It.
Can you identify the quietest part of your day?
I'm talking about that moment where you finally just kind of say, man, some peace and quiet
has finally come.
When you think about it, the quiet is often difficult to find and often very evasive in our
lives, our culture.
We live in a very loud and noisy culture.
Our lifestyle, the.
The way we carry ourselves, can oftentimes be noisy.
And honestly, even as a Christian, our church gatherings can be fast paced, full, and very
noisy.
Everywhere we go, we are bombarded by sounds, voices, music, advertisements, notifications
on our phone.
If you work out, you work out with headphones on, or we listen to music or a podcast in the
car.
We get home, and if you're like me, you just want to turn on the tv, watch the game,
especially if no one's around me.
We're just so accustomed to noise.
It's almost as if we live our lives with this humming background sound of just noise.
So much so that some of us, even like me years ago, fall asleep to an app called white
noise.
And this is just the external noise.
This is not to mention even the internal noise that goes on in our heads and our hearts,
and which oftentimes leads us to try to use new and different noise to block out that
noise.
But using noise to block noise is just dealing with the symptoms and not actually getting
at the root issue.
And so my question for us as we begin today, is, what do you think all of this noise is
doing to us as human beings?
Just about two years ago, Time magazine wrote a short little article called how listening
to silence changes our brains.
The co authors stated, quote, across disciplines from neuroscience to psychology to
cardiology, there is a growing consensus that noise is a serious threat to our health and
our cognition and that science, I'm sorry, that silence is something truly vital,
particularly to the brain.
They go on to say noises cause stress, especially if we have little or no control over
them.
I love hearing that, especially as a young parent.
They stated that, man, the noise.
This is a Matthias Basser.
He's a professor at university.
Wrote that the body has this ability to excrete stress hormones like adrenaline and
cortisol that lead to changes in the very composition of our blood and of our blood
vessels, which actually have been shown to become stiffer after a single night of noise
exposure.
That's wild to think about.
They go on to cite recent studies that have found learning to listen to silence, it's a
great phrase, have the ability to strengthen your brain.
They say.
It's a simple but profound notion trying to hear in silence can demonstrably accelerate the
growth of valuable brain cells.
That's wild.
That means there's a part of your brain, I think it's called the hippocampus, in which the
longer it spends in silence actually develops more brain cells.
They say this act of listening to quiet can in itself enrich our capacity to think and
perceive.
What a gift.
In 2020, if we can become a kind of community that actually knows how to think clearly.
Now, it's wild to me that if neuroscience, psychologists, and theology are all pointing to
our need for silence, then we should pay attention to that.
It poses a great threat.
Even more so, I think maybe the greatest threat that the noise of our lives poses to us is
that it robs us from a life with God.
The noise of your life and my life, when you think about it, is keeping us from a life with
God, keeping us from understanding what it's like to commune with him, to learn to listen
to his voice.
When was the last time you heard God speak to you?
Maybe it's because you've been living in a very loud and noisy environment.
Richard Foster, the great christian writer, said this.
Our adversary, the devil, he majors in three things, noise, hurry, and crowds.
If he can keep us involved in muchness and mininess, he will rest satisfied.
That's wild to think about.
Like when you think about the work of the devil in your life, is it that he wants to drown
you out just with noise, and he'd be okay with that?
That's something for us to consider.
And yet it's no surprise, then, that the modern world constantly wants to move us away from
the quiet.
It's almost as if we are under the power of an empire of noise and distraction, dead set on
keeping us from a kind of communion with God that is transformational to our lives, the
kind of communion that our souls deep down inside, truly long for.
Which is why today, as a church, we begin a new series called 40 days of prayer as a way to
respond to what is happening to us in life.
When you think about it, prayer is the singular spiritual practice that holds the rest of
our spiritual life together.
Who are you without prayer?
Who am I without prayer?
In other words, prayer is the soil in which every other spiritual practice is planted,
watered, and grows into life.
And so, over the next 40 days, we will explore as a church various kinds of ways to engage
with the practice of prayer.
Now, 40 days.
What's the point of that?
If you know scripture, you know that 40 days can often be a symbolic time of both
preparation and transformation for people.
Moses went onto the mountain for 40 days to be face to face with Yahweh and receive the ten
Commandments.
Elijah, in the darkest moment of his life, when he was ready to die, had 40 days and nights
in a cave on a mountaintop with God.
Jesus himself, as we know in the beginning of the Gospel, spent 40 days and nights in the
wilderness praying to God.
And what's amazing is that all of those men went into the 40 days as somebody, and then
they came out as a different person.
And that is our hope and prayer is that sandals church.
We as a community would go into this series, 40 days of prayer, and who comes out of it is
radically different and ready to live a life that God has called us to.
Now, 40.
I think if you were to say, why such a long period of time?
If we're being honest, I think 40 is a healthy number that helps us understand.
It often can take your mind and body a long time to slow down, which is why often, after a
five, seven day, ten day vacation, you're not okay.
It wasn't enough time.
You see external noise, the noise that's outside of us, like our phones, our tvs, those are
easy to turn off, kind of.
You can get away from those things, but the internal noise, that's harder to shut off.
And oftentimes the goal of external quiet is to help create internal quiet.
And to be honest with you, that just takes practice.
Because if you're anything like me, the moment I actually have time to be alone, a thousand
things hit my brain.
Which is why to be alone and quiet is not easy for a lot of us.
Like for some of you introverts like, this is a gift.
This is a blessing from God.
You can obey God in this area.
For others of us, to be alone and in silence is a real challenge.
But what is foundational for all of us as we begin this series is the truth that God longs
to be with us in the quiet.
God longs to speak to you.
God cannot get enough of you.
Which is why we need a particular kind of environment to attune our ears so that we might
learn to actually hear from him, to be with him, to speak to him.
Henry Nowan said it like this.
Without silence, it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.
St.
John of the cross, a spanish mystic, said that God's first language is silence.
In other words, God's native tongue is silence.
Or how about Mother Teresa said that God is the friend of silence.
And if you were to ask me Fredo, not that I would put myself in a category with Saint
Mother Teresa or John of the cross, but if you were to say, yo, Fredo, what was the single
thing that you have done that has sustained your life as a Christian?
I would tell you, hands down, at the risk of sounding overdramatic, that learning to be
alone and quiet has saved my life.
It really has.
It's in this practice where I have discovered who Jesus is calling me to be, to be as a
husband for Ashley, the kind of father I need to be for Eli and Ella, the kind of friend I
need to be for my community who knows me best, and the kind of pastor I need to be for you
guys.
And so, as we begin this series, 40 days of prayer, I cannot think of better offering to
pastor you through than the gift of learning to be alone and quiet with God.
And so today, as we begin this series, we're going to look at a passage from the life of
Jesus that I think offers us a beautiful way forward as to how we do this.
And so we're going to be in Luke chapter five.
If you have a bible, you can turn there.
If you got the Sandals church app, you can open that up.
I would just ask, wherever you are at with us today, that you would just pause out of
reverence for the reading of God's word and that you would stand if you are willing and
able.
And we'll read together.
Luke chapter five, starting in verse 15.
Luke says this, yet the news about him spread, all the more so that crowds of people came
to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed, this is God's word.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, what a gift it is for us to gather in this way together.
And we take a moment now, God, to realize that you have gathered with us.
And so we ask that you would now speak to us.
And as Jesus said, you give us ears to hear, eyes to see, so that we might receive and
become all that you desire for us in him.
It's in his name we pray as well.
Amen.
You guys may be seated.
Hey, Sandals church.
Thank you so much for watching today as we start a new series with Pastor Fredo.
Before we jump into the series, I wanted to invite you guys into some of the work that
Sandals church is doing.
One of the ways you can do that is by giving financially at give SC.
Now let's start our new series with Pastor Fredo.
Our passage that we just read reveals just another ordinary day in the life of Jesus, in
which his day was full, very demanding.
A lot of people were coming to him.
This is regularly happening.
And despite his best efforts, trying to live a low key life and not have things get too
wild up, people are still coming to him.
They need something from him.
You and I know what it's like to have people, over the course of our entire day, need
something from us.
My children, for whatever reason, right now, need a snack from me every ten minutes.
And I'm like, lord on high, you know, you just ate right now.
And then I think to myself, who in my family did they get this appetite from?
And then it strikes me as me, but we know what it's like to go from one thing to the next.
That's how we live.
We know what it's like for our calendars to be so full that there is very little margin to
just be with Jesus, to have enough time in a quiet space to listen to the voice of God.
And honestly, I get it.
We have responsibilities.
You have responsibilities.
All of us right now are shouldering responsibilities that are very significant.
You have jobs.
That comes with responsibilities.
Many of you are in school.
That comes with responsibilities.
You're raising kids.
They have needs.
You're trying to sustain a social life, which means you've got to get up, get ready, go
out, decide where you're going to go, what movie you're going to watch.
Some of you are trying to cultivate a healthy marriage that has responsibility.
Some of you are looking for a healthy marriage that also requires time.
You got to figure out who you're going to date, where you're going to go, what you're going
to say.
All of life is very demanding.
And even with all that said, please know that Jesus also know what it's like to have a very
demanding life.
And yet our passage says there that he often withdrew to lonely places and prayed that
phrase.
And I think that verse in particular is worthy of our reflection.
And so let's just take some time to just parse out each word from that last verse.
Let's start there with but Jesus.
But Jesus, the son of the living God, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end,
the one who you and I would think has just infinite ability to meet.
Every need to talk to, every single person had to get away and be quiet with God if he
needs it.
How much more do you and I need to be alone and quiet?
But Jesus next word.
Often, in other words, Luke communicates that this was a habit and a rhythm that he
developed.
In fact, Luke actually uses this phrase nine different times through his gospel.
Nine different times, I think, communicates.
This was a practice.
He often got away.
He didn't wait for things to go from okay to bad to worse, which is typically our routine
and prayer.
Oh, shoot.
I should probably pray.
Things have gone to crap.
It's time to pray, and I'm learning this in my own life.
Like, I had no idea that maturing to a 37 year old man that elementary school math would
have the capabilities of spiraling me out of control.
But I am finding that on any day of the week that ends with the letter y, you will find me
at the nook of my table trying to help my son do his math homework.
Eli, the word problem simply says 50 football players are trying to get to their game.
Each van holds ten players.
How many vans, son?
Ten here, ten here, ten here, ten here.
Do you see it, Eli?
Like, I'm losing my mind doing math.
And then I'm thinking to myself, oh, now it's time to pray.
But it's like I haven't created a habit of often getting away.
And here's the thing.
I don't know everything about you, but I know enough to know that there is enough
challenges coming your way.
Like, your life is complicated enough and too much is going on in your life for you to
think that you can just periodically find time to be with Jesus.
Be honest about yourself and be honest about your life.
Because if challenges were regularly coming to him, he often got away.
Challenges are also regularly coming to you.
You need to often learn to get away and be quiet with God.
You have too much going on.
The next word.
But Jesus often withdrew.
He got away from people.
The word there in the Greek communicates this idea that he is seeking refuge from danger to
withdrawal is to seek refuge.
And I think the danger for you and I is to believe the lie that we can live a life doing
things for God and never actually being alone with him.
Some of us are still operating under the delusion that you can live life under your own
resources and that you actually have enough to be who you are called to be.
You don't.
I don't.
You need to withdraw.
Jesus created distance.
Now, don't hear Jesus withdraw and think, oh, yeah, I can't wait to get away from people.
Being alone and quiet has less to do with being far from people and much more to do with
just being close to God.
So for those of you like, well, Fredo, I got a small house.
I got a small house, too.
And I got demanding life I got demanding responsibilities, demanding kids.
And so, listen, quite frankly, the bathroom can be a fantastic place to be alone.
Like, kids.
Leave me alone.
I'm with Jesus.
And depending on what I ate that day, my stomach might also be with Jesus.
And so withdrawal, like you stepping away.
I know it's so hard to do.
Like, it's just so hard to let things go and step away, think less about just retreating
away from people to some kind know, therapeutic oasis and more about getting close to God.
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places.
Ramos.
In the Greek, there is what is translated, it could also mean deserted place.
Some of our translations say deserted place, lonely place.
Some of them say quiet place, which is not what John Krasinski had in mind when he wrote
and directed the quiet place.
It's a very different reality.
Jesus's quiet place is different.
And he pulled away.
And this is why I think prayer can begin not with us just saying things to God, which is
very important.
Don't get me wrong.
But what if 40 days of prayer began with you and I learning just to be quiet, to be alone,
to be quiet.
And this withdrawal had an intention.
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places, and he prayed.
Now, if we were to retranslate this verse about my life, it would say Fredo often withdrew
to lonely places to be an introvert and watch the Laker game.
Or Alex often withdrew to lonely places and scrolled on his phone.
Or Megan often withdrew to lonely places and watched tv.
Or mark often withdrew to lonely places and checked his declining stocks.
But Jesus withdrew to pray.
That was his focus.
This isn't, know, a divine version of me time.
This isn't just therapy for Jesus.
He's creating distance to be close to God.
What in your life needs to change so that you can create distance to be close to God?
What is it?
Because I am beyond convinced that what you need most right now is the practice of solitude
and silence.
And with that, let me offer some thoughts as to why we need it first.
We need silence and solitude because this practice reveals what is happening in our
internal lives.
For example, if you are anything like me, the moment I get into a space where I'm by myself
and it's finally quiet, about 10,000 things enter my mind, even as a pastor.
Like, I am all over the place, from thinking about my conversation with Ashley to work, to
how bad the Lakers are, to the last episode of the crown that I just watched with Ashley.
And then I start to daydream, like, oh, man, I start to daydream and pray in a british
accent.
And then I start to think about, oh, man, I had a grandpa born in Manchester before he
migrated to the US.
What if I were to live in the UK?
Like, what would happen?
I like basketball.
Maybe I would have played soccer or cricket.
Maybe if I lived in the UK, I would have liked tea over coffee.
How do they dress?
They have sneakers in the UK.
I go all over the place.
I start to imagine my life as a Brit.
And then I come back to prayer, like, oh, shoot, where was I?
Yes, God, that's right.
My future, Lord, my future.
Would you just tell me everything I need to know?
Amen.
I just let you into a window of what it's like to be quiet in my brain, and that's like 40
seconds.
I'm like, oh, what am I doing next?
But getting into a place of quiet and stillness allows for all things to surface, both
thoughts and feelings.
And what if for a second, that's not a bad thing?
You guys, let me just offer to you one of my favorite psalms found in the book, psalm 131.
David writes this, lord, my heart is not proud.
My eyes are not haughty.
And then listen to this phrase.
I don't concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.
David's saying that he can recognize all that's surfacing, but he's embracing his
limitations as a human being and offering them to God instead.
He says, instead, I have calmed and quieted myself like a weaned child who no longer cries
for its mother's milk.
Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
David is mature enough to just name what is internally happening, to not see it as a bad
thing, but to actually see it as the very thing that he could connect with God about.
So here's what I'm saying to you.
What if all of those thoughts and feelings became the very pathways to a conversation with
God?
All of those things that flood your mind, your heart, your to do list, what you're going to
eat, that lingering fear about that conversation you had, what if those became doorways to
revelation, things that need to come out?
Because all of those things flooding in you does not mean you're a bad christian.
It just means you're a real human Christian.
That's all that means.
And solitude is not just a therapeutic getaway for a moment.
It is the focal point of transformation.
All of that stuff in you is doing something to you, which means it needs to come out so
that God can now use it to do something to you, too.
That's what's happening, rather than leaving us as just victims of living in a very noisy
society under the illusion of a false self that we feel more comfortable living.
This is why we go to great lengths, I think, to actually avoid being quiet.
Because when you are quiet, the truth comes out.
And many of us don't have the courage to face what is actually inside of us.
But hear me, whatever is down there will make its way out.
It will.
The pain, the excitement, the disappointment you're facing, the anger, the confusion, the
lust in your heart, all of those things need to surface in a place where we can recognize
them, name them, allow the power of them to become less of a stronghold in our life, and
then we offer them to God.
God, I've noticed this pattern of fear around my money.
God.
I've noticed this pattern of fear around who my kids are becoming, who I'm becoming as a
dad.
Help me.
You see, this practice becomes a critical way for us to face our emotions.
If you were here for our healthy series, Pastor Matt a few weeks ago talked about knowing
that our emotions are real, but they're not always right.
And so we should learn to question our emotions.
And one of the best questions that you can surface as they come up is to say, what is the
underlying truth or lie that I might be believing as it connects to this emotion?
Meaning, solitude and silence provide an opportunity to identify how we're feeling and then
to begin to discern what's the story I'm believing underneath that thought or that emotion.
And this could be why I think, man, so many of us are scared to do this.
But here's the truth.
Those things, they leak out of you.
So your options are either they leak out of you in the relationships that you cherish most,
or you allow the practice of solitude and silence to allow those things to surface in the
safety of God's loving presence.
Where would you rather be your whole self?
Will it leak out of you trying to do a word problem with your child?
Or will you realize, in solitude and silence, you are before the eyes of a loving God who
sees all of what you're thinking and feeling and is still faithful to love you?
You see, solitude and silence offer us a chance to move away from self deception to self
awareness in the very safety of a God who is present to us.
This is the beginning point of all true christian prayer.
You are your full self before a whole and true God and communion can now start.
The second reason why I think we need solitude and silence is because this practice reveals
purpose for our lives.
Like, imagine just for a moment.
Giving yourself regularly to this kind of prayer actually gave you clarity.
We already heard from the scientists.
They can grow your brain cells.
What if they also grew your vision for life?
Think of first kings 19.
Elijah, the darkest moment of his life.
He goes up into a mountain.
He's ready to die.
And God comes to him and says two things.
Same question twice.
Elijah, what are you doing?
Now, if you were raised in the christian church, you might have heard that story and
thought, like, God came to him and said, elijah, what are you doing?
Get down the mountain.
You're a prophet.
You're so dumb.
Get down.
But I'm more hopeful of the possibility that God just said, elijah, what are you doing?
Like, he's willing to explore with Elijah what is happening inside of him.
He cooks him a meal.
He's gentle.
And then we read this in verse eleven.
Go out, God says, and stand before me on the mountain.
The Lord told him.
And then Elijah stood there.
Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm, we were told, hit the mountain.
It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose.
But the Lord was not in the wind.
You guys know how this goes.
After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire, there was the sound of what a gentle whisper.
It is in that moment that Elijah hears God speak and give him direction.
He says, you're going to go anoint two kings, hazel, jehu, you're also going to go anoint
Elisha, who will be the successor to you as a prophet.
And, oh, by the way, there are plenty of people who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
I am just fine as Yahweh.
You will be okay.
Jesus also has a very similar experience in mark, chapter 140, days and nights in the
desert, discovering who he truly is as a son of God comes back, and then, we're told,
immediately went into towns.
He knew what his next mission was.
He knew what his purpose was to bring good news to people who need it.
The apostle Paul in a very similar situation as he's writing to the church in Galatia.
In Galatians, he talks about spending three years in the arabian desert with Jesus, getting
purpose, direction.
I'm going to be someone who brings good news to the gentile world to help them understand
the message of Jesus and who he is.
Often, not always, but listen.
We come from solitude and silence with a sense of a renewed vision of who we truly are and
what our purpose is.
And I would just be curious to know how many of you have allowed the noise of your life to
distort your actual identity.
And how many of you have allowed the noise and just the movement at which you go to keep
you from getting a clear sense of direction and purpose from God.
You can think of it almost like this.
If the noise and the pressure of our lives send us into solitude and silence, then purpose
sends us back into the world, right?
So we withdraw to be with God for the purpose of being resent, back out in the world.
Pressure sends you into silence.
Purpose sends you out of it, back into the world, and you come out different.
You have a sense of clarity and of an understanding of who you need to become.
Man.
You and I, we need this practice far more than we could possibly imagine.
And lastly, we need this because this practice also changes.
Listen now.
It changes us by the love of God.
One of the great truths that you get more and more at home with is that when you are alone,
you're actually not alone.
You're with God.
And all that internal mess that is beginning to surface, that you just want to continue to
stuff, is laid bare before the eyes of someone who the Bible calls your father, your
heavenly father, who is by the very definition, compassionate, merciful, slow to anger.
He is the safest being in the universe.
And so to give yourself to this practice is to open yourself to love and to experience it,
not just to read about it in a book or take a class on it.
Those things are fantastic.
But you and I need to experience the love of God.
Paul in Ephesians said it like this.
He's praying for the church.
He says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through
his spirit, in your inner being, in your soul, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts
through faith.
He goes on, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power,
together with all of the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long, how high and deep
is the love of Christ.
And then listen to this phrase and to know his love that surpasses knowledge.
Pause.
Let me ask you a question.
How would you know something that goes beyond knowing it?
What I think Paul is after is experiencing it for yourselves.
And the tragedy, I think of a lot of christians here in America is that we have never
experienced the love of God because the noise of our lives, it's not so much that you
dislike God, it's that you're just too busy for him.
Things are too loud for you to actually hear him speak to you.
And what an opportunity to embrace this practice in a way that it actually begins to change
us.
Something is happening to you.
Now.
Here's why I say that, because I would hate for our church, over the course of this series,
40 days of prayer, to just walk around, be saying, how am I doing a prayer?
Oh, I kind of prayed today.
Didn't pray yesterday.
Shoot.
I forgot to pray.
Even though the church is going to send me a text three times a day to remind me to pray,
I'm going to opt out because it's just too much.
Right.
How am I doing at prayer?
I'm not good at prayer.
I kind of stink at it.
Oh, well, that is not the right question to ask.
We should not be asking over the next 40 days, how am I doing at prayer?
Here's the better question.
What is prayer doing to me?
Who am I becoming as a result of the practice of prayer?
Because by being in the very presence of love, you are becoming a more loving person.
You're in the presence of God, the one who has always been and always will be loved.
You will become like him.
You're in the very presence of grace.
How can you not then become a more gracious person?
You are in the presence of a forgiving, patient, kind, wonderful, wise counselor, we're
told, how can you not become more like him?
Prayer does something to us christians.
Let's be done asking, how am I doing it?
This.
How am I doing it?
No.
What is that doing to you?
What is it doing to you and to me?
And what is it doing to our church?
The hope is not that we finish 40 days and we're like, sandals knows how to pray.
But that sandals has been transformed by the ongoing practice of giving ourselves to
prayer.
That is our hope.
And, man, I needed this definition years ago.
I needed this Roman Catholic.
Who knows?
Who would have thought a Baptist trained guy would have needed a Catholic?
But Ronald Roheiser says it like this, that prayer is relaxing into the goodness of God.
Now, as a nine, I love that idea of relaxing.
Prayer is just falling in less of a duty and just falling into the very goodness of God and
letting him change me.
Now, let's get real practical.
How can we begin this practice?
First, real easily.
Now, find some time in your day to be alone and quiet.
There's the nugget.
30 minutes to just be told, sit still.
That's it.
Find some time.
Maybe you set a five minute timer.
Find a moment in your day where you're just alone and quiet, like, when I wake up, I try to
do it first thing.
Have a cup of coffee, and I just sit quietly before God.
Sometimes I do it after I work out in the morning.
I just try to be quiet.
I'll set a timer, five to ten minutes.
And for those of you who feel like prayer is such a challenge because you don't know what
to say, here's the beauty of silence.
Don't say anything like, just shut up.
Just be there.
Just literally sit with God as you actually are.
Just sit before him.
Let him work, let him stir in you.
And some of you are like, well, five minutes, that sounds like a nightmare.
Others, you feel like that's not enough time.
Just start somewhere.
And in starting somewhere, don't underestimate how much Jesus can do with so little of you.
How much can Jesus do with so little of you?
A lot.
Thousands of people in the wilderness, they need Dinner.
Where are we getting food?
Who's got lunch?
Fish and loaves.
I'll put that in my hands.
Feeds thousands on the topic of faith.
How much faith you got?
I got a mustard seed of faith.
Jesus.
Oh, that's enough.
You can move mountains with that.
Don't ever underestimate how much God can do with so little of you.
Five minutes alone and quiet can go a long way in your life.
Secondly, as you work out this simple point, just to find some time and be quiet and alone,
remember that presence is better than perfect.
So imperfectly show up to quiet prayer.
When I get to prayer, I am a mess.
I am not.
Okay, let's be done with the delusion that pastors are just better at everything than their
church members are.
We are not.
We struggle.
I show up disappointed.
I show up guilty because I didn't get here earlier, or I only got two minutes because I got
a meeting with a church member.
So this has got to be quick.
Like, I don't levitate into prayer like God, here I am.
I don't know a single person does that, but you can imperfectly just show up for it.
I stumble into this practice, and God is still very kind to me.
Presence is better than perfect, so imperfectly show up for it and be done with the hang of
it.
I don't know if I'm doing prayer right.
I've just never been good at prayer.
I love the wise words of Roberta Bondi.
She is a christian historian who has studied prayer specifically, especially as the ancient
mothers and fathers.
That's a whole category for another message.
But she says this, if you're praying, you're already doing it, right?
So don't worry about being perfect.
Be present to it.
Next, I want you just to embrace all the distractions and see them as opportunities to
return to Jesus.
Rich Riot has talked about this in his book, deeply formed life, that every distraction
presents another opportunity just to return to prayer.
Because you know what that makes you as someone who just drifts all the time of prayer,
makes you a human being with a british accent sometimes, right?
Just thinking about it.
And so I have found recently, in dealing with distractions, this phrase, in dealing with
distractions, you can just say, when I think about blank, whatever that is, lunch.
An imaginary fight I'm having with everybody, which is why I'm a nine, because I've already
argued with you in my head, and I won.
So we don't need to talk about it in real life.
But whenever you think about blank, just simply say the words, Jesus, here I am.
Just return.
I got work in five minutes.
Jesus, here I am.
I can't stand my spouse.
Jesus, here I am.
I think I've gained a pound.
Jesus, here I am.
We create this time.
We create this time because we remember that God first longs to be with us.
Here is the good news.
Whether you pray in the quiet for the next 40 days straight or you never pray for the next
40 weeks, God's love for you remains steadfast.
The psalms say that God's love is unchanging.
It's faithful.
God's love has integrity, which mean it doesn't go up and down.
It remains the same.
The story of the Bible is about a God who loves us so much that he is always moving towards
us.
In love.
He desires to be with us.
Creation.
God makes Adam and Eve in a garden of solitude so much so that we're told that in the cool
of the day, God would walk to be with them.
Unfortunately, though, Adam and Eve, despite being with God, wanted to be God, so they're
banished.
Thankfully, the good news is that doesn't stop God.
He continues to pursue, so much so that he comes as a cloud in the sky, a pillar of fire.
Were told to still be with his people.
He gives them instructions.
You can build a tabernacle like this.
You can build a temple like this.
Why?
So that you can be in my presence again.
So that we can commune.
So that we can pray and talk and have life together.
It's still not enough.
As the human race continues to grow, we would rather be God than be with him, which is why
when Jesus taught us to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done, is the exact opposite
of what all of our hearts would rather say.
My kingdom come, my will be done.
That is the definition of sin.
Trying to take from God what he desires to freely give us.
We all do that in our lives.
But that doesn't stop God.
He sends prophets, reminding them, I will be with you.
I will free you and deliver you from exile.
You will be with me one day.
And then his love for us drives him so great to a distance that he's willing to come to us
himself.
John one.
In the beginning was the word.
The word was with God, and the word was God.
Verse 14.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
God came to be with us.
And the good news of the gospel is that through the life, death, and resurrection, you and
I can be with God forever, starting now.
And we're told that after he beat death on our behalf, he rose from the dead.
He ascends to the right hand of the Father, the scriptures say, and the Holy Spirit comes
down.
Why?
Because God longs to be with us.
This is the point of scripture and the very end in revelation.
It's not about us getting zapped and wars going on.
It's about God coming down.
Revelation is not about how you and I escape, but how God renews everything.
And he comes down because he longs to be with you and I.
The story of the Bible is about a God who can't get enough of you, so much so that he was
willing to live, die, and rise for you.
That's the good news of the gospel, you guys.
That's it.
And so, as we close, I want us just to actually end by practicing this together.
I'm going to give us a minute or two in silence for some of you, you will squirm.
Others, you might like it wherever you go.
It's not if you get distracted, but when you get distracted, just say, jesus, I'm here, so
let's enter into that moment, and then I'll pray for us as we close.
Jesus, we thank you for living life for us and for not just saving us, but showing us the
way of life.
You are the truth, the life, and the way.
And so would you help us to embrace this practice so that we might discover your love for
us, so that we might be transformed?
Lord, as we begin this 40 day journey of prayer, we want to become different people.
And so you, we ask that, as the disciples once asked, would you teach us to pray and lead
us to a place of communion and love with you.
We pray in Jesus'name.
Amen.