Speaker 1: Welcome to Garden Church Podcast. We're in a series called Walk with Jesus. This series is about learning to cultivate a passionate love with God, Joy.
Speaker 2: Okay. What's up? 9 AM. How we doing? Good.
I'm on the screen. I'm in person. I'm not preaching today. So, but I have an opportunity to to announce something, to pray, to commission someone into a new season in the church. But before I do, I I believe that, this is not an event, and so what we do intentionally, shapes who are we are becoming.
So I want you to know the thing behind the thing when we do something. Does that make sense? Vocational pastoral ministry in the United States is at an all time low. The national statistics on being a pastor and the impact of being a pastor on the family is harmful. 41%, according to Barna Research, would work a different 41% of pastors being paid right now in vocational ministry would do a different job if they could, if they had money to do it.
41%. There's some stats I'm just gonna lay out, and then I'll talk about what we're gonna do. So the state of pastors here, I'm just gonna show you them so you have them. This is for you to understand the kind of, pressure that is felt on every person that works at Garden Church that's a pastor. 72% of pastors report working 55 to 75 hours a week.
84% of pastors feel they are on call 247. 75% of pastors report being extremely stressed. 90% work I already gave you that stat. 90% feel fatigue and worn out every week. 91 experience a form of burnout.
70% of pastors say they're they're they have a lower self esteem now than when they entered into ministry. 80% believe pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families. 33% say it's outright hazardous. 70% fight depression. 60 5% feel that their family live in a glass house, and they can't meet the expectations of their congregation.
78% have reported, having their vacation and personal time interrupted by ministry duties. 65%, we should have music on this. 65% of pastors feel they have not taken up vacation time. Listen to this. 1 out of 10 pastors will retire as a pastor.
Over 85% of doctors will retire as doctors even for the stress of being a teacher today. Nearly 50% of those who go to be a professional teacher in our education system will retire as teachers, but only one out of 10 pastors will retire as a pastor. You could say that being a pastor today is harmful to your health, to your marriage, and to your well-being. None of our team at Garden Church work here because it's a career or the compensation's great, especially in Southern California. We do take care of our pastors financially.
We do take care of them with great benefits. We try our best as a board of directors to encourage time off, to encourage wholeness and health. We we are regularly generous in all walks of life. We are fighting hard against these statistics. But these factors make it really challenging to ensure life in wholeness for pastors and their well-being.
Now if anyone here there's a lot of you that have been pastors at churches in the past or currently in ministry. You know that the the hopefulness of longevity is these stats are working against that. So I am proud to announce that we are sending one of our pastors on a sabbatical. So in our efforts to empower our church to have a 100 year journey or beyond, to be the kind of church where the staff members at this church, when they leave our staff, if they choose to leave, they feel like they're more in love with Jesus, that their families are in a better situation and more in love with Jesus, and know what it means to be loved by a congregation, to work hard, and yet also have a soul that's stewarded while they're doing ministry. We have to do things to ensure, and the only thing we can give our team is compensation, finances, and time away.
And so we are going to send pastor John on a sabbatical. John, will you come up here? Will you guys welcome John and Lydia, his wife? Would you guys welcome? So this is this is Lydia Rosine, and this is pastor John, and I think we can do better.
Can we stand and give him a round of applause? And you can grab a seat. Thank you. And I know this getting this liturgical thing. When we have an opportunity, we are privileged as a church to empower sabbaticals.
Right? Most churches, in fact, the majority of the churches in the United States, over 300 and something 1,000, are a 100 people or less in attendance. Right? Only 12% of all the churches in the United States are over 500 in attendance. So we're in a rare category, and we get the privilege to send our pastors on sabbatical.
And I think for us as a church, we should be celebrating this. Yes. We should stand and applause when we get to announce the season of break for the sake of what's working against them, but also for the cost. That it's not just John who's carried so much of the last season for us as a church, but it's also Lydia. And for pastor's wives and partners, they they don't get the off switch.
They get the same spiritual attack. And the subtle comments on Instagram posts. And the expectations that are unnecessary upon their family. And it's it's a burden. And I'm I I I you know, we're in this because we're called, not because it's easy.
And more and more, we're we're we wanna suffer well like Jesus. That's the goal. But I will say for John, John planted this church with us when there were 12 of us. And he got hired on staff. He left a career that would have had a pension and retirement plan for the Cal State System as the emergency manager of Cal State Long Beach to take a massive pay cut to become a pastor of this community when we are only a 100 200 people.
So over the last 9 years, he has faithfully stewarded this church. I think, you know, the Lord I remember when pastor Todd who sent us out of Rock Harbor, he's like, pray for partners. And it's lonely job to lead a church, but then when you get a brother who's in the fox hole with you, who, like, endures the same thing, it's a little less lonely. And John, he's taken on so many roles for the benefit of you. And his family has suffered because of it.
Not not because it doesn't it's just part of it. And we're gonna send them on the next 8 weeks to to re recharge their soul. They're not gonna be here because it's a good thing that the absence empowers us to step up. So we need you leaders to step in to fill his shoes. We need to pray for them.
We're gonna do that in a second. We need to encourage health and wholeness. If you guys wanna give them a Pentecostal handshake and put cash in their pockets, do it. Venmo works. We want them to be more in love with each other as a couple.
Speaker 3: Yes, Lord. Yes. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm thankful to our elders and our board that that empower sabbaticals. I'm sorry. I can't help it. Sorry, Ramin. I'm going into your time.
I had something written. I can't even get through it, but I know that, just wanna say, John, and Lydia, you have faithfully served him. We're so grateful for you as a family. And I pray for Joy in Charlotte to come back just so grateful for this grace space that you get. And so I love you, and I'm thankful for your sacrifice.
And I know it's been fighting a war, and you've been amazing through it all. So let's pray for you. Let's do that second. Can you come down here? Would you if if John's blessed you, would you stand up and come?
I'm gonna it's gonna be awkward, but just let's just lay hands. I don't care if it's the whole church. Let's just lay you can come up on the stage.
Speaker 3: It's like if if
Speaker 2: there's any encouragement in the spirit, if there's any love in Philippians 2, just come up here and lay a hand. And would you ex if you're seated because you don't know him, would you extend a hand? Pray your best prayers. Jesus, I thank you for this beautiful couple, and I pray that you would protect this time. Lord, what the so sorry.
What the enemy has stolen, which you restore. Thank you for the late nights and the early mornings. I thank you for the the kind of dirt under your fingernails leadership that John has built this house, God, with humility and faithfulness. And I pray Jesus that what what little is 8 weeks would be exponentially so he could leave for another 9 years. And I pray, Jesus, as a community, we would bless them, and we we would steward their time and protect it and keep it sacred and hold them up.
And so we bless them in the name of Jesus. Amen. If you're new, I'm I'm normally not this tearful. It's not false. I'm so grateful for this church and this season, and we really love you guys.
And John and Lydia, I don't know if I can do it at the next service. Let's just let's just let it be let's just let it be one. This is a body, a family. This is not this is not a website that you can consume or a podcast that you can curate and make yourself better. This is the family of God.
And most of us have not been committed or covenanted to a family. We've we've shown up to churches. I want you to press in and be family, to gather with the Lord's saints here and raise children and sacrifice and serve. That's what God's called us to be. And it keeps growing by the grace of the Lord, and we're we're gonna steward that growth because he's entrusting us with more people, which which is amazing.
You're bringing friends that are coming to faith or being set on fire by the Lord, and that's Jesus. It's not about a brand. It's not about a teacher or a worship style. It is all Jesus. And it's about being a you a community that recognizes it's Jesus.
We're gonna have pastor Ramin come up and preach. So I'm so grateful for this man. So let me pray for you, pastor. Jesus, I thank you for my friend. I thank you for say sending Garden Church laborers,
Speaker 3: and
Speaker 2: I thank you for this this heart who has suffered well, and led well, and has ministered to so many for decades. I thank you for the stewardship of of leadership he carries, and his sermon, I pray that you anoint it for us in Jesus name. Amen.
Speaker 3: Thank you, God. Thank you, Darren. It's good to be a part of a healthy house, isn't it? And Darren and Alex have modeled that, and John and Lydia have modeled that for you for so many years, and for Natalie and I, it is a privilege to step into, what is such a healthy house. And we're in a series, right now called Walk with Jesus.
And if you haven't been with us over the last few weeks, what Walk with Jesus is all about is how do we live the whole of our lives in relationship with this beautiful savior who gave his life for us, who rose from the grave, and who's given us the power and the person of the Holy Spirit, so that we could walk in fidelity to him, in union with him. And Darren shared this last week if you were here as he said he wrote this series expressly for a friend of his who's just come into faith of in Christ. And our heartbeat in this series is to say that Jesus is the most compelling person that the history of the world has ever seen. Isn't he? Yes.
He's the one who turns a little boy's lunch into a meal that feeds an entire hillside. He's the one who turns the Sea of Galilee into a dance floor. He's the one who speaks to the darkness and casts out the demons and he touches the blind eyes and opens the deaf ears and visits graves only to plunder them and resurrects on the 3rd day with the power of God. He is the most compelling person that has ever walked this planet. That's right.
But sometimes following him feels like a confounding mystery, doesn't it? How does my regular ordinary life filled with the rigors of a day to day fit into this cosmic story called the kingdom of heaven? And by the mercy of Jesus, what we're hoping to do in this series is help all of us take our next step in our walk with Jesus. And so Darren's gotten us under the hood with this series. I'm gonna share something with you that should be in the Louvre, I'm telling you, right now.
Put it up, Seth. Let's go. This is our pastor's artistic gift coming out. You might wanna take a picture of this. Memorize it.
It's probably gonna be somewhere in the throne room. Love you too. But what this picture is is saying that if we see the life of Jesus and we want the life of Jesus, which many of us most of us I hope all of us in this room would say, we want the life of Jesus. We have to understand that we need to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus. I've been a marathon runner most of my life, and I can't tell you how many times people have said to me, I want to run a marathon.
Have you ever wanted to run a marathon? Oh, gosh. This is not my pea hey. I I'm from I'm from Boulder. It's a different crowd.
But if you if you had wanted to run a marathon, for example, it's often that image you have of crossing the finish line, nothing's bleeding, your your hands are in the air, the perfect time is on the screen above you, and your friends and family are there, and you've you've hit your goal, you've met your mark, and you're just a little bit tired but not too tired, and you've enjoyed the journey of the 26.2 miles. But as soon as you start to talk to people about what it requires to run a marathon, like, I'll see you at 6 AM, and you're gonna have to cut that out of your diet. You're gonna have to go to bed at 9 because the discipline of the morning always starts with the discipline of the evening, and you're gonna have to adopt the whole monastic lifestyle of being a long distance athlete. People are like, no. That's cool.
I'll just stick to surfing. I'm just kidding, you guys. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.
Surfing's hard. I can't do it. But just like marathoning and just like surfing, because I tried it once, if you want the life of Jesus, you have to take on the lifestyle of Jesus. And this picture that Darren gave us is a picture of that lifestyle. It's about the rhythms and the habits.
It's the things that were part of Jesus's life that made him the person that he was externally. And what we're looking at in this series is prayer today. And last week, we got started in prayer, that part of Jesus' life with the father was a life of prayer. And today, we're taking the next step in what it looks like to pray like Jesus. And so if you have a scripture, we're gonna turn to the gospel of Luke.
I I'm not gonna do it. Darren can do it from the front there. But if you've ever wondered what prayer is as you're turning there, prayer is simply having a conversation with God. Prayer is learning to be present to God at all times. Prayer is being still and listening.
It's asking and talking to God to God about what matters most to him and what matters most to us. And thankfully, the disciples made a request to Jesus in Luke chapter 11, so that we don't have to. Luke chapter 11 verse 1. It says, one day, Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.
And he said to them, when you pray, say, father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone who sins against us, and lead us not into temptation. And with those 4 simple words, that request, Lord, teach us to pray, the disciples got Jesus to open up his inner life with God. Do you get the privilege of that?
Thankfully, they asked the question. They made the request. Lord, teach us to pray. And the reason they asked Jesus this is they noticed a pattern in Jesus' life. Is that before these moments where you'd see the miraculous power of heaven fall to earth, before Jesus made pivotal decisions or rebuke the Pharisees with the authority of God, or taught and unlock the scriptures so that people could see a clear picture of the father in heaven.
Before that, they found Jesus in a solitary place on a hillside in the middle of the night. And they noticed that there was this inextricable link between the outflow of the kingdom of God and the secret hidden place that Jesus would go to his for his fought with his father. And so what they asked him wasn't teach us to preach, teach us to heal, teach us to prophecy. They said, teach us to pray. Get us to the source of where your life is flowing.
Anytime we see life flourishing, it's always connected to a source greater than itself. And prayer is the means by which God has given us to be sourced by the resources of heaven. And so as we learn to pray like Jesus, we hear these words that he says, but the words are a pattern, not a formula. That's an important distinction to make. He's giving us a pattern or a way of praying.
In Matthew chapter 6, let's go over there. Jesus teaches this pattern in a little more robust way. He says, this then is how you should pray. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Last week, Darren got us started in this prayer by praying, father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Intimacy with God that we can secure through Christ. In heaven, you are everywhere around us.
We don't just pray in a closet. We pray as we go. And hallowed be in your name, exalted above every other name is your name, Jesus. And today, we're looking at the next two lines of this prayer, where he says, your kingdom come and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, and give us today our daily bread. We're gonna look at what it means to ask and to seek and to trust God for everything from kingdom come to daily bread.
And, oh, how desperately we need to pray like this. Room today who look at prayer and you have no idea where to start. You've been in environments where it seems like everyone has access to a secret glossary for prayer words and you don't have that glossary. And you're like, I can't do that so maybe I can't pray. And some of us in the room have been so distracted that despite our best intentions to pray, and I won't do all the iPhone stats because Pastor Darren does that really well and I don't have them all memorized.
But we're just too distracted to give more than 30 to 45 seconds to God today. And there's some of us in the room, and we're going to speak to this today, who have had seasons of deep and faithful prayer. But because our most desperate prayers have been met with what feels like deafening silence, we have stopped praying as a means of self protection. And we feel like it's too vulnerable once again to ask and to seek and to knock because last time we went down that road of courageous faith, we found the things that we needed most wanting. And now, we have reserved ourselves to praying before dinner because we dare not risk again a life of ruthless trust in a God who's faithful.
And as I prayed for us this morning, what I've asked the Lord to do is just through the scriptures to reveal Jesus. Jesus who in the garden prayed for the cup to be taken, but yet not his will, the father's to be done. Jesus who extended his arms on the cross. Jesus who wept over the sin of the world. Jesus who plundered the grave and resurrected to the father, who tore the veil and gave us direct access into the throne room, that Jesus, that he would meet you today.
And in meeting you, he would inspire trust in him, faithfulness to him that would sound like prayer. And so the first movement of prayer that we wanna look at is this idea of intercession. An intercession actually can change the world around us. Your prayers matter. There are things that are happening in the world because some of you are praying, and equally, there are things that are not happening because you are not praying.
Your prayers matter. Theologian, Karl Barth, said it this way. He says, to clasp our hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world. You wanna get to a prayer meeting? And so intercession, this prayer Jesus teaches us to pray, let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth and in heaven, is asking God to meet the resources of earth with the resource or the needs of earth with the resources of heaven.
That's what intercession is. The word just simply means to stand in between. So I'm standing between the needs of Earth and the resources of heaven, and I'm naming the things where I need heaven to come down and change the actual situation that I see in front of me. This is what intercession is. Meeting the needs of earth with the resources of heaven.
Long, you know that this here is in heaven. This is our our mission. This is our vision here as in heaven. And we get this because when Jesus came in Mark chapter 1, preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, what did he say? He didn't say repent and believe in a church or repent and believe in a message.
He says, repent, rethink everything, and transfer your trust into a new reality because the kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is simply God's presently eternal reign and rule. It's God getting the way he wants with everything here on earth. And so when we pray, God, let your kingdom key come here as it already is in heaven, what we're saying is, God, have your way here. It's our way of participating in the in breaking work of God.
And God invites us to do that. He empowers us to participate with him in prayer as we pray, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. But there's a second part to this part of intercession, and that's also consent. So prayer is one part participation, saying, god, I'm gonna join you in asking for heaven to come to earth. When I see division, I wanna see unity.
Where I see brokenness, I wanna see wholeness. Where I see divide, I wanna see restoration. Where I see sin, I wanna see forgiveness. Where I see hopelessness, I wanna see the restoration of courageous faith. That's what it looks like.
But along with that is consent because he says, let your will be done, God. Intercession is one part calling down the realities of heaven into the brokenness that you see around you, but it's got to be coupled with a heart that's willing to consent to the ways of God. Saying, father, it's not my solution, it's your solution. God, I'm not looking for this to go the way I program or predict it will go, but I'm looking for your will to be done in this situation. And this shifts the nature of our prayers.
And so prayer, intercessory prayer, becomes our form of participation of bringing God's kingdom to the world. And we get in on this type of prayer by learning to ask God. And there there are so many scriptures that I could point to that talk about Jesus's passion for us to ask the father for things in his name. There's Luke 11, Luke 18, Mark 11, John 14, John 15, Mark Matthew 18, Matthew 7. This is just exemplary, not exhaustive.
And I'm sharing those that list with you because I wanna get it in our spiritual imagination that the economy of the kingdom of God is asking. God invites his children to ask him for things. Let's look at one of those texts in Matthew 7 verse 7. It says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.
Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and the one who seeks, finds. And so the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? Is it on the screen? Oh. Oh, okay. No worries.
I was hoping you guys would come along with me. For those who ask him, there we go. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. What is what a startling invitation from Jesus. Ask, seek, and knock.
Ask us to make a request of God, a simple request to God. See connotates direction, relationship with God. So we're we're asking, but we're not just looking for the gift. We're going after the giver. And knock has to do with table fellowship.
It has to do with sitting down and getting comfortable in the relationship. So Jesus is saying the way that we intercede is we ask the father, we make requests to the father, we seek the father, not just the gift. We seek relationship with God and we knock. We get ready to sit down and get comfortable in relationship with him. And I love the the contrasting, distinguishing, picture that he gives.
Are a father and your kid is asking for something and you know how to give them good things, how much more do you think that our father that Darren preached on last week will wanna give good gifts to his children? When we when Isaiah was growing up, he's in the front row today with the the blonde fro, but when he was growing up, he had a craving for something that was deeper than the craving of a man dying in the desert for water. He had a craving for something that nothing else would satisfy. And when my son was thirsty, he would look to me, and through his beautiful little voice, he would say, daddy, I need fresh cold. Fresh cold with Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice served at a specific temperature out of a sippy cup.
And it about put me in in debt trying to buy enough Tropicana Pure Premium for him. But when Isaiah said, daddy, fresh cold, it's not on my mind to think, like, well, why don't I just slide you some whole milk? He's lactose intolerant. Why don't I just peel peel up some of that prune juice that's been sitting in the back since we used it for a Thanksgiving meal? No.
It's the joy of my heart as a father to respond to the request of my son. And Jesus is just trying through a very simple picture to get that into our minds. That when we come to God, we are not coming to a benevolent dictator. We are not coming to someone who's absent or distant from us. And Darren preached this last week, but just just hear this.
You are coming to a father who loves you with matchless love, who so loved you that he gave his one and only son to die on a cross so that relationship with you could be brought back whole again. He gave everything so he could love you and know you. So how much more will he want to give you the things that you ask for? Asking is the rule of the kingdom of God. And the invitation in Jesus in prayer is to get comfortable asking our good father for the things we want to see happen in the world around us.
I love these quotes that I wanna share. Dallas Willard, a theologian that actually spent some time here at the garden, he said this about prayer. He says, God's response to our prayers is not a charade. He's not pretend he is answering our prayers when he's only doing what he was going to do anyway. Our requests really do make a difference in what God does or does not do.
And then Walter Wink, another theologian, he said this. I love this. He says, when we are when we pray, we are not sending a letter to a celestial White House, where where it is sorted among piles of others. We are engaged, rather, in an act of co creation in which one little sector of the universe rises up and becomes translucent, incandescent, a vibratory center of power that radiates the power of the universe. History belongs to the intercessors who believe the future into being.
If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape from action, is a means of focusing for action and of creating action. By means of our intercession, we veritably cast fire upon the Earth and trumpet the future into being. We've got we've got prayer on Wednesday morning. Would you like to come? See, this is the picture of prayer that Jesus wants us to take.
Here's a little evaluation I sometimes give myself as I'm trying to grow in prayer. If you were to think about this for a moment, if God granted a miraculous yes, I mean I mean a total, miraculous, instant yes, to every prayer you prayed the last 7 days, what would actually change in the world around you? What would change in your family? What would change in your church? What would change in your city?
What would change in our world? And I share that evaluation because sometimes, for me, it looks like a little more peace in my home, a little more benefit for the people that I love, a little more, you know, less anxiety from things related to work, a little smoother commute from Los Angeles. Like, it's not the things that I think I ought to be praying about. But the Lord convicts me about that and draws me deeper into prayer, and I just wonder what would happen if we allowed the Holy Spirit to lead us to be a people who join him in intercessory prayer. And so I wanna offer just a few simple steps of how do we intercede.
The first one is this, pray as you can, not as you can. What I mean by that is, you don't need the glossary. You don't need special words. You need to look around the world and see anything that doesn't look like heaven. And the moment you see something that doesn't look like heaven, whether you're driving, whether you're jogging, whether well, you guys don't do that.
Whether you're surfing, you're you're you're, you're pursuit 90 ing, You're you're having coffee. You're working. You look around the world, and where you see something that does not look like heaven, pray as you can. Use the language you've got. God, that doesn't look like something you would want.
Change it. God, that breaks my heart when I see that. Do something about it. God, it pisses me off when I see that going on because it doesn't seem fair. Bring your justice into the world.
See, now you're praying like the Psalms pray. They got emotion behind them. Somewhere along the line, we were taught that our emotion stays out of the prayer life. You start reading David's prayers. He starts praying impeccatory prayers of justice, asking for the realities of God's kingdom to oppress anything that doesn't bring the life of God into the world.
And you start getting the bloodstream of prayer, which has a lot of emotion, which has a lot of questions, which has a lot of reality in it. So stop sanitizing your prayers. Pray as you can, not as you can't. Don't worry. As you pray more, guess what happens?
Jesus gives you his heart because that's the seeking part. Right? You're not just going after the gift, you're going after the giver. And when you go after the giver, he impresses his heart on you. And you start to pray the prayers Jesus would pray.
That's what he meant after all when he said, when you pray in my name. That's not the cute tagline you put on your best wishes. That's saying, I'm praying in the rhythm and the cadence of Jesus' life. So we pray as we can, not as we can't. 2nd, we keep it simple.
It does not need to be long. I thank you, Darren, for for sharing that. Like Jesus' longest prayer, take up your mat and walk. I love that. Just keep it simple.
We keep it real and we keep it up. Like, keep going. Just because it didn't happen in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 50th time, keep praying. And finally, we keep it about Jesus. So that's how we intercede.
We pray as we can. We keep it simple. We keep it real. We keep it up, and we keep it about Jesus. Sound good?
Awesome. Let's move on to petition, this next part of Jesus's prayer. And so he's prayed, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I I love that. That's that's powerful.
Right? Like, I don't know. You got stirred I got stirred up preaching that. It's it's like cosmic realities. It's it's like the, you know, the the the plundering of the grave, the the cosmic victory of Christ, all of that.
And and then the next line, you're waiting. How's he gonna build on this? And he's like, pray about lunch. I I love this about Jesus. And I think he's onto something here, at least he is with me, because it's much easier for me to pray for the cosmic realities.
Like, I I can trust God for my salvation, it's but but with my anxiety, that's a lot harder. It's easier for us sometimes to trust God with the the large scale cosmic things than it is to trust God with the restoration of our families, with our finances, and with our parenting. And what Jesus is doing here is he's going from intercession, which is asking God to meet the needs of the earth on the resources of heaven, to what we would call in in the church world, petition, which is beautiful. It's asking God to meet my needs based on the resources of heaven. Jesus is saying, you have permission to ask for God daily bread.
I'll never forget when we
Speaker 2: were growing up, my family was first
Speaker 3: generation Americans, and people will always ask me, like, how have you done much traveling to Europe and stuff? I was like, no. My parents were first generation Americans. They got to America. Like, this is the greatest country.
We're gonna take road trips. So we got a Ford Aerostar. Did anybody else have one that looked like a toaster, you know, on wheels? Ours was baby blue with gray racing stripes. It was awesome.
But we would pack into that thing and, you know, mom and dad my my dad was an engineer, so, like, he planned everything. Like, he got the triptych from triple a, and when we went on a road trip, we did anybody else know the triptych? Come on, people. And he would plan, like, we're stopping at this Bob Evans. We're staying at this hotel.
Like, it was down to the minute what we would be doing. And as we were traveling down to his favorite vacation spot, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, come on, I had my youngest brother, Eli, with me, and and I loved Eli. He's he's a lot younger than me. He's in his early thirties, and at the time, he was probably about 4 years old. And we're driving all the way down, and Eli is just sleeping the whole way, just relaxed.
You know how a kid sleeps in the car seat? Just relaxed. Then we get down to Myrtle Beach, and we check-in, and there's a pool at the house, and we're so excited to go in the pool. And Eli is the baby of the family, so he's favored. And so he gets everything that he wants, and and he shows up at the edge of the pool, and he's got on, like, more water safety gear than the junior guards would recommend.
I mean, he's got a flotilla. He's got, like, arm wings. You remember those? He's got goggles on and a snorkel. He doesn't know how to swim.
And and my dad is standing in the water, and he's looking up at Eli, and he's like, okay, Eli. Now you can do it. You can jump. And Eli's standing there, and he's just like, nope. Not gonna do it.
I'm looking. I'm like, bro, you are you you would keep the Titanic up. Like, you're good. And it always hit me it always hit me that, like, Eli could trust my dad to drive him from Tiffin, Ohio in a Ford Aerostar, that's probably a safety hazard, all the way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and he didn't bat an eye. But the 2 inches, that was the hardest part.
And it's the same in prayer. It's one thing for us to say, Jesus, I trust you to forgive my sins and give me an eternal life with the father in heaven. It's really difficult to pray for our daily bread. Here's why. We are woefully self reliant as a culture.
To pray for your daily bread is to admit weakness. It's to admit dependence. It's to say, I can't, So I need you too. And deep in the economy of our heart, we resist that sometimes. Maybe you don't.
I do sometimes. And we resist that that form of dependence upon God. But the invitation to dependence hear me on this is an invitation to intimacy with God. Because it's in that place of openness where we say to God, like, I I know I should be able to, but I need you to. God, I know it would look much better if I just came with the solutions not the questions, especially as a father, right, or as a husband.
But instead, I'm just gonna open the questions for us all to see the glory of God. For our daily bread, what Jesus is inviting us to do is to see not only does he provide for us as his people, but he wants him he himself to become our daily bread. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry. And what we find in those moments when we're seeking hard after God to just be enough to get us through, whether that's finances or something in our family or something in our work, is that Jesus himself becomes the all consuming meal that we need.
As the psalmist would pray, I have been satisfied as with richest of foods. And this is the invitation of praying daily bread, to become someone through grace who is dependent enough upon God that you can ask for the things that society tells you you should be able to take care of on your own. So how do we do that practically? Praying petition, asking God for his daily bread. The first is, this is just how I do it, is always begin with gratitude, praying thanksgiving for what you already do have.
Not only does the psalmist tell us that through thanksgiving, we welcome the presence of the Lord. Thanksgiving is how we enter his gates. It's how we enter his courts. But thanksgiving also reorients our hearts so that we're paying more attention once again to the giver, not just the gift. The second thing I have to do, and you might be beyond this in your walk with Jesus, but I have to confess myself reliance on a daily basis.
Confess it to God. I'm trying to do this on my own. I need you to be the one that supplies. The third is to ask for God's help in making you more dependent on him. It's okay to ask him for help with the things you think you should already know how to do.
That's why the disciples said, teach us to pray. Hey, that's cool. They saw Jesus do miracles, and they still had to ask. It's okay for you to ask for help. And the last one is to just simply ask him for what you need, and to trust that if he doesn't provide what you're asking for, he's gonna, through prayer, reshape your desires so that you begin to ask for the thing that he knows that you need.
And that's how we pray petition. Now, this life of prayer, of intercession and petition, it plays out in the real world. It plays out in a a world full of temptation and loss, of disappointment and waiting. And I believe with all my heart that if we are going to be a church who prays, which we are a church who prays, but if we're gonna continue to be a church who prays and goes after the things of God, we need to develop language for, 1, when God breaks through with a miraculous yes. Right?
Like, Darren was in LA, and he saw 8 to 12 people physically healed because people asked for healing. Praise Jesus. I I when I was growing up, I just come to faith in Christ. And my friends and I were talking, and one of their moms had a cancer tumor on her neck. And we were just reading the book of Acts.
We hadn't been conditioned by, like, theology yet. And so we thought, bring Linda to the prayer meeting that we're hosting. We prayed for Linda Snow, and the tumor went away. I've seen these things. He can do it.
He does do it. And so we need language for celebrating that. I think we're pretty good at that as a church. I'd give us a 10 out of 10, actually. From all the churches I've ever been a part of, I do not know a church that celebrates God's miraculous breakthrough as well as you guys do, as well as we do.
But if we're gonna be a people of prayer, we also need language and a framework for how to experience God when our desperate prayers are felt like they're not being answered in the way we ask. And that's so important because at at 24 years into pastoral ministry, I will tell you this, more than anything else, the main reason I've seen people walk away from God is they didn't know what to do when God didn't come through in the way they were told he would. They were given an expectation of God by someone or a a teaching or a podcast or whatever it was they got it from. And no one helped them gain enough depth in God, such that when they were interceding, and they were petitioning, and they were asking and seeking and knocking, and things didn't go as they expected them to, they didn't know where to go. And I believe that trust in Jesus actually allows our faith to be enriched and not diminished when we walk through those kind of seasons with God.
And so let's look at a teaching Jesus gives about that, about persistent prayer in the gospel of Luke verse chapter 18. It says, then Jesus told his disciples a parable to to show them that they should always pray and not give up. Now, I love this. Like, if you study the parables of Jesus, usually, the punch line, he waits. And a lot of times, he doesn't even give it to him.
But Luke caught on early on here. This is really important. Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. It's important enough to Jesus that he just gets this out right at the beginning. He said, in a certain town, there was a judge who knew their feared God nor cared about what people thought.
And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, grant me justice against my adversary. For some time, he refused. But finally, he said to himself, even though I don't fear God or care about what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come and attack me. And the Lord said, listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day night?
Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, and here's the question, will he find faith on the earth? So what Jesus is saying is that as we persevere in prayer, we have to get into the rhythm of knowing that sometimes we're gonna have to wait longer than we would choose to wait. This widow had identified that the judge was the one person who could do for her what she needed to be done.
In that culture, in that time, if she was a widow, then there was a judgment held against her or something that she was trying to get justice for. If it wasn't happening, she was going to be in an incredibly desperate situation. So out of that desperation, she keeps going again and again and again back to the same judge. And I just think about that, like walking the same path, and getting up every morning and saying, you know what? I'm gonna go back again and try this again.
That this is a picture of prayer. I'm gonna walk the same path. I'm gonna knock on the same door. I'm gonna schedule the same meeting with the same judge, and I'm gonna sit and plead my case again and again until he gives me what I need in the situation. And what's so powerful about this is that Jesus is equating persistent prayer with faith.
That's what he says at the end. He says that when the son of man comes, is he gonna find any faith on the earth? Anybody who kept on seeking and kept on asking and kept on knocking. And the reality is in this story, the widow gets what she was asking for. Right?
He she gets the justice. And what Jesus promises, and this is the promise of God to every single one of us, will not God bring about justice, his kingdom he's talking about, for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night. What God is saying here is that every prayer that you've prayed has made its way to God. Take us to quickly because I think it injects faith into our hearts when they get tired and weary in trust. Revelation chapter 5, we get a little bit of a window into those prayers rising up before God.
In chap chapter 5 verse 8, it says, when he had taken it, the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God's people. So the two things scripture tells us that God collects are our prayers and our tears, which aren't they the same sometimes? He's saying there's this golden bowl in the throne room of God where the prayers of God's people are being stored up. But that's not the only time we see the bowl of prayers.
If you turn over to Revelation chapter 8, the 7th seal is being opened and Jesus is beginning to renew all things, the renewal of all creation. And listen to what happens here. When he opened the 7th seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And then I saw the 7 angels who stand before God, and the 7 trumpets were given to them. Another angel who had the gold censor came and stood at the altar.
He was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all God's people. On the golden altar in front of the throne, the smoke of the incense together with the prayers of God's people went up before God from the angel's hands. Then the angel took the sensor and filled it with fire from the altar and hurled it on the earth. And there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashings of lightning, and an earthquake. So what's happening in this picture is that the prayers that you've prayed, your persistent widow prayers, the prayers of, God, I'm coming again.
I'm asking again. I'm seeking again. They are sitting in this golden bowl held by the angels. And when God chooses to inaugurate the renewal of all things to fully bring his kingdom on Earth as it already is in heaven, how does he begin? By pouring out all the prayers of God's people and answering them with a resounding, yes.
Yes, there's no more disease. Yes, there's no more death. Yes, I'm wiping away every tear. Yes, peace is coming on the earth. Yes, perfect justice will be seen.
Yes, every orphan is placed in a family. Yes, restoration and wholeness are coming on the earth again here as in heaven. Your prayers are the prelude to the in breaking of the fullness of the kingdom of God. We have a prayer meeting on Wednesday mornings. And the reason that this is all possible is because of Jesus.
That's how we have access to prayer. That's why we persevere in prayer. I can invite the worship team back up now. It's because of Jesus. When Jesus was dying on the cross, the scriptures tell us that the temple veil was torn in 2.
And it's very specific in scripture. It doesn't say that the temple veil was ripped apart by some of the disciples trying to propagate a myth about the resurrection of Christ. It says, the temple veil was ripped in 2 from the top to the bottom. Heaven coming to earth. And as that temple veil is ripped in 2 and Jesus is dying on the cross, he's initiating for us the access we now have for God.
And then 3 days later, when Jesus raises from the grave, he inaugurates this new way of us relating to God through prayer. He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit. Have to wait Get the fire from the altar, the power of the Holy Spirit. Mix it with the prayers of faith of the people over time. Pour out the prayers.
And me, we may have to wait for that. But here's what you don't have to wait for, being near to Jesus. You do not have to wait to come to this altar today and ask him to heal your body. You do not have to wait to come to this altar today and ask him to forgive your sins and begin a whole new life with him. You do not have to wait to restore your heart and let him knit it back to his again.
He wants to do all of those things. So let's stand right now. In Hebrews chapter 10, simple invitation to draw near to God, to seek him. It It says, therefore brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way open for us through the curtain that is his body. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to, us hold unswervingly to the hope we professed for he who promised is faithful.
And so the altar is open. And I just want to invite you right now if you want to come and draw near to God, to allow him to restore trust, restore love, to heal, to bring breakthrough in your life. When I pray in a moment, just come forward. Our prayer team is here. They will come alongside you and join you in the work that the Lord is doing.
So holy father, beautiful Jesus, faithful Holy Spirit. We draw near to you today because of the blood of Christ. Had to wait far longer than we thought was reasonable. We pray right now, holy spirit, story to reignite faith in the hearts across this story. They would make us a people, Lord, who draw near to you because of the power of the cross and the resurrection, that the access has been granted.
Mercy and to find grace in the midst of our times of need. We come before you, King J. Before you, King Jesus. Thank you, dear.
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