Praying Like Jesus | Taste and See | 5.31.26

Amen.

Glad you all are here worshiping with us today and glad to be back with you.

I want to thank our elders.

They recommended that I take a couple of weeks to help my parents move and and uh uh just really, really appreciate that opportunity to do that and help them.

Um and I'm glad that that Brian was here to uh preach to you, and and I always get a little nervous when Brian preaches because uh he usually talks about me.

But he said that he didn't this uh last two weeks.

And uh okay.

I haven't had a chance to listen, but I'm going to do that this week.

Well, um this Sunday, as you're walking in, you probably saw the Media Fast booklets.

And um this is something that that I have done before and found it very beneficial to my faith walk, also to my mental health, um taking a break, unplugging from the constant barrage of digital noise, Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and and uh you know all of the internet entertainment, all of these things.

When was the last time you were bored?

Just sat bored.

That's not healthy.

We need, our brains need time to uh, you know, just kind of calm down and not be engaged all the time with information.

And so that's what I'm calling for this MediaFast 21 days where we can unplug from our digital lives the best we can.

Now, you know, use your email for work, do the things that you have to do, don't get fired over this.

But as far as entertainment goes, uh let's take a break and let's re-plug into our relationship with the Lord.

I think one thing that you'll find if you do this is that you do have enough hours in the day.

I think at the end of these end of each day, you won't think, man, I just wish I had more hours.

You'll realize once again how long a 24-hour period can be.

And that in fact, we actually do have the time to do the things that we always wanted to do, and the time to do the things we always felt like we needed to do, should do.

And so I encourage you to join with me.

This this booklet, um, I'll go over this and just explain what this is.

It is a journal.

There are also some guidelines, but you make this experience your own.

Fast from whatever you feel like the Lord's leading you to fast from.

But we fast from media and and we try to limit that.

Um, and then it's not enough that we just rid things from our lives.

We need to fill it with something good.

And so we feast on the Spirit.

In the first century, um, the first century Jews had three times of prayer set aside.

Three connection points with God every single day.

And so I want to encourage you during this 21 days to establish three connection points with God throughout your day.

And something specific to do each day.

Um I mean each time.

First thing in the morning, read some scripture.

At noon, go over your prayer list and pray through your prayer list.

And I've got a prayer list for you.

Now you won't pray for everything on this prayer list every day.

The um each page tells you what to pray for.

And so on Mondays you'll pray for daily help and civic categories because the Bible tells us to pray for our governing officials.

On Tuesdays, you'll pray for daily help and church categories.

Pray for the ministry of the church, that God would bless the church.

On Wednesdays, pray for daily help, and then pray for a list that you make of people you know who need to be saved.

People you know who don't know the Lord.

Then on Thursdays, pray for daily help and pray for a list that you make of the sick, the hurting, maybe families that are going through a tough time, families that are going through divorce, marriage problems.

And you pray over that list every Thursday.

And then on Friday, pray for your daily help and also pray for the missionaries that we support as a church that they might spread the gospel around the world and share Jesus with the world.

Now, prayer is our primary offensive weapon.

And if we are not strategic in prayer, chances are we will naturally revert to praying prayers that suck inward.

You know, we pray for how I feel and pray for my stress and pray for what I need and pray for what I'm worried about, pray for what I'm concerned about.

But you know what causes depression and anxiety, don't you?

Ruminating.

And our prayer lives can become just a rumination of our problems.

And then after our prayers, we think, man, I just don't feel any better.

Because chances are, if you're like me, if if I am not intentional about what I pray for, I will pray for myself.

And maybe a few close people around me, you know, if they're lucky.

Yeah.

And so thinking outside of ourselves, God knows this is what we need.

It's it's the best thing for us, it's the best thing for our relationship with Him and for the people that we love for the people around us as well.

So that's noon.

Noon, go over your prayer list, and then every evening I want you to journal.

And there's a space every day to journal and some questions to answer.

How did God help me deal with stress today?

Was my heart at peace?

Was my attitude more joyful without all of the media interruption?

How did God deal with my temptation?

How did God lead me and speak to me?

Uh, what was God teaching you as you read uh the scripture in the morning?

And and uh hopefully you meditated throughout the day on some of those things that you picked up from the Word.

Uh what did God teach you in relationships and and uh um in the time that you have that you're not spent on the phone?

I think this is something that could be extremely beneficial to you.

And I pray that you will join with me in this.

Because in the book of Isaiah, or excuse me, the book of Psalms, chapter 34, verse 8, God gives us this challenge.

Psalms 34:8

And it's a beautiful challenge.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

God is saying, try me.

Just try me.

And see if a relationship with me is better than everything else.

The onslaught of media, social media, digital entertainment.

The Lord is saying, take a break, taste and see that I am good.

Don't expect this to feel good immediately.

The first time I did it, it took me two weeks to detox.

Expect that.

That probably most of us deal with some form of digital addiction.

If you ever misplace your phone, how you feel will indicate whether or not there is some sort of digital addiction.

Um and so this won't this won't be easy at first.

But I believe that the blessings that can come from it will be wonderful.

It'll be a blessing for all of us.

And so in John chapter 15, 5, the Lord encourages us to plug in to Him.

John 15 · chapter mention

He says, I am the vine, you are the branches.

If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

What we're talking about during this meeting media fast is abiding in the Lord, connecting with him regularly throughout the day for 21 days, to see, to taste and see the difference that that makes.

So following the Lord involves two things.

It involves abstinence and engagement.

And so during this media fast, we're talking about these two things.

In Luke chapter 9, verse 23, it talks about abstinence, self-denial.

Luke 9:23

Jesus said to them all, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

And so through the media fast, there's self-denial, that there's a self-denial element that we're denying ourselves from this thing that has become so ubiquitous in our lives.

And then there's also an engagement element that we engage with the Lord.

It's not enough just to empty ourselves of something.

We have to fill it with fill our lives with something good, fill that time with something good.

And so it says in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18 do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.

Ephesians 5:18

Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

Fill our lives with the Spirit, with spiritual things.

And so those three connection points with God throughout the day will help us to do that.

In the sermon series that I'm going to preach during the time of this media fast, taste and see, we're going to look at the ways that Jesus engaged with his heavenly Father, that we might engage with God like Jesus did.

Today we're going to focus on praying like our Lord prayed.

Let's bow together.

Father in heaven, we are so thankful that you give us this open invitation to come to you, all you who are weary and burdened, to taste and see that the Lord is good, to sit with you and reason with you, realizing that though our sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

All through Scripture, there's this invitation, spend time with me, spend time with me.

It says in Isaiah that you reached out your hand to an obstinate people, who are people that were not willing to come.

Jesus said to Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I have longed to gather you together.

In the book of Revelation, Jesus says, Behold, I knock.

If anyone will answer, I will come and eat with them.

Father, we want to answer that call.

We want to spend the time with you that you have so badly wanted to spend with us.

And taste and see that you are good.

Lord, guide us through this.

Give us the resolve.

When we start feeling withdrawals, I pray that you'd help us to look forward to what is the goal in all of this, to experience really life as you intended.

And Lord, help us.

Help us to become more like Jesus in the process.

We love you, and I pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

A couple tips to pray like Jesus.

Number one, remind God of his promises.

This is something that Jesus did.

If you've got kids or grandkids, you know what it's like to be reminded of the things that you said you would do.

You said this.

When my kids were little, we rented a movie, it was a Scooby-Doo movie, Zombie Island.

And as we were watching this movie, the kids were getting a little bit scared, and I was like, ah, don't worry, it's always a man in a mask.

And at the end, everything's going to be fine.

And I didn't realize that in this movie it was actual zombies.

It was real.

And I had promised them that it'd be a man in the mask.

And so for years after, Livy would say, Dad, remember when you promised us that uh the zombies weren't real and they were?

And I said, Yeah, I know I did.

So it's okay, I forgive you.

Man, she did not forget.

Our God is faithful to us, and what he promises us, he will always see through.

Always.

And we are told that in our prayer life, a really good practice is to remind God of what He prom what He's promised to do.

Isaiah 62, verses 6 and 7.

Isaiah 62:6

He says, I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem.

They will never be silent day or night.

You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.

That's what Jesus did.

Jesus reminded God of his promises.

When Jesus was especially desperate on the night that he was to be arrested and he was sweating drops of blood.

He prayed a prayer in John chapter 17, where he begins by reminding God what God had promised to do when he was on the cross and when he arose from the dead.

John 17 · chapter mention

John chapter 17, verse 1, it says, after Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed, Father, the time has come.

John 17:1

Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.

In other words, God, you promised that at this time, when the Son is lifted up, he will be glorified.

When he goes to the cross, he will be glorified.

Glorify me in this.

For you granted him authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.

Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, in Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

I imagine that this prayer that Jesus prayed did two things.

First of all, it served as a time of connection between Father and Son that was very needed, especially at this time before the cross.

But it also served to strengthen Jesus' faith as he remembered what God had promised to do.

Praying the promises of God is such a faith builder, but in order to pray the promises, you have to know what God's promises are.

Because I a lot of people lose their faith for the fact that they believed God would do something that he never promised to do.

And then when God didn't do it, and you thought that he was supposed to do it, he would do it, then that causes us to have a crisis in our faith.

So how do you learn the promises of God?

One year I was determined that I wanted to make sure that my faith was on the firm foundation of God's word.

And so I set out, and I don't know, it took me probably uh three or four months to do this because I was taking my time and being very careful with it.

I set out to read the New Testament through and to write down every single promise and then type it up and catalog it, alphabetize it, and everything.

Uh I think I might have uh some kind of disorder, organizational disorder.

But I wanted to see clearly what can I trust God to do?

And it's a simple exercise that anybody can do.

Read through the New Testament.

What are the things he's promised?

What has he actually promised that he will do?

And then place our faith in those things.

And when we're facing a problem that relates to one of those promises, pray that prayer.

Pray that promise to God.

And so we remind God like Jesus did, and then number two, we rejoice over God's answers.

Jesus thanked God when God did anything for him, when God answered any prayer.

Sometimes Jesus thanked God even before the prayer was answered, knowing that God would answer the prayer.

And one such instance of that happening was when Lazarus raised from the dead.

God raised Lazarus from the dead as Jesus prayed that he would.

And so Jesus says this in John chapter 11, verse 41.

John 11:41

He says, so they took away the stone, then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

He noted when God had done something for him.

And that is a faith builder.

If we don't write down or make note of God's answered prayers, of ways that God's worked in our lives, of things that He's delivered us from, of fears that were not realized because of God's protection and his blessing, then chances are we're going to forget.

We're just not going to remember.

And so that's why, you know, in this media fast journal, I've got a place for you to journal the things that God has taught you every day.

And I was thinking about journaling.

Um a lot of really strong men and women of the faith kept journals.

In his book, Ordering Your Private World, Gordon MacDonald writes, when I studied some of the mystic and contem I struggled with this in first service, contemplative, contemplative Christians.

You know, that means those that contemplate.

I found that one practical way to learn to listen to God speak in the garden of my private world was to keep a journal.

With pencil in hand, ready to write, I found that there was an expectancy, a readiness to hear anything God might wish to whisper through my reading and reflection.

I became impressed by the fact that many, many godly men and women down through the centuries had kept journals.

Augustine, John Wesley, Jim Elliott, Ruth Bell Graham.

And I began to wonder if they had not put their finger upon an aid to spiritual growth.

And and reading this, I began to wonder, okay, what scripture verse can we find that commands us keep a journal?

And I thought and I thought and I thought, and and I I couldn't put my finger on one until I realized that I wasn't seeing the forest for the trees, because all of Scripture is just that.

One such example of that is found in the book of Exodus, chapter 17.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

Verse 14 says, Then the Lord said to Moses, write this on a scroll as something to be remembered.

And all of Scripture we have this to strengthen our faith, to remember what God has done, so we can know what to expect, what God will do.

But the problem with scripture is the things that are written down are a long, long time ago.

And sometimes we we can have the impression that, well, you know, those people in the Bible, they were special people.

They were different.

They were called by God.

They were chosen by God.

They're not like me.

And all that happened so long ago.

But does God do these things today?

And does God work in people's lives today?

And does God think of me and care about me the same way that he thought about these people all these times ago, all this long time ago, these people that he loved.

And we can get to thinking that that was then and this is now.

God's wonderful works in the scripture took place and all of that's done.

And now, you know, we just live through the mundane and and nothing really happens.

And I believe that if we come to that conclusion, it's because we have not taken time to intentionally remember what God has done in our lives.

Write it down.

Write it down.

It is such a faith builder.

I am so thankful that I wrote down this next story I'm going to share with you because I would have surely forgotten the details.

Pat Kessel was a really good friend, and she was an evangelist.

She loved her family so much that she would do anything to make sure that they were saved.

And so she devised ways to introduce them to the Lord.

She had Bible studies in her home and invited them to come, and she was always looking for opportunities.

She had a sister named Sue and a brother-in-law named Charles.

Sue was a believer, but she'd gotten out of church and she really had not been active in the faith for a long, long time.

And Charles was not a believer.

But Charles had congestive heart failure, and he spent some time in the hospital.

And Pat called me and said, Would you come and talk to Charles and Sue?

Charles does not know the Lord.

And I said, Absolutely, I will.

And I called them on the phone.

And Sue agreed that she and Charles would meet with me.

And she later said that when she got off the phone, she almost started jumping up and down for joy because she had been praying and praying and praying.

That there would be an opportunity for her to get back in church and for Charles to know the Lord.

You think, well, why didn't she just go back to church?

You know, I don't know that we appreciate, we who are in the church appreciate how the devil works on people that are not in church, convinces them, well, you won't be welcome there.

Nobody really wants you there.

And she felt really funny walking into a church uninvited.

And she was babysitting this little preschool girl, and the preschool girl's family went to church.

And the little preschool girl said to her, You should come to our church with us.

And she thought this is a great opportunity to bring up the subject with the mom.

And so she said to the mom, You won't believe what your daughter said to me.

She said, Why don't you come to church with us?

Hoping that the mom would extend the invitation, but she didn't.

And let this be a lesson to us.

There are people out there that are only looking for an invitation.

And they don't feel comfortable going somewhere uninvited.

So don't assume that they know everybody's welcome.

Don't assume they know they're invited.

Make sure you say the words.

And so the time uh for my meeting came with Charles and Sue.

And we talked for a little while, and very quickly Charles said, Yes, I believe.

And yes, I want Jesus to be my Lord and Savior.

And we baptized him into Christ.

And it came about because somebody loved her family enough to just look for, okay, how can I bridge the gap?

How can I bring the pieces together?

And how can I give opportunities to the people I love that they might know Jesus?

It came because a wife was praying fervently.

And that story is such a great reminder for me that there are people out there that are just looking for an invitation.

And if I hadn't written that down, I would not have remembered.

It is important for us to keep track, keep note.

What has God showed us?

What have we learned?

Because if if we don't do that, chances are we're just going to keep repeating the same things over and over again.

And you can go 50 years with your prayers sounding the same, experiencing the same problems over and over and over again because God delivered you from that, but you never noted it.

And so you just feel like you're still stuck in that rut.

This is something that can help.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

We've got enough of these journals out there for every man, woman, and child, and even for your neighbors and friends.

If you want to take some for somebody you know, hey, this is something our church is doing.

Um, you know, probably you ask anybody, do you feel like you spend too much time on your phone?

And everybody will say, Yeah, I think I do.

And uh, you know, this might be an opportunity.

Hey, this is something we're we're doing, we're working on.

If you want to try this with us, that would be so much fun.

Um I hope and pray that this experience is really, really meaningful to you.

Pray with me, please.