking about the practice of prayer. And the definition of prayer that we're working off of is that prayer is simply the medium through which we communicate and commune with God. The practice for prayer is learning to set aside time to intentionally be with God in order to be some like him through the power of the Holy Spirit and to participate with him in his work in his world. The 4 stages of prayer that we talked about are talking to God, and with that, we talked about premade prayers. We talked about, Psalms, prayers in scripture.
Leslie:We talked about if we don't know what to say to him, that we have other prayers that we can use to talk to him. The second thing we talked about was talking with God. And in that, we specifically talked about prayers of gratitude, of lament, and of petition and inter for prayers of lament, talking with God about what is evil in our world and in our life, and prayers of petition and inter asking God to fulfill his promises to overcome evil with good. And then We talked about listening to God. We specifically, Becca, had us all practice together on a Sunday morning, lectio divina, a way of listening to God through scripture.
Leslie:We also talked in our small groups about just being still and silent before God and listening for his voice, for and we also talked about, what does it mean to hear God's voice? How do we do that? And then last, we about being with God. 2nd Corinthians 3/18 says, and we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the lord who is the spirit. The most basic meaning of this type of prayer is to contemplate, to look, to gaze on the beauty of God, and to receive his love pouring out towards us through Christ by the spirit and then giving that love back to him in return.
Leslie:I shared with my small group that there's an old song by an artist named Dennis and the name of the song is if I could just sit with you a while. And when I think about this 4th kind of prayer, this contemplative prayer, this concept of just being with God, not having to talk, just being silent and enjoying his present. This song is what I think about whenever I think about this, and the chorus of it says, if I could just sit with you a while. If you could just hold me, nothing could touch me, though I'm wounded, though I die. If I could just sit with you a while, I need you to hold me moment by moment till forever passes by.
Leslie:And that's what I think of when I think of being with God. So our plan moving forward, remember, the goal is not to be pray better, whatever that means, but to communicate and to be present with the father. So So I have 4 simple, things to help us move forward. The first one is when. When will I pray?
Leslie:In general, we should give God the best time of day. Now let me also back up and say, we should talk to God all a time. So I'm not talking about, okay, I'm gonna set 1 time a day to talk to him. But if we're gonna practice prayer, then there's gonna be a time of day that we're gonna practice doing that. So when am I gonna do that?
Leslie:Is it gonna be first thing in the morning? Is it gonna be after I work Is it gonna be at night? Is it gonna be on my lunch break? Is it gonna be when my kids are taking a nap? When will I pray?
Leslie:And then secondly, where? Where am I going to pray. A lot of people find it incredibly helpful to choose a dedicated space when they're practicing prayer. And so that could be a room in your house. It could be a park bench close to your house.
Leslie:It could be in your car. A lot of people We'll have a pretty good commute, and if we just switch the radio off in the car, then we've got plenty of time to pray, or it might be a literal prayer closet. For me, my dining room table is in the middle of a big bay window, and I get sunlight there. And that's where I go when I wanna talk to God. It's not the only place I talk to him, so don't hear me say that.
Leslie:But it is a place where I know that I like to go to talk to him. Okay. So when, where, and then what tools am I gonna use? When, where, tools? So we've talked about a lot of different tools in small group and in our sermon series that we can use as we practice prayer.
Leslie:So as I said, we have premade prayers, gratitude, lament, intercession, Lectio Divina, setting the stage to listen, beholding prayer. That if you're part of a small group, we had a companion guide that everybody should have the link to, and that companion guide has even more tools for those different ways of praying. And if you're not in a small group and you would like to have that companion guide, I'll be happy to send you the link to that if you wanna shoot me a text or let me know after church. But that's a great place to go for some tools to help you in practicing prayer. So when, wear, tools, and accountability is the 4th one.
Leslie:Now I'm not talking about accountability in the sense of I need someone to call me and say, did you pray 40 hours this week. Oh, you didn't? Shame on you. No check mark for you this week. What I'm talking about is someone that's gonna say, how is your prayer life going?
Leslie:What are you trying? What's working well? What's been really hard about it? Someone who will remind you that prayer matters, and then you do the same for them. It's not this one-sided thing of someone to beat you into submission and make sure you're doing this right.
Leslie:It is mutual accountability, wanting to see one another grow in this practice of prayer. We talked at the beginning of this series about the truth that God is near to us. And a really important question for us to think through is if God is always near, ready to talk, ready to listen, why don't I pray or why don't I pray more often? And most people will say their first answer will be, I'm busy. However, I think that's the easy answer.
Leslie:We make time for things we want to do, busy or not. So while that may be an excuse, I don't think it's the answer to this question. I would like to suggest to you that often the reason we don't pray is we don't believe it matters. We don't for God, and we can't explain prayer, and we can't explain God, and so we don't think that our prayers matter. For her.
Leslie:Here are some examples of things we don't understand. Why do we need to tell or ask God for things when he already knows everything? How for god work to save people when they have free will. Why does god sometimes choose to heal and sometimes choose not to? You.
Leslie:How can God protect people when Satan and evil are still active? How can God be good when such evil things happen. Is God going to answer my prayer the way I want and give me what I think I need? Do my prayers really change anything. Do they really matter?
Leslie:And I'm just scratching the surface. Those are just a few that came to mind immediately. But I wanna spend just a couple of minutes talking about suffering because suffering seems to be the common thing that people have such a hard time with prayer with, and I don't intend to solve the problem of suffering in 5 or 10 minutes. So let me just be sure you understand that. Nor do I have the wisdom to do that, but I do want us to consider some truths.
Leslie:Our world uses the dating markers BC and AD, which usually mean before Christ in anno domini. And this dating was intended to indicate a turning point in history. We have our own markers in time, a turning point in our lives. And some of them are good, very good, and some of are extremely painful. Mine is May 25, 2022.
Leslie:I think about things in terms of before that and after that date. There was an explosion in the life of my family that left us shattered. Do you have a marker of suffering like that? It may not be a personal event. It might be nine from one one or the death of George Floyd or the school shooting in Uvalde.
Leslie:Some unimaginable event that produced its suffering, maybe not even to you personally. I don't understand your exact situation, but I do understand the pain and devastation that come with things like that. For the first time in my life, I struggled with why. I struggled with why do I have to suffer the consequences of someone else's sin. I had no choice here.
Leslie:This was not my fault. I I struggled with and still struggle with. I don't want this. I don't want this to be my life or my reality. For But what God has said to me over and over so sweetly and so gently is I will sit with you.
Leslie:I will cry with you. I will comfort you. I will help you move forward. I will never leave you. I will bring good from this.
Leslie:I will make all things new, and I have given everything for you. You are safe with me. You can trust me. There are so many things we don't understand about God himself and about our relationship with him. What God wants us to know and what will change our everyday life is that prayer is not about getting what we want.
Leslie:It's about building a relationship of trust with him so that even when things don't turn out the way we want them to, we're okay. We still have hope. It's about God changing me, and it's about our relationship. And he's made himself available to us so we can develop that relationship. And how do we communicate and commune with him?
Leslie:Prayer. Therefore, prayer matters. It makes a difference, and we don't have to look very far to see this supported in scripture. It's everywhere. Genesis 4/26.
Leslie:At that time, people began to call on the name of the lord. David said in Psalm 65 1 through 3, praise awaits you, our God in Zion. To you, our vows will be fulfilled. You who answer prayer, to you, all people will come. When we are overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.
Leslie:Jesus said in Matthew this. This then is how you should pray. Luke tells us in chapter 18 that Jesus told his for a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. And Mark in chapter 1 says very early in the morning while it was still dark. Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.
Leslie:If we are apprentices of Jesus, we will do what Jesus did. And Jesus taught us how to pray, and Jesus prayed himself. So it must be important to him, and it must matter. Paul said in 1st Thessalonians 5 16 through 18, rejoice always, pray continually, Give thanks in all circumstances for this is a good thing for you to do. No.
Leslie:That's not what he said. He said, because because this is Christ's God's will for you in Christ Jesus. This is God's will for you. Prayer matters. There are just a few places that speak the these are just a a few of the places that speak the truth to us that prayer matters, but it's all over scripture.
Leslie:There is a man in the bible who struggled with some of the same things we just talked about. His name was Job. His wealth, as in his oxen, donkeys, sheep, and camels, for stolen. All of his servants except a few were murdered. All of his children, every single one, died together in a windstorm that caused the building they were in to collapse.
Leslie:He was afflicted with painful sores, scripture says, from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. And scripture indicates these things happened in quick succession, one after the other after the other, and that none of it was Job's fault. Understandably, this place is Job on an emotional rollercoaster. Him. 1st, he falls to the ground in worship, and he says, naked, I came from my mother's womb, and naked, I will it.
Leslie:The lord gives and the lord takes away. May the name of the lord be praised. When his excessively supporting and comforting wife says to him, curse God and die. He replies, shall we accept good from God and not trouble. And when pain becomes unbearable, he begs God to kill him.
Leslie:When he starts to think about how he has done nothing to deserve this, how his actions have been good and right, he says, my days have no meaning. They come to an end without hope, and then he swings back again to though he slay me, yet will I hope in him. He was on a roll emotional roller coaster, and I think most of us can relate to When he is in a spot where there's so much pain and he just can't understand, this is what he says. I shout for help, god, and get nothing. No answer.
Leslie:I stand to face you in protest, and you give me a blank stare. You've turned into my tormentor. You slapped me around, knocked me about. You raised me up so I was riding high and then dropped me, and I crashed. I know you're determined to kill me, to put me 6 feet under.
Leslie:What did I do to deserve this? Did I ever hit anyone who was for help. Haven't I wept for those who live a hard life, been heartsick over the lot of the poor? But where did it get me? I expected good, but evil showed up.
Leslie:I looked for light, but darkness fell. My stomach's in a constant churning, never settles down. Each day confronts me with more suffering. I walk under a black cloud. The son is gone.
Leslie:I stand in the congregation in protest. I howl with the jackals. I hoot with the owls. I'm black and blue all over, burning up with fever. My fiddle plays nothing but the blues.
Leslie:My mouth heart harp wails laments. Me a hearing. I've signed my name to my defense. Let the almighty one answer me. I want to see my indictment in writing.
Leslie:Anyone's welcome to read my defense. I'll write it on a poster and carry it around town. I'm prepared to account for every move I've ever made to anyone and everyone, prince or Hopper. Then it's God's turn to answer, and God answers for about 2 or 3 chapters, but this is kind of the conclusion of what he says. Brace yourself like a man because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.
Leslie:Will you discredit my justice and condemn me just to prove you are right? Are you as strong as God? Can you thunder with a voice like his? Alright. Put on your glory and splendor, your honor and majesty.
Leslie:Give vent to your anger. Let it overflow against the proud. Humiliate the proud with a glance. Walk on the wicked where they stand. Bury them in dust.
Leslie:Imprison them in the world of the dead. Then even I would praise you you, for your own strength would save you. And a humble and repentant Job answers, you ask. Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance? It is I, and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me.
Leslie:You said listen, and I will speak. I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my for We're told at the beginning of Job that Job is blameless, righteous, and honors God. So why did he suffer?
Leslie:That is not the point of the book of Job, nor is it the question that the book of Job answers. The point of the book is to answer the questions his suffering brings about. Questions like, is God just? Is God trustworthy? Does God care?
Leslie:And the assumption that Job made was that he had enough perspective to make the claim that God was unjust. But Job doesn't have God's perspective, and neither do we. The perspective we have is very small. We only have the perspective of our little God has the perspective of all entirety of creation. God's perspective shows the vast complexity of justice.
Leslie:It's never black and white. It's much more nuanced than that. God's world is amazing, but it's not perfect, and it's not even always safe. It is ordered, but it is also wild. It is beautiful, but it is sometimes times dangerous.
Leslie:The answer that God gives is that we live in a complex world that at this stage, at least, is not designed to prevent suffering. Job demanded an explanation, And God invited him to trust his wisdom, which Job did. And Job and God honors Job's struggle and Job's honesty. Obviously, not everything he said and did because he accused God unjustly, and he drew some hasty and wrong conclusions. But he talked to God about it.
Leslie:He worked through it with God. His prayers mattered. And through struggling in his prayers. With God, he discovered the truth about God, and God says that's the right way to struggle. When we search for reasons, we tend to simplify God or accuse him based on our limited perspective.
Leslie:God invites us to bring our pain and our grief to him and to trust that he knows what he's doing. And so the question becomes, as Francis Chan asks, can you worship a god who isn't obligated to explain his actions to you? Can you pray, communicate with, commune with a God who is so big, so vast and so powerful that you cannot understand him. Can you worship a God who you nothing, but gives you everything. Isn't that the very definition of a good God?
Leslie:One who is so much bigger than us that we never understand everything about him. Isn't that what David meant when he asked when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place. What is mankind that you are mindful of them? Human beings that you care for them. When we're tempted because the intense pain we feel or see around us to judge that god is unjust, that God who is the king of kings, the lord of lords, the wonderful counselor, the prince of peace, our provider, our healer, the creator of the universe, the one who breathes life into us, the one who came, lived, and died as a human, our savior who transforms and redeems us, who invites us to communicate with him anytime, any place, and listens us as if we were the most loved person in the world.
Leslie:When we're tempted to judge him as us. We need to remind ourselves that not only does prayer matter, but it is a tremendous privilege. Think about the good things in your life. I want you to think about 3 right now. Not the 3 best ever.
Leslie:Just 3 good things in your for just take a second and think about that. Scripture says every one of those things and a zillion others that you can't think of right now are things that come from God. Jesus said, the thief comes to kill, steal, and Troy, but I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Are we going to let Satan rob us of the good things God has for us by convincing us that prayer doesn't that matter. Prayer is the way to Jesus, and Jesus is the way to life.
Leslie:So prayer is the way to life. Prayer matters. How powerful that no matter what we go through regardless of what the world tells us. We can stand up straight, put our shoulders back, and proclaim with Job. But as for me, I know that my redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at the last.
Leslie:And after my body has decayed, without my body, I will see God. I will see him for myself. Yes. I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought.
Leslie:Prayer allows us to know god and to trust him. It allows us to have a relationship with god almighty. Prayer is a gift. It is an unimaginable privilege, and prayer matters, so don't give up. Praying is how we learn to pray.
Leslie:Praying is how we learn to pray. It's the way we learn how to be with God, how to talk to God, how to listen to God. Remember the plan we made a long time ago back at the beginning of the a sermon. Do it because Jesus did, and you are an apprentice of Jesus. Then watch while God does way more than you can ask or imagine.
Leslie:As always, if you have questions about the sermon today, I'm happy to talk with you further about that. If you want to study the bible and get to know Jesus more, we have leaders that would jump at the chance to be able to study the bible with you. The one last thing I want us to do, I'm gonna pray for us first, but I'm gonna have, then play the song, my redeemer lives by Nicole c Mullen. And as it plays, I want you to respond to God about the truth that his perspective is infinitely larger than ours, that our world is not designed to prevent suffering at present, and prayer matters. So you can do that.
Leslie:You can write it down. You can put it in your phone. You can just sit and think about it and to god about it, but this song is about 4 and a half minutes long, so that's about how long you'll have to do that. So let me pray for us. God, we are humbled, and we are grateful that you, in all of your vast us.
Leslie:Goodness and wisdom and power would want to have a relationship with us, that you would let us come to you anytime, any place, and talk to you and listen to you or just be with you, that you always welcome us, that you never turn us away. And, god, we just pray that you would teach us more and more how to pray you and how to be with you. I just ask that as we sit and listen to this song for the next few minutes, that we would be able to respond to you about prayer, about how suffering affects our view of prayer, that we would talk to you about our feelings that about how prayer matters or maybe we feel like it doesn't, and that we would give that to you and respond back to you about that, and I pray that in the name of Jesus. And I just ask and say, may Jesus teach you guys to pray to commune and communicate with our father and lead you into a deeper life of union with the spirit.