Forty Days to the Cross - Stay Ready

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Helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grant Parkway, visit GrantProquay.org.

We've come together this morning for that very purpose, God.

We've come together to be reminded of what the truth is, who the truth is, and why the truth matters.

And so, Holy Spirit, Jesus said when you come, you'd lead us into the truth.

And so we ask you to do that which Jesus said you would be glad to do, and that's to lead us into the truth.

And so, Holy Spirit, speak today.

Say something that has our name on it, that is undeniably us, something that doesn't hurt, something that heals God.

Speak something that is redemptive.

You're the God who says, Come, not go away.

And so you've kind of called us to this place for such a time as this.

And so, Lord, we ask you just to speak.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat if you have a Bible.

I invite you to take it and open it up to Luke chapter 21.

Luke 21 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 21.

Luke 21 · chapter mention

We'll start uh reading in verse 25.

And if you're our guest today, let me explain what we're doing.

We're in a series entitled 40 Days to the Cross.

And we're just kind of looking, we're kind of moving towards our uh our Holy Week services.

We have a Monday Thursday service, which will happen in here on Thursday night of Holy Week.

Then we have a Good Friday service.

Good Friday is the is where we commemorate the occasion where Jesus offered his life up on the cross.

And so we've been kind of looking in this series that just the closer Jesus gets to the cross, what is the thing he talks about?

Because the nature of last conversations dictates that you say things you want people to remember.

So we're gonna read from Luke chapter 21, starting in verse uh 25.

Luke 21 · chapter mention

And Jesus is three days from the cross.

He will be dead in three days.

He knows it full well.

It's why he comes to Jerusalem.

And so he kind of comes in with this understanding.

And so he says these things.

He's looking around and describing how the world is gonna end.

He says in verse 25, and there will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars and on the earth, distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.

For the powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud and with power and great glory.

Now, when these things begin to take place, straighten up, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Let me ask you a question.

You ever talk to your kids?

And you can tell by the look in their eye, they have no idea what you're talking about.

They're just kind of smiling and nodding, like, mm-hmm, okay.

As soon as you stop talking, I'm gonna go back to tearing stuff up.

So Jesus talked to people, and every once in a while, and this is one of those occasions, Jesus is talking, and people are kind of like, Oh, okay, I think I kind of know, but I don't want to raise my hand and go, Jesus, what are you talking about?

And so he tells them a parable because he wants them to understand.

That's what happens next in verse 29.

And he told them a parable.

Look at the fig tree and all the trees.

As soon as it come out in leaf, you see for yourselves, and you know that summer is already near.

So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

And then Jesus turns the corner in verse thirty-four, and this is where I want us to dig in this morning.

He says, But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.

For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth, but stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.

And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet.

And early in the morning, all the people came to him the temple to hear him.

I want to talk to you this morning.

Well, a couple weeks ago, we started looking at different things Jesus talked about.

And a couple weeks ago we looked in Mark's gospel, and Jesus says on his way to the cross, by the way, don't forget the gospel's extravagant.

Extravagant gospel, extravagant response.

It's one of the most tangible expressions of uh of who God really is, is that our friends and neighbors and co-workers see the way we respond to the gospel, that it matters, and it affects the way we live on a daily basis.

Last week we looked at through through the lens of John's gospel, John 17, the high priestly prayer.

And today we're looking through Luke.

Jesus is three days from the cross, and basically what he says to us in this passage is, hey, stay ready.

Stay ready.

Don't just get ready or be ready, but stay ready.

You say, Well, what do you mean?

When I was a kid, we lived out in the country, and my family would get together with other families, and the parents would like play cards and dominoes and stuff, and the kids would get bored.

And eventually some of the adults would say to the older kids, hey, why don't you take the younger kids on a snipe hunt?

And I'd be like, Yes, this is awesome.

We're gonna go on a snipe hunt.

And we'd go out on the blacktop road, out in the country, where there were no street lights, and we'd get a grocery bag, and we'd wait there in the road, and the older kids would go off in the peach orchard and they'd say, Oh, here they come, here they come, they're coming your way, get ready.

And I would get ready, and they'd go, they're getting closer, get ready, and I'd get ready.

And after about 30 minutes, I was like, What are these snipes that people say are coming?

And I'm standing out there and I'm like, all right, I'm like a short stomach.

I'm like, uh, here they come.

I got my bag down between my legs, and I'm like, oh, there's a big one, get ready, and they're just running right after them.

I don't see a thing.

Where is this thing?

I'm straight in my eyes.

I'm like, oh my gosh, they're getting by.

And then they would come out of the peach orchard and run down the road and go, I got one, and they'd give your bag and they'd go boom, stick their arm all the way through, stick a hole in the bag, and go, it got away, and I'd go home crying every time.

I got a big one, and it got away, and I need a hole in my bag.

And my drunken father, the habitual liar, would look at the bag and go, Oh, that was a big one.

You need to get a bigger bag next time.

Till one day I showed up with a gunny sack that couldn't punch no hole in that bad boy.

And I realized what all of you realized there ain't no such thing as a snipe.

There I was out in the road, get ready, get ready.

Why do I tell you that?

Because when a lot of times people start talking about the end of the world, the end times, people in the Bible and people in 2015 in Sugarland, Fortman County, they're like, eh, get ready, get ready.

Come on, man, this is just a snipe, huh?

Everybody knows this isn't real.

And Jesus says, hey, the issue is not getting ready, the issue is staying ready.

How do you stay ready?

That's what he drills down in verse 34, and he says three things to us this morning.

First thing he says is, watch yourselves.

Watch yourselves.

Verse 34, hear it again.

But wash yourself lest, circle that word in your Bible, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life.

Watch yourself.

See, here's the consequence.

Watch yourselves lest your heart get weighed down.

See, if you don't watch yourself, lest means because if you don't watch yourself, this is going to happen.

Your heart is going to get weighed down.

So watch yourself, command.

Here's why.

Because your heart gets weighed down, and here's what.

There's why, and there's what.

Here's what.

Your heart gets weighed down.

He says three things with dissipation, drunkenness, and the cares of life.

Now it's easy to kind of go, hey, dissipation.

I don't even know what that is.

So I'm probably not doing that.

Well, let me tell you what it is, and then we'll decide.

Jesus says, hey, dissipation.

Basically, it's that giddy euphoric feeling you get from drinking too much wine.

Some of y'all like, I'm not making a facial expression.

Now he doesn't say from drinking any wine at all.

He just says, hey, you here's what happens.

You begin to look to other things, in this case, wine.

You begin to look to other things to bring you the comfort that you used to find in the gospel.

For some of you, it's not wine.

For some of you, it's ambient.

You're just going there, huh?

Yes.

For some of you, it's not wine, it's not ambient, it's another cookie.

Oh, now we're officially meddling now.

Yeah.

You just begin to look to other things to find comfort that you used to find in God.

That's dissipation.

Your heart gets weighed down because you're out there, you're kind of going, yeah, when I was a little kid, this stuff kind of meant a lot to me, kind of scared me.

I was like all into Jesus.

And then I kind of outgrew all this stuff.

Really?

How do you how do you do that?

How does that happen?

What happens is your heart gets weighed down.

Which is why Jesus says, watch yourself.

I want to give you three questions I want you to think about as you drive to work this week.

The first question is simply this because the Bible says, watch yourself, translation, don't spend so much time, focus on everybody else.

Don't cruise Facebook and see what everybody else is doing.

Focus on yourself.

When you look at yourself these days, what do you see?

When you look at yourself these days, what do you see?

I spoke at a disciple now, which is a weekend discipleship event uh years ago.

And and I had this crazy idea, and the youth minister said, Well, that's going to be kind of goofy.

We set up different stations where kids would come and experience different things.

And one of the things we had is I got three mirrors.

I said, I need three mirrors.

And the guy's like, Well, what else do you need?

I need some ball bearings and some gauze pads.

It's all ball bearings these days.

And so, and so I got these three mirrors and three big throw pills.

I put these three mirrors against the wall with a big pillow on the ground.

And I just said to them, Hey, I want you to go sit down on that throw pillow and just look in that mirror at yourself for five minutes.

And so they rotate through all these stations.

Happened every time.

Guys and girls, they get over that station and they would sit down and look in the mirror, and after about a minute or two, they just burst into tears.

And the guy's like, What's going on?

And I said, We don't take time to look at ourselves.

And with nothing to distract you, nothing to engage your attention or your mind's attention or your heart affection, all you got to do is sit and look at yourself.

And all your insecurities come crashing down around you.

And Jesus says, Watch yourself.

So the first question I want to give you is hey, when you look at yourself, when you look at your life these days, what do you see?

Jesus says, watch yourself lest translation, because if you don't, your heart's gonna get weighed down with dissipation, with drunkenness.

And then he kind of drills the focus, he kind of sharpens the focus a little bit.

He says, and the cares of this life.

Now, when the Bible says the cares of this life, logic dictates that if there's this life, then there has to be another life.

You realize that?

He says, this life.

So this life is not all there is, is what Jesus is saying.

Jesus says so much with such subtle, simple words.

He says, the cares of this life.

In Mark chapter 4, he tells the story of the parable of the sower.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

He says, Hey, the kingdom of God is like a guy who had this seed and he sowed it, and some fell on the path and it was just trodden underfoot.

And some fell along the rocky soil and it kind of sprung up, but or the shallow soil, it sprung up, and then when the sun came out, it just kind of withered it and it died because it had no root.

He says, Hey, some fell among the thorns.

And then he said, Some fell upon the good soil and produced a crop, 30, 60, 100fold.

And the disciples and people listening were kind of like, I didn't, I didn't get that.

It's kind of like a word problem in algebra.

Remember those?

When they say a river flows at 400 feet a minute, and you're like, ah, oh, I got nothing on that.

And so Jesus circles back later on in Mark and he explains it.

He gets to, he's explaining the different types, and he gets to Mark chapter 4, verse 19, and he explains the seed that falls among the thorns, and he said, And others are like the ones sown among the thorns.

Mark 4:19

They're those who hear the word, but the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves or it becomes unfruitful.

Hear that again.

He says the the desire for other things, the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things.

They enter in and choke the world and it proves unfruitful.

Let me just say this: the issue is not with wealth.

So if you're here today and you got money, relax.

We don't beat you up for that here.

Because the Bible doesn't do that.

The issue is not wealth.

The issue is not the deceitfulness of wealth, the issue is your desires.

Because here's what I want to say to you.

Your desires are proportional to the amount of money that you have.

The more money you have, the bigger your desires get.

And you say, What do you mean?

Think back to when how many in this room are married?

Can I see your hand?

You're married?

Put your hands down.

Remember the first place you lived?

Chances are it was not a house.

It was an apartment or something like that, a duplex.

My wife and I lived in a duplex.

620 square feet.

Now go back.

Yes, go back.

Remember the first place you lived?

Now, think about where you live now.

Now, when you first lived in that place you lived, go back there and think about it.

Did you ever fathom you'd live in a house as big and nice as you live in right now?

No, because when you were back there in that apartment, you were just kind of like, this is awesome.

Remember when you said stuff like that?

You looked at each other, you're like, man, this is incredible.

But you kind of go up the little uh uh uh of the food chain.

You get some equity, you trade that in for this, you get a house, it's kind of a starter, fixer up, we're live in that for a while, move it a little bigger, a little bigger, a little bigger, and now you're kind of like, man, I can't believe we would live in a house like this.

This is awesome.

Don't feel bad about that.

Why am I telling you that?

Because as your capacity, as your financial capacity increases, so your desires increase.

And Jesus says, hey, it the deceitfulness of wealth, the desire for other things.

They enter in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

The problem is it riches or the deceitfulness of riches, it's our desires.

You say, well, what do you mean?

It's easy to look at rich people and kind of go, man, I wouldn't do what they do.

I mean, I've had that money, I'd do something better with it.

It's because you don't have that money, that's not the issue.

You don't have the desires that come with money.

There's things that you don't think about because it's not even in the realm of possibility.

Like, how many of you, by show of hands, thought this week about buying a$200,000 racing pigeon?

Thank you, I rest my case.

However, there's a man in Asia that spent$200,000 on a prized racing pigeon, bought it as a baby.

By the way, the Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe took eight years to build this pocket watch, and a man paid$100 million for it simply because it was one of a kind.

Also, the Indians, the richest man in India spent one billion dollars with a bee on his house, and on the roof, it has three helipads.

And when I read about this, I thought to myself, hey man, the last cat that had three helicopters land on his roof was Osama bin Laden.

That didn't go well.

You don't want that.

But he does.

Just in case he has three people show up in helicopters at the same time, he can land them all.

Now, it's easy to look at that and go, that's such a colossal waste of money.

Me and 14 men from our church just got back in Costa Rica, in the mountains of Costa Rica, we've adopted this village.

And these people have dirt floors and plastic tarps for roofs, and it's easy to go, you bad rich people.

Hey, here's the deal.

The deal's not that they got money, the deal is that their desires have increased in proportion to their money.

And so, hey, you got a billion dollars to spend on a house?

Spend a billion dollars on the house.

It's not his money, it's his desires.

It doesn't stop there.

Man in England paid$18 million for a Ferrari 250 GTO from the 1960s.

My brother had a Pontiac GTO in high school.

No one would have paid that much for it.

The most lucrative divorce settlement in the history of America.

One lady got six million dollars a year from her ex-husband.

Think about that for a minute.

That's$500,000 a month.

How do you spend that kind of money?

So I sent her an email and said, if you're having a hard time coming up with ways, I'm available.

Then there's the rapper, music, mogul, and producer P.

Diddy, who bought his 17-year-old son a$390,000 limousine just because he made the honor roll.

My daughter came home a couple weeks ago and said, Dad, I may make National Merit Scholar.

And I said, You want to go to the Sonic?

Why?

Because your desires are in keeping with the amount of money you make.

It's not a bad thing.

You got to just be careful.

Here's why Jesus says, Hey, because these things kind of enter in the deceitfulness of will and the desire for other things and the cares of this life.

Your heart gets weighed down with the cares of this life, and you're like, oh, there's so much to care about.

At the end of the day, you got about this much left to even think about the things of God.

And Jesus comes along and says, Hey, watch.

Watch yourselves.

Watch yourselves.

Why?

Because your heart's gonna get weighed down to such a point that all you can do is complain about how hard your life is, and that's not the life that God created you to live.

Watch yourselves.

By the way, we don't worry about those kind of things.

Here's the ten most common things that ordinary people in America worry about.

Number one, how am I gonna pay the bills this month?

Number two, will I ever find the right person for me?

Number three, what do I want to do with my life?

I ask that every Monday.

Number four, am I spending enough time with my family?

Number five, is my life making a difference?

Number six, what if I lost my house?

Number seven, could I lose my job?

Number eight, what can I do to lose some weight?

Men suck it in now.

Number nine, will I be able to take care of my parents as they age?

Number ten, will my marriage ever get better?

These are the things that people's heart get weighed down with.

And Jesus says, watch yourself lest.

Watch yourself, because if you don't, your heart's gonna get weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the cares of this life.

And you're no longer living life.

You're just complaining about how hard it is.

You're looking for somebody just to offload your burdensome life on and kind of go, you have no idea how hard this is.

And I didn't want to know until you came along.

Why'd I tell you that?

Because you got to watch yourself.

Second thing Jesus says down there in verse 36, after he says, watch yourself, he says in verse 36, but stay awake at all times.

But stay awake at all times.

Because he says, hey, watch yourself.

Because you get weighed down with all this stuff.

He said, then that day will come upon you suddenly like a trap.

But it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the earth.

But stay awake at all times.

That's one of the hardest things that we do spiritually in our culture is to stay awake.

You say, What do you mean?

Because we are a culture that is wired up around consumption.

We love to consume.

Taco Bell says, you need a fourth meal.

And so your fourth meal option at 2 a.m.

Hey, my man, if you're Taco Bell at 2 a.m., you need to stop smoking pot, okay?

Let me just tell you, that's for free right there, okay?

Uh and I'm just I ain't hating on anybody.

I'm just saying we got to be careful because our culture is kind of assumes that we are going to be consuming 24-7.

And Jesus says, hey, stay awake.

You're like, what's consumption got to do with staying awake?

Because the byproduct of consumption is not obesity.

The byproduct is not, I'm, I'm, I'm fat, or, or the politically correct word, I'm a little fluffy, or whatever you call yourself, okay?

I don't know what you call yourself.

But the byproduct of consumption is not obesity.

Hear this church, the byproduct of consumption is sleepiness.

You just kind of just fall asleep.

You're in conversations with people, and they say something that's radically unbiblical, and you're so sleepy.

The tryptophan of this culture has so numbed you to the things of God to be prompted by the Spirit to have your conscience kind of jolted and stabbed awake, and like, hey, now wait a minute.

Well, hey, what you just said was like left of crazy.

Can we talk about that?

But instead, you just like uh like I have a friend that that sits around and just gets liquored up on Fox News every day.

I got nothing against Fox News.

Please don't send me emails, okay?

Thank you.

Uh on days I don't read my Bible, I watch Bill O'Reilly and call it my quiet time.

Anyway, and my friend, his biggest concern is that Hillary Clinton's gonna be president.

He called me this week and said, What are we gonna do about Hillary?

And I said, Hillary, who?

He goes, Haven't you seen this thing on these emails?

Uh-huh.

And I'm just like, because I wasn't sleepy, I was awake.

I just looked into the phone and I pretty clearly heard the Lord say, Tell him.

And so after my friend just gushed passionate, I said, by the way, does this surprise you that politicians lie and cheat and deceive?

And what I'm hearing is that your hope and your concern is in a politician.

For somebody who doesn't like Hillary Clinton, you've sure given her a lot of your mental energy.

Well, that's not what I wanted.

I wanted to be encouraged.

I'm encouraging you to stop obsessing about politicians.

They're all crooked and they lie.

Click.

Now, if you've not hung up on anybody lately, let me encourage you to hang up on somebody this week.

It is the most cathartic thing I've done all week.

Kat called me right back, and I was just like, You still want to go?

And I'm just like, hey, I'm I'm not, I'm I hey, I'm I'm for the political process.

He began to tell me that Ben Carson's the savior.

We need Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee and blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, and I said, What do you thought about spiritually this week?

And he said, What do you mean?

My friend's asleep.

See how subtle it is?

Now, I'm not making light of the news.

I'm not making fun of CNN or Fox News, I'm not even making fun of politicians.

It's so easy for the tryptophan of this culture to kind of creep in that we care about everything.

The cares of this world is not limited to sinful things.

It's broad enough to include really important things like I think politics is important, but look at me, men, look at me.

Don't miss this.

It's a lot more important who's running your house than who's sitting in the White House.

Don't waste your life.

Oh, I'll tell you what, we got two more years to capture, and then they're gonna try to hill around, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I still got to parent my kids.

None of those people have the power to shape the way my daughters think about God.

But I do.

Jesus says, stay awake.

Stay awake.

And now, towards that, you say, Well, what do you mean?

Let me just kind of read.

This command to stay awake is all through the Bible.

This is Matthew chapter 25, verse 1.

Matthew 25:1

Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven.

He says, In the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.

Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.

Excuse me.

For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them.

But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps, and the bridegroom was delayed, and they all became drowsy.

Did you hear that?

The bridegroom was delayed, and they all became drowsy.

What's taking so long?

I mean, is Jesus gonna come back or what?

I mean, come on.

They became drowsy and slept.

But at midnight there was a cry, Here is the bridegroom, come out to meet him.

Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.

For the wise answered, saying, Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.

And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.

And afterwards the other virgins came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered, Truly I say to you, I do not know you.

Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

You could turn over one chapter into Matthew 26, about verse 40 and 41.

Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He says to his disciples, Hey, just stay here and pray with me, watch with me, watch and pray.

It's all through the New Testament.

And he goes a little further, and he gets down and he pours out his heart to God and to his father, and he comes back and they're asleep.

And he says, Could you not tarry one hour?

I mean, come, come on, guys, are you kidding me?

Come on, man, really?

I'm driving my kids to the movie on Friday to a four o'clock matinee because it's cheaper.

And I look over, and my 11-year-old's falling asleep in the front seat of my truck.

I mean, just nah nah.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna preach about you on Sunday.

Just take your nap now.

What am I saying?

I'm telling Jesus saying, stay awake.

Stay awake.

Don't be at this so long.

You just kind of just get lulled into this, this sense of just, uh, okay.

I mean, come on.

I don't want to, I don't want to cause a problem, and I don't want it to be awkward.

And and and you can't just tell yourself, stay awake.

That doesn't work.

I I don't know, you're like, uh, uh, uh, uh, you ever try to, like in church, you try to not fall asleep, you're so tired, and you're like, okay, pinch me, mom, pinch me.

And the more you say stay awake, your body's just kind of going, you've got to do things intensely to kind of awaken yourself.

And so here's what I'm doing this week.

You don't have to.

I would just invite you to, because I want to stay awake.

I don't want to miss things, I don't want to have conversations with people and walk away and go, oh man, I wish I would have said this, or I wish I had thought of that then.

One of the reasons we don't think about things is because our mind is so blunted by consumption.

And so, it's a great opportunity during the Lenten season.

This is Lent.

I'm gonna eat off the small plate this week.

You say, Well, we have plates in our house.

They're big plates.

Big, I mean, and then you got plates and you got what's called chargers, you know, decorative platters we put under the plate to put the plate on top of.

That's a truly American phenomenon there.

Uh and so, and then you got a salad plate.

So here's what I'm gonna do this week.

I'm just gonna eat off the salad plate.

Oh, because you need to lose weight, probably, but not my motive.

Uh here's why.

Because I don't want to dull my senses with too much food.

I don't want my heart to get weighed down with dissipation that I comfort myself with the oatmeal raisin cookies my wife made this week.

And this morning I walked by and thought, I could eat six of those.

And they're as big as my fist.

And I just was like, and so I just invite you, here's the application portion of the sermon.

If you're game, let's just all eat off a little play.

You know, what if I go to work?

What I got to eat my buddy.

Just say, hey, you may want to split something?

Oh, you're afraid, you're saving money.

No, I'm not trying to save money, I'm just trying to stay awake.

And then you've got yourself a conversation you have to explain.

Which is my second question for you.

When's the last time you had a conversation you had to explain?

Aren't you tired of having just predictable conversations?

I'm having breakfast in the morning with our banker on the children's family.

Me and one of the other elders and a couple of the guys, and I said to one of our elders, other elders, I said, Hey, you want to split breakfast in the morning?

He looked at me like, I ain't into that.

He goes, I just want to eat off a little plate.

Why?

Because I don't want to consume so much that I'm just kind of dulled in my senses.

Last thing Jesus says is pray.

He says, Hey, watch yourself.

Stay awake, lastly, and pray.

Praying that you may, he says, but stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all the things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man.

When you think about instead of trying to figure out when Jesus is gonna come back and make sure you're on the right side of this deal, Jesus says, here's the deal.

You need to pray so that you'll be able to stand in the midst of all that is to come.

Don't be afraid, Jesus says.

He says, pray.

And let me just give you three practical things about prayer.

First one is simply this, because talking to people about prayer, it's kind of like, okay, I'm getting sleepy all of a sudden.

Uh carve out some time, carve out some solitude for yourself.

Because we don't have much solitude in our world.

We're so uber connected, so everywhere we go, we got Facebook, we got this.

We just cannot not be connected.

And I'm saying, disconnect so that you can connect.

You got to disconnect from all these horizontal, lesser, smaller things so you can connect.

Like, which is why when my wife and kids went to Dallas last week for the first spring break, I stayed home, and one of the things I did was I didn't talk for 12 hours on purpose.

Why?

Because silence kind of turns up the volume on the voice of God in my life.

And I just sat in my house alone.

And it was great.

And I just thought and prayed and read, and the phone rang, and I didn't answer it.

Not only do I hang up on people, I don't answer my phone every time it rings.

I have voicemail.

If it's real important, leave me a message.

I'll call you back.

I'm not gonna live at the mercy of that little black iPhone.

I'm not that important.

I'm available to you as your pastor.

I give you my cell phone number.

You can call me anytime of the day.

If you need something night, you got an emergency, call me.

But that doesn't rule my life.

Social media.

See, my fear is that we have a great sense of this social worth, but we have no self-worth.

Which is why if we sat down and looked in the mirror, we wouldn't like what we see.

Second thing you do to kind of enhance your prayer life is to immerse yourself in the Psalms.

Immerse yourself.

I love what Clyde said earlier, that the Psalms are great because in the Psalms, there's Psalms about people that say, Hey God, I don't want to sing.

That's what they say.

A lady brought her children to see me this past week.

They said, Okay, can we bring you lunch?

Absolutely.

If your kids like to get a happy meal, get one for Pastor Neil and bring your kids.

I'll talk to them.

So I'm talking to these little boys because they have to go see their dad.

It's a divorce situation, and they're both remarried, and they're like, hey, you want to go see our dad?

And I said, Hey, the Bible talks about people had to do things they didn't want to do.

And the little boy kind of looked at me, oh, he's eating.

Kind of like, okay, I'm checking you out.

By the way, he was six, and I dropped this on him.

I said, in the 137th Psalm, these people were so mad because they had to go not to their dad's house every other weekend, they had to go to Babylon, and they were locked up there as slaves.

So they said, God, we're so mad at these people, we want to hit their babies and hurt them.

He put his sandwich down and said, Really?

And I said, Yeah.

Yeah.

So seeing your dad and having a stepmom is probably not the hardest thing that's gonna happen to you in this life.

Came out and one of the staff said, What'd you tell us little boys?

And I told them, they're like, dang, dude, they're six and seven or whatever old they are.

And I said, Don't you wish to God someone had told you that when you were little?

Uh well anyway.

Good seeing you.

I just feel lonely sometimes.

I just feel like this.

Does anybody gonna just tell people?

Just come on, man.

But you immerse yourself in the Psalms, and here's the thing: you have the full range of human emotions, okay?

You have the full people that are angry at God.

People are like, hey God, I'm talking and you ain't saying anything.

Am I being punished here?

What's going on?

Because you can't say the same things you've always said in prayer if you read the Psalms.

Full range of human emotions, and hear this part.

And they still bow beneath God's sovereignty, they still get to the nevertheless.

Not my will, but yours be done.

Last thing I would say to you about prayer is simply this.

And by the way, the people in the Psalms, they knew less about God than you do, and they love God more than we do.

They didn't have the cross, they didn't have Jesus to look at.

And yet they have this deep, authentic, raw faith.

Lastly, I would just say, stay curious.

Stay curious.

You say, What do you mean?

Stay curious about life, things you read in the Bible.

Saw a lady in the last service, she said, Hey, thanks for answering my email.

I said, Yeah, it'll take me sometimes a half a day or a day, but I'll always respond to you.

She goes, I just read that.

I was just curious, and I'm just glad I could just write you and ask you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

He said, What do you mean?

For example, stay curious about things you read in the Bible.

I read this past week, Psalm 27, 4, which says this.

This is what I mean by staying curious.

David says, One thing have I asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

I've read that I don't know how many times, and it jumped off the page to me.

Why?

He says, One thing I've asked of the Lord.

So I start thinking, Lord, if I could ask for one thing, what would I ask for?

I doubt I would I would say, I just want to dwell in the house of the Lord.

I don't want to live at the church.

But the first thing that before I got to that, he says, one thing I've asked of the Lord, that will I seek after.

And very clearly the Lord said, Hey son, you don't just ask and then sit down on your blessed assurance and wait for me to give it to you.

If you ask and you really want it, seek after it.

Seek after.

Those two are not mutually exclusive.

You can ask and still be seeking after it.

And David says, Hey, this is what I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

Why?

To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

And it jumped off to me, and the Lord's just like, hey, I want you just to just to look at me more.

Because if you just focus on people, you're gonna get frustrated.

And you and the pot on the lid on top of that pot's gonna be rattling and it's about to always boil over.

And that ain't good.

That's not being prophetic, that's being frustrated.

And so I was like, oh Lord, I want to just gaze at you.

And then yesterday happened.

I was doing good for two days, and then yesterday happened.

You said, What happened yesterday?

Well, I took two days of vacation on spring break because my wife loves to work in the yard.

And my wife so much loves to work in the yard, she talks about like it's a journal entry, like it's fun, and we should work, we're matching church and do it together.

I hate working in the yard.

I can't stand working in the yard.

There's somebody in this city that needs my money to come fix my flower beds.

But no, hey, on spring break and you're on vacation, let's work in the yard together.

I just, I just I really love that.

And I'm thinking in my mind, I don't.

I think you're crazy.

That's what I think.

But I didn't say that.

And my daughter's kind of a professional relationship, she goes, Oh, Dad, why do you work in the yard if you hate working in the yard?

I hate working in the yard, but I love your mother.

That's marriage.

You don't always get your way.

If you're here and you think you should always get your way, you need to repent.

You're not God.

Only God gets his way all the time.

Grow up.

I got to work in flower beds, you gotta suck it up too.

So we're out there, we work on Wednesday, we get the whole front done.

I go get two and a half yards of mulch, thank you very much.

Shoveling it up in a wheelbarrow, get it all on the front beds, get it all cleaned out, picked out.

We gotta remove all the plants from the back bed, and we've got to come up with a design concept.

You watch too much HGTV.

But I didn't say that, I just thought it in my heart of hearts.

So yesterday I got up and I started on the back because it was too wet the other day we quit.

My wife's sick.

She's she's she is sick.

Let me say it right there.

But sometimes when I feel like I'm suffering injustice, I start doubting everybody around me.

I know you don't.

You're all spiritual.

I was in the yard yesterday working, my wife, I've been out there about an hour and 15 minutes hauling that wheelbarrow through that wet lawn where it's bogging down, and I'm like, getting it back there and dumping it, and then remove the rest of the plant, get this prayer.

About an hour and 15 minutes into it, my wife opens the back door and comes out with some landscaping suggestions.

I lost my peripheral vision.

I would she said, Hey, why don't you edge it?

I'm like, I wasn't planning on edging.

I don't want to mow.

I'm just doing this so it can be done.

This is not a journal entry, this is not fun.

I don't want to even be doing this.

I didn't say none of that though, but I thought it.

She goes, Yeah, why don't you just edge that before you get that mulch in there?

And this is also what I thought.

Oh, you're sick, huh?

You're too sick to do it, but you're not too sick to have some ideas about it.

This is great.

About 15 minutes later, she came out and she's all freshened up.

She goes, Can you move your truck?

And I'm like, Where's the sick woman going now?

Oh, Sophie and I'm gonna go to the store.

Oh, you're so sick you can't work in the yard because this is your idea, remember.

You got me into this mud bog, but you're gonna go to the store.

Okay, I see how this is.

She opens the back door and she goes, Uh, can you move your truck?

Oh, I forgot because I was finishing what we started on Wednesday.

I didn't say that, but I thought it.

Walked around and moved my truck, and they got in my truck and just backed out, waved, and rolled off to the store.

And very clearly the Holy Spirit said, You know why you're frustrated right now?

Because you're not looking at me.

You're not gazing upon the Lord.

You're trying to figure out how sick your wife is.

She's sick.

And I thought all those things.

You know why?

Because I forgot to gaze upon the Lord.

I was too busy looking around, making sure everyone was working as hard as I was working.

Because that's what they should be doing, right?

That's the fruit of staying curious.

So let me just ask you, what are you curious about these days?

Jesus says, hey, don't get all caught up in end time, this, that, and the other.

Hey, hey, hey, watch yourselves.

Secondly, stay awake.

Stay awake.

Do you have a plan for cutting back on consumption so that you don't just live in this drowsy posture of inconsequential living?

Finally, he says, Hey, what are you curious about?

Pray, pray, pray you have strength to stand.

And pray that you'll stand before God on that day.

Stand to your feet, it will speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

When you're so disappointed with yourself, you just want to go away.

Your God says, Come.

When you're frustrated, and you've given in to the same sin yet again, and you want to just crawl in bed and hide.

Your God says, Come.

Depart now.

Live in the presence of your God who cannot have his mind changed about you.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you, you're dismissed.