The Way of Jesus 13.0

So we're gonna jump into our, time of God's word together this

morning as we continue our theme uncovering the Way of Jesus.

And we are probably for

the next few weeks, focusing our attention

about the way of Jesus in relationship to the way of prayer.

How did Jesus pray?

And we're gonna be looking at, an aspect of that today.

And then in more detail over the coming weeks.

So we might just jump in reading the scripture together, if that's all right.

So we're looking at Matthew chapter 26, verses 36 to 44.

Matthew 26:36–44

So this is in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This is in the buildup to the moment of his crucifixion.

And we're gonna read together and just as we're reading, just.

Keep your consciousness, not necessarily on the what's happening from a macro

point of view, but just be sensitive to what's happening as Jesus prays, as

you read along here with this, this is from verse 36 and it says, then Jesus

went to his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, sit

here while I go over there and pray.

He took Peter and the two sons of Zeb along with him, and he began

to be sorrowful and troubled.

Then he said to them that my soul is overwhelmed with

sorrow to the point of death.

Stay here and keep watch with me.

Going a little farther, he fell on his, fell with his

face to the ground and prayed.

Father, my father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, yet

not as I will, but as you will.

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping.

Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour?

He asked Peter, watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

He went away a second time and prayed my father, if it is not possible

for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it may your will be done.

When he came back, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy.

So he left them and went away at once more.

Once more, and prayed a third time saying the same thing.

Next slide.

Is there a next slide?

There's not saying the same thing.

I'm just gonna continue.

That was to verse 44.

Verse 45 says, then he returned to the disciples and said to them,

are you still sleeping and resting?

Look, the hour has come and the son of man is delivered into the hands of sinners.

Rise.

Let us go.

Here comes my betrayal.

Love to pray.

Father, thank you for the precious story of your son, Lord, as we sit here and

take in your word, take in your story, God, I ask that the way of Jesus would

become illuminated to us more and more.

That we are here today, not just for a sense of community and family,

but we are here to follow you.

We are here to discover what it is to draw close to the father.

We are here to discover what it is and what it is like when the father draws

close to us, that we would be set a light.

With a fresh desire and passion and hunger to draw close to the throne room of the

king Lord, that's something that we don't want to manufacture in our own strength.

But Holy Spirit, please come and birth in us a fresh desire, a fresh

appetite to draw close to you.

We ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so this morning from this passage, uh.

We are gonna be looking at what Jesus models about prayer through this story.

And just as a bit of a disclaimer, before I do this introductory part, introductory

part, I just wanna, acknowledge for a moment, there's an interesting

dynamic when you sit up on a platform with a microphone, there

can be an inherent assumption that.

The person with the microphone who's sitting on the platform

is, you know, perfectly embodying what they are about to teach.

And in the spirit of full, honesty, transparency,

while I would dearly love to say that I do, that we do, we don't fully

embody, what we are going to share through this passage of scripture.

I ideally want to.

I have this deep foundational belief with preaching that the most

powerful preaching is incarnation.

When the preacher has deeply lived and tested in their own life,

the word that they are preaching.

I can't say that this morning, this word.

I can say that ideally want to, and I can say that I've tasted glimpses of what we

are gonna share this morning, but I know, I know I have a long way to go that we.

Have a long way to go in praying in the way that Jesus prays in this.

And so I wanna say that from the outset 'cause I just felt somewhat convicted

by my own hypocrisy this morning.

I have a rather

finely tuned radar to, hypocrisy as a lot of teachers do.

And we are in this with

you church family.

No.

Did you wanna say, did you need to say,

oh, I didn't know my wife was gonna go in that direction this morning, so

I'm like going, oh, do I make light of that or do I just let her continue?

But amen and amen.

Amen.

All right, let us now continue with the official part of this morning's message.

Now that has been said.

Okay, so the way of Jesus is the way of Union with God.

And through what Jesus demonstrates here is through communication with God.

And that is to say that the way of Jesus is the way of prayer.

And this is where we now find ourselves in this series, this

uncovering the way of Jesus series.

And today we are, and this month we will continue to look at the way of prayer.

And so last month, we immersed ourselves in the burden of the Lord.

And that was great.

And in today's passage, we see Jesus.

What do we see?

We see him crushed beneath the weight of his burden of the Lord.

And as much as, yes, we did talk about last month about the burden

of the Lord, yes, there is a grace there when we carry the

burden of the Lord.

and there is hope and

there is joy, and there should be freedom as we carry the burden of the Lord

within our own selves and our own lives.

There does come moments where the burden of the Lord can feel very, very crushing.

And to say that that is an under.

To say that is what happening to Jesus in this moment is

something of an understatement.

So what was his burden of the Lord that's being demonstrated in this moment that is

crushing him as he comes to this place of

Gethsemane, which is, that word actually means, oil press.

So his burden

was to be a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

And we see him praying as the fullness and the reality of this burden is

coming upon him in this moment.

So today we come before this story so that through it

we would be taught, and also through the

teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit who is present here with us now,

that we would be taught through this moment of Jesus how to pray.

There is so much wisdom on how to pray in this passage, particularly in light

of the season that we find ourselves in.

All that has unfolded this week, which we will talk about a bit more,

towards the end of this message.

So there is very much we can learn about prayer and there's very much we

can catch in our spirits about prayer.

I think prayer is one of those things you can, you can read about it.

You can, you know, we can teach about it, but so much, you know

that saying more is, learned by what is

caught than what is taught.

And I think, you

know, with prayer, that can often be the

case.

We learn more by catching the heart of prayer.

So maybe catch an aspect of the heart of prayer from Jesus as we

look at this story this morning.

And I just wanna acknowledge too, I think why this story is so powerful is Jesus

is in a Gethsemane moment right here.

This, like I said, this word Gethsemane means pressing.

Crushing.

We all have Gethsemane moments.

Some of you're in a Gethsemane moment right now where you feel like the

literal life is being crushed out of you.

So how do we pray in those moments?

Well, Jesus, as we look at what Jesus does in his Gethsemane moment, we have

so much that we can learn from this.

When we face our own Gethsemane moments, when we find ourselves

having to drink a cup of suffering that we don't wanna drink.

It is good to know how to pray in these moments, so let's just grease

the wheels with some different perspective on what prayer is.

All right, we've got some quotes on the screen here, so Tom Wright.

Prayer stands at the very heart of the Christian life.

It is the way we get to know God himself, not just to know about him.

It is the way in which we plug into the life of the new creation itself.

Oh, I like that Keller Prayer is both conversation and encounter with God.

It's so important that word encounter.

You know, sometimes we can overplay in certain faith traditions, the

idea of encounter, but it is still so important we can deliver in a

culture that is obsessed with insight.

Yes, insight is great encounter, utterly necessary.

All human relationships depend on communication, but our relationship

with God is unique because prayer is the main way we experience deep change.

St. Theresa of ala Prayer is an intimate sharing between friends.

It means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.

Mother Theresa Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God at his

disposition and listening to his voice in the depths of our hearts.

This is what Jesus is doing in this moment.

He's putting himself in the hands of God.

Dallas Willard.

The most important lesson we have to learn is that prayer is not a matter

of performance, but of relationship.

We pray because God is here and we are invited into his life.

Hmm.

So, Adam?

Yes, Dale.

How do you understand, understand prayer and why do you need it?

Why do I need

it?

Okay, here we go.

actually just recently

I heard this definition, which really blessed me.

I'm not sure who said it, so I can't quote who it's from.

As articulately

as Dale's slide has, prayer is calling on

the name of the Lord to fulfill his covenant promise.

Prayer is calling on the name of the Lord to fulfill his covenant promise.

So then the question is, what's the covenant promise?

Primarily the promise of God.

The covenant promise of God is God with us primarily.

So we must not primarily see prayer as a means to get

something from God, but prayer.

So prayer is not the means, but it's actually the goal.

It's an interesting framing, isn't it?

That.

A lot of the things we see, prayer is the means to get something.

But could you just for a moment, just reframe that and go.

Prayer is actually the destination like God with us.

The story of the Bible's, not primarily about people's desire to be with

God, but God's desire to be with us.

The Father is desperate to be with you today.

Today he's wooing you into, a word we can sometimes use for prayer.

The secret place, when was the last time you were in the secret place?

Close to his heart.

He's waiting for you.

Prayer is us experiencing God with us.

Did you catch that?

Prayer is us experiencing God with us.

So prayer is firstly seeing.

Who God is when he comes close.

And the crazy thing about the Father, as soon as you see

him, he shows you who you are.

This is like this kind of connected thing.

So if you really wanna understand yourself, you need to see him.

And when he shows you who you are, a W Toss quote, I've used this as well.

In this series, A tozer says A proper view of God solves

10,000 problems you are facing.

Prayer is a response of a humble heart who wants to see Jesus as beautiful

before they discover that he's useful.

When you're in the presence of God, you bring all your matters and requests.

So like the goal is prayer gets you into his presence.

And then while you're there, it's all good.

Bring your requests.

Don't hold back, but don't see the request as the reason to pray.

See, just being with him, the reason to pray.

And then when you're there, oh dad, father God of the universe.

What's your perspective about these things?

We did a series called The Secret Place, which seems like yesterday we did it,

and it was actually the start of 2023.

We did it.

Psalm 91, as the rain falls down and we sit in the secret place.

No, the sanctuary.

He says He who dwells in the secret place at the most hell high shall

abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

Can everyone hear me still okay at the back?

Raise your hands.

Good.

Good.

What if there was a place that you could go every time that you needed to

receive affirmation for who you are?

Strength to face the circumstances, encouragement in times of

disillusion, disillusionment, and power to get through anything.

Stop looking for God elsewhere in the abundance of information.

Start looking for him in your.

Appetite just to draw close in prayer.

God, your father's found in the secret place, just that interesting

connection, thinking about Jesus.

I dunno if you've watched the chosen, but what's fascinates me

is most of the time you're looking at a scene, Jesus is never there.

Because he is always escaping to go and praying somewhere.

He's like over there.

He must have been so frustrating when the disciples are like,

we're gonna go do this.

And like, where is he?

He, he's praying like he had a very much a first posture of being with the father.

That was his, that was his DNA, and just to really connect

back to the burden of the Lord.

If you felt in that series a question of going, I'm not sure what the burden

of the Lord is for me, the burden of the Lord is discovered in prayer.

So you wanna know what prayer is.

Prayer is getting so close to the Father that he begins to reveal what burdens

him, and you pick up on what burdens him, and you then begin the journey

of participating in that burden that he's giving you, if that makes sense.

What did Jesus get in that secret place?

He got identity, he got strength, and he got courage to follow the

calling of the burden that he carried.

Courage to go into the calling.

And so we've got a few sort of aspects from the passage that we've

read today about what we can learn from this passage about prayer.

And so Dale, the first one.

A place for prayer.

Yeah.

What

can we learn and catch about prayer from this passage?

And I wanna say this, before we go into this

first point, to be a Christian is to be an apprentice of Jesus Christ.

Yeah.

So to to be that is, that is your.

That is who you are.

That becomes your identity.

to be a Christian is to be a follower of Jesus, an apprentice

of Jesus, a disciple of Jesus.

And what does an apprentice, what does an disciple do?

They do what they see their rabbi doing.

They do what they see, their master, their teacher.

Doing.

And so I just wanna put that framework before you this morning as we consider

what we see our Rabbi Jesus doing in this moment, in his Gethsemane

moment, that we would model that in our Gethsemane moments that we wouldn't be.

Western enlighten and people that sit back and fold our arms and go, when

you prove to me that this is a good way of living, when you explain all the

deep intricacies of why it works and you imply a sign, apply a scientific

reasoning to it, then I might choose to adopt this as my way of living.

That's not to submit to a rabbi.

That's not to submit to Jesus.

We do because we see him Doing.

Understanding will come as we go, but we want often in our Western

enlightenment way of thinking, we want the understanding first.

But I always wanna put that framework before you.

I wanna disarm, try and disarm any resistance, any cynicism that

might be in the room.

cynicism isn't smart.

You wanna live in a culture that exalts it.

And if you're sitting here in a cynical posture this morning, just get rid of it.

Right?

It's not gonna serve you well.

It won't serve the people around you.

Well, trust me, as one who is prone to deep bouts

of cynicism, okay?

it is not a helpful

way to live.

So let's look at this first point, this place for prayer in time and

in space, and I'll explain that a little bit more in a moment.

Then Jesus went with these disciples to a place called Gethsemane.

And then he says also later on in that passage, he says this phrase,

look, the hour has come, there is a time and there is a place for prayer.

And so let's first look at this physical place.

So in, actually it's interesting,

in Luke 22 verse 39, it actually is in this

Luke 22:39

same retelling of this same story.

It says Jesus went out as usual.

To the Mount of Olives.

This was an unusual place for Jesus to go and pray.

This was a place he often went

to, so this wasn't, some random, unique

moment that Jesus would be found praying in the garden.

This is how his betrayer knew where to find him.

This is where Judas knew how to lead the people, because this

is where Jesus would go to pray.

It was his regular place for prayer.

So do you, my friends.

And we went through this in our secret place series.

And if you weren't here for that, and even if you were, go back and

listen to it, it was a cracker.

Do you have a place for prayer?

Do you have a place that's appropriate for meeting with God?

A secret and a sacred place?

And yes, of course we can talk to God throughout our day and we should

wherever we are, but it's imperative that we also have a place that

is intimate if we wanna cultivate

intimacy.

With God, place, places that

we ritually come to.

It gets into our bones.

It gets into

our body.

Yeah.

And, you know, so as many

of you'll know if you've been around here for any amount of

time, one of our sacred places is the Baptist Campsite in Bustleton.

Right?

So we have done this now for 24 years.

It'll be 24 years this year.

Yeah, my body reacts as soon as I get down there.

As soon as I drive down that driveway, the Baptist campsite, there is a

noticeable difference in my body.

I na, I just relax.

Because that is what that place means to me.

And this is what happens when we cultivate places of prayer too.

Our body just naturally comes into alignment in that space with what is right

and proper for just cultivate a place.

And, but let me say this, in that same frame, you go, you don't

understand my, my world, my home life.

I don't know where I would do that.

Let's not get idealistic about this.

We work with what we've got.

I love the example of Susanna Wesley, John, we Wesley's mother,

when she wanted to pray, she'd pull her apron over her head.

That's right.

And that was her tent of meeting.

She had, I don't know, some ridiculous number of children.

Like 19 children or something.

Yeah.

And that was her tent of meeting her children.

Knew not to disturb her.

She was meeting with God in that space.

She worked with what she had.

So if all you've got is an apron to pull over your head, I do that.

Don't get idealistic.

'cause sometimes our idealism actually ends up robbing us.

From doing the very thing that God calls us to do.

Idealism, man, it said it can be a really dangerous thing.

So the significance of this place for Jesus, clearly it has significance.

We've talked about what the word Gethsemane means, and so the symbolism

of this for Jesus is not hard to see.

He ruled be the one who will be crushed.

He is the anointed one.

And what does oil represent?

It represents anointing.

Oil is what?

Lit lamps as well.

He is the light of the world.

There's so much imagery coming to bear in this one place and location.

So he has a physical place, but there is also a place and a time, a place

in time that informs how Jesus prayed.

He knows the hour.

What does that mean?

He doesn't, it's not, he's not talking chronological time here doesn't.

Oh, it's midnight.

Now's the time.

No, it's not chronological time.

It's kairos time.

Hmm.

It's a divinely appointed moment.

Knowing what hour it is helps us to know how we should pray.

There's a brilliant book by an author by the name of James KA

Smith called How to Inhabit Time.

It's

great, isn't it Caleb?

and he's got this brilliant

line in it and it says, knowing when we are can change everything.

Jesus knew when he was.

He was in a moment when darkness was raining.

He was in a moment when the forces of evil were coming against him, preparing

to coming against him in his fullness.

So he knew how he should pray, and he knew how he should call his disciples to pray.

Not that they did a very good job of it.

We can see that.

So Jesus knows how to pray in this moment because he understands the hour.

He understands the kairos time, the God time, the place in history that he

was in that very moment in God history.

And when we understand, when we are, it helps us to know,

do I petition in this moment?

Do I intercede?

Do I engage in spiritual warfare?

Do I pray for deliverance or am I praying for the strength to endure?

What am I called to pray for in this moment?

What hour is it Lord, and how do I rightly respond?

Jesus understands the hour, so he doesn't go to spiritual warfare in this moment.

He doesn't start casting out demons and taking on the enemy, does he?

No.

He goes to deeply into ment prayer, and we'll talk about that in a moment.

You know, I love this little passage in one Chronicles 1232, and I reference

it often, and it says this, the men of Iska men who understood the times

and they knew what Israel should do, my gosh, we need people within the

body of Christ who understand the times and know how we should respond.

So I think this is why Jesus asked his disciples to watch and to pray that they

too would understand the hour and they too would know how to rightly respond.

So to ask what Kairos time it is, is to ask God, what

are you doing in this moment?

What are you doing in this situation?

What are you bringing to fulfillment in this moment and

how can I respond accordingly?

That's what a kairos moment is.

A kairos moment is God bringing something to fulfillment.

So if you are in your Gethsemane moment right now, ask God that question.

What are you bringing to fulfillment in this place of pressing, rather than

just getting crushed by the weight of it and getting stuck in Chronos time?

Where we just look at the days and the weeks ahead and we wonder how

we're gonna endure this suffering.

Get out across us time, get into Kairos time and ask God, what are you bringing to

fulfillment in this moment, Lord, through this crushing and this pressing, because

suffering is never wasted in God's hand.

There is always a higher and a greater purpose that we might

not fully understand, but we have to apprehend by faith and trust.

So what are you doing?

What are you bringing to fulfillment in this place of pain and suffering?

Lord.

So good.

Dale, just look at your watch for a second.

Have you got a watch on?

Yes, that's right.

Look at your watch and just imagine you've got a button there.

It says chronological time, kairos timing.

It's like a toggle button and you switch it, right?

Prayer is going, I'm gonna switch from Chronos time, chronological

spaces of of how I experience life.

I'm gonna switch into kairos mode.

That's what prayer does.

It actually shifts your understanding of what time am I in?

But you can't, to be honest with you, without the spirit of God switching the

script, hitting the button, you know it's pretty tough to do it by yourself.

Yeah, so we've talked about place of prayer.

The next one is

posture of prayer.

so in the scripture

here, we read that he fell with his face to the ground and prayed.

My father, my father.

We see a physical posture here, his face to the ground.

And then we also see a relational posture in this little part of scripture.

In this moment.

So the physical posture part, Jesus is praying

with his whole being.

just as we are to love

God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength Jesus is in, is

in a sense his whole self is, is

face to the ground.

and we do well to po

to position ourselves in the same posture.

So for me, there is, when I look at Jesus praying, there's kind of

an integrity about how he prays.

Like his whole body is telling a story.

About the situation and, and sometimes our bodies reflect what's going on

internally, but sometimes we need to put our bodies in a position that

tells our hearts what's going on.

Like, sometimes we just see it like a one-sided coin.

You know, my heart's feeling this, and only when my heart

is feeling this, will I po.

Will I posture myself?

But sometimes you might not be feeling it yet.

And so sometimes you posture yourself in order to get yourself into the right

position so that your heart follows suit.

Does everyone understand what I mean?

'cause you can be thinking about a burden of the Lord mentally,

but your heart's disengaged.

Right.

So sometimes a, a position, getting an A posture can actually

begin to shift your own heart.

There's an authenticity in, in Jesus here, and we see all

sorts of postures in scripture.

We read one Timothy two, eight.

Encourage us to pray by lifting up holy hands.

Mark 6 41 talks about, the, the lows and the

fishes.

And Jesus looks up to heaven.

He physically looks up.

There's position, there's physical postures that we can do.

We can get on our beds.

We can watch in the night.

We can be still and silent.

Habakkuk two 20 says, let all the earth keep silence Before him kneeling

two Chronicles six 13, he stood on the platform and then N down before

the Holy Assembly of Israel and spread out his hands towards heaven.

I, I think about Jesus, and I guarantee you he wasn't doing this.

He wasn't going, oh, that's right.

The, the right Pentecostal posture is this, oh, sorry.

Actually more of a reformed posture is this, oh, the Anglicans do it like this.

I know those people at Red Door has is how they posture themselves,

John, do understand what I'm saying?

Sometimes we can allow our posture to be dictated by tradi, by our

tradition and what's formed us in the past, but that's not necessarily,

and those things can help.

I'm not suggesting what I'm saying there is if you are limited by a traditional

dynamic, that will will actually set you up for a limitation about how

you're gonna posture your own heart.

Does that make sense?

I'm not throwing darkness on anything there.

I'm just saying let's not allow, let's allow our, our, our hearts to be larger

than a, a box of tradition might put us in and, but tradition can be valuable

a hundred percent.

I've actually just

been reflecting on this posture through art, which I know many of

you know, that I, I enjoy looking at.

And there's a couple of pieces.

I just wanna point you out to this first one, Heinrich Hoffman's Christ

in the Garden of Gethsemane, 1890.

Just take note of the posture, but take note of what he's leaning on.

It's a rock, right?

For some reason it's not in scripture, but there seems to be a regularity

to artistic impression about there's always some sort of rock or stone.

Go to the

next one.

This is, Veni Bini Agony in

the Garden and 1459.

Now, I know it's pretty hard to see, but Jesus is up sort of on the platform

there, but there's still a rock, right?

Yeah,

we're starting to get into re Renaissance art now.

Right now we're not doing an art class by

the way.

We're just, the next one is his Andre, Nia Agony in the Garden,

1455.

Again, there's this rock there, right?

And there's a kneeling

posture.

A I really, just been pondering

on the nature of.

Jesus preying on the rock.

So you think about, so the, the crushing, okay, the crushing that's going

on in this moment, it was the wine press.

So the wine press, it was the olive press.

Okay?

So there's this crushing going on to crush something.

You need something stable to crush against, right?

So there's a pressure, there's the olive, there's the rock, right?

Jesus was crushed on this heaviness.

But what's super interesting is Jesus is also known as the rock.

So when you are being crushed and you're in your own garden of Gethsemane

moment, recognize that we're not just positioning ourselves physically, we're

also positioning ourselves relationally.

So what

I mean by that is.

we're not praying to

get ourselves on the rock.

That is Jesus, or we're not.

We're not praying to get ourselves into a position where we're relying on God.

We, we we're actually, we're, well, sorry, lemme rephrase that.

We're not praying.

In order to get God to love us, I suppose is the most simplistic way of saying it.

Right.

Um.

We're, we're, we are loved.

We are sitting on the rock.

We are face down on the rock because we're getting crushed.

But know that once the storm passes, the prayer is you'll

still be standing on the rock.

You'll still be present.

You'll still be there standing on the rock.

So we don't pray to earn the status of Beloved child.

We pray from the status of Beloved child, which I think

is the, the relational posture.

What's just, I've, I've got this in my notes.

Just come to me one day I was speaking and if you actually, I had the opportunity

to go to the Bible Museum in Washington, DC and there's this interesting

display about the olive, crushing process in

ancient times and they actually had, you know how there's a pattern of three?

Did you notice the three?

There's three times.

Right.

There's so much imagery of three in this little story, and there's actually

three crushes that olives go through.

And each olive crush is the oil used for different things.

So that first crush, I think you, you can

send an email later, if I, if I'm wrong,

right?

The first crush is for the, the lamp, the oil, right.

So it's got a, it's got a purpose.

The first crush is for the purpose.

The second crush is for, for like medicine.

The third crush is what's known as the most, like the most precious

oil, the most expensive oil.

The, it's called the, the, the virgin oil is like, it's like the third crush,

which actually is used, to, to cook and to,

to bring absolute joy and life.

And just thinking about the nature of the crushing is that that.

Understand the crushing that you are in when you click the kairos thing on your

bar, on your phone, on your phone, on your watch, right, is that you're saying, Lord,

may this crushing that I'm experiencing as I come to you, may you show me in

light of eternity what this is all about.

And as you do that, suddenly you start to see life emanate from the crush because.

You postured yourself physically and relationally

before the mighty hand of God.

Very good.

Next

one, partnership in prayer.

And just before we get to that,

sorry.

couple of things.

There

is a, in terms of this posture, idea of posture, you know, encourage you,

if you're just somebody who just, I don't know, sits in a chair and doesn't

really posture yourself in prayer, can I encourage you to this week, try kneeling?

Try getting

prostrate on the floor.

straight down here.

Try raising your hands.

This, this passage from Lamentations has been sitting heavy on me

for the last couple of weeks.

And so what God, the posture.

God calls us two through this passage here.

Lamentations two 19 says this, arise, cry out in the night as

the watches of the night begin.

Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.

Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children who faint

from hunger at every street corner.

If you have a burden for the Lord, for the lives of your children or

for the lives of children, wake up in the watches of the night.

Pour your heart out and lift up your hands to him for their very lives.

You know, this has this, this scripture's been very, very heavy.

So I, I now have the privilege being perimenopausal, just putting it out there.

I wake up regularly throughout the watches of the night.

That is true.

And as I rip the covers off,

that is also true.

So

now have this perfect opportunity to do just this, to raise my hands and cry out

for the children, for my own, and for the

children of this world.

you know, a burden

that just has, oh my gosh.

It has not left me since we, I wasn't even here that Sunday, listened to it on

a podcast, but the burden of the Lord from Elise as she spoke about the FO kids in

the foster care system, other people of God waking up in the watches of the night

and crying out behalf of these children.

Who are fainting from hunger on the street corners in this world, maybe

literal for the hunger from a home, for the to be loved and accepted and known.

Are we lamenting over this?

Are we raising our hands and crying out?

Or are we just complaining?

But are we, or are we crying out to God in this fashion that the,

that Lamentations calls us out to?

If you, if your own children are in a Gethsemane moment, which if your children

are as a parent, you are, do this.

Take this word to heart from Lamentations two 19 and do it all right.

That was for free.

that

was good

partnership in prayer.

One more other little thing that

just occurred to me, as Adam was showing those, paintings, it

really hit me, the imagery of the

disciples sleeping.

Mm, and just how horribly awful that was of them to do that.

They clearly, this is why Jesus told them to watch.

They clearly did not know the hour.

If they knew the hour, it wouldn't have matter.

If their eyes were heavy, they would've been awake and they would've

been praying right there with him.

They did not understand the hour, and we don't understand the hour.

We fall asleep.

We should be watching and we are sleeping, and all of that.

That was a, that was a convicting

little moment just then.

all right.

Partnership

in prayer.

So if you notice these all iterate, that's a joyful thing, isn't it?

Yes.

I do love alliteration.

Did you, did you come

up with that?

Of course I did.

Yeah.

he who took, oh, he

took Peter and the two sons of Zedi along with him, and he began

to be sorrowful and troubled.

Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with

sorrow to the point of death.

Stay here and keep watch with me.

So he is got these disciples.

Judith obviously isn't there, so there's the 11, but then he takes the three.

He's close three with him.

And so yeah, it's great to pray alone in your secret place, but it's really

also great and necessary to pray with others, to have others pray with us.

And for us, we just think of the Lord's Prayer.

How does it begin?

As you know, his disciples ask Jesus, teach us how to pray, and he begins with.

Our father, what's the implication of that word?

Our corporate prayer.

Right.

He doesn't begin with my father.

He begins with our, there is an, there's an emphasis there on corporate

prayer because why does he say this?

There is power in agreement.

If we go back in Matthew to Matthew 18.

And Jesus is talking

about, you know, if two of you agree on

earth concerning anything, it'll be done for you by my father in heaven,

where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.

That's not to say Jesus isn't present when you're just praying

to him on your own, but it is to highlight there is power in agreement.

So any ancient Greek, the word agree literally is to synchronize.

It means a perfect agreement of the hearts, desires, wishes, and voices

of two or more persons praying to God.

There is power in a symphony when they, when they play, isn't there that you

just don't get with a solo artist.

Solo artist can be beautiful and moving, but you listen to

a symphony that is in harmony.

Oh my gosh, just wow.

There is a power there in the agreement as as an orchestra synchronizes

together, and it's the same with prayer.

So we've gotta take advantage of the power of agreement, which works on

the principle related to what we see in Leviticus 26 8 where it says five

set a hundred enemies to flight, but a hundred set, 10,000 enemies to flight.

There is a principle of agreement there that applies to prayer.

Also, there is power, exponential power in the prayer of agreement, but what is

key is that we are gathered in his name.

Yeah, we go, well, when it says two or three are gathered concerning

anything, it will be done for them, but it's in his name.

And that is key.

And what does it mean?

That is in his name?

It means that, yeah, we're known by him.

We're known by his name, that he is our point of gathering.

We are gathering around Jesus, not our own will.

Come on.

That's really important.

Gathering according to the character and the nature of Jesus is all it means to

gather in his name, gathering in a manner.

That Jesus would endorse that is in accordance with the

will and the way of Jesus.

Also, that is what it is to gather in his name.

So who do you come together in agreement to pray with?

Who could you ask if they would like you to pray with them?

Very good.

Just just know that if you're struggling to the idea of corporate prayer.

Or to gather in, in a, in a sense of grouping, if you struggle with that.

One helpful question to ponder is if you're struggling with corporate prayer,

there's reason to ask the question of how is your private prayer going?

'cause usually what happens is private prayer draws the heart and, and ushers

you into a desire to pray with others.

It's

usually how it works.

number four, because

we are running outta time.

Dale, very quickly here, a pattern

of prayer.

It says, my father, if it is

possible, may this cup be taken from me, yet not as I will, but you, as you will.

Obviously, we could do a whole message on this, but just understand

there's a pattern.

I've got a slide here

that's just got three of them all in one hit there, Sabrina.

Thank you.

The pattern is Jesus.

Jesus gives God his feelings.

Jesus gives God his desires.

Jesus gives God his trust.

This is the pattern.

and this doesn't come

just through

theory by the way.

you've actually got to, begin to get real with

God.

It's not knowing about God.

It's actually in the secret

place, speaking to God.

and to be brutally

honest, this is not something that is nice speaking to God with

nice prayers and warm fuzzies.

Sometimes it's ugly prayers.

It's ang at God.

It's snot tears and screams in pain and frustration.

It's ugly crying.

Get it out there with God, he can handle it.

The question is, to what degree are we honest with God about

our feelings and our desires?

We've gotta get them out.

We've gotta express 'em.

We've gotta wrestle them out with God.

Be honest about your feelings and desires.

It's time to get honest and get real with God, and have access to the power

of courage that he wants to embed in your heart so you can go through the trial.

This is what Jesus did.

This is the, this is the, this is the pattern he modeled his whole life.

And when the time got really tough, he was able to see through the mission

of God where his three friends fell apart under the sheer pressure of it.

I do wonder how much the reason why they were sleeping was how

familiar they had become, like how familiar they'd become of Jesus.

And so Jesus is saying like the S come now, that sentence probably

should have dropped like a bomb when he said it, but it didn't.

Like on their hearts, they're like, oh, I have a bit of a rest, bit of, bit of a

ki, bit of a meeting with Johnny Kipper.

Familiar.

The reason why I bring it up is just to ask you internal question, how familiar

have you grown with church, with Jesus, with his presence, with his word?

How familiar and what is it gonna look like for the stirring of God

by his spirit to awaken you to the reality of the hour that we are in.

Very good.

What?

See, what we see.

Jesus' model here is a prayer of lament and it's so interesting that

we would find ourselves in this place this morning in light of, you

know, women's on Thursday night.

Beautiful.

Erica took us through how to pray prayers of lament, and she used a

three Ps. Again, we protest to God, we petition God and then we praise God.

That last

one, this where it's can we just have that

slide up again?

Sabrina?

You know, Jesus gives his trust, he yields to God, not my will, but yours.

Yeah.

So important though.

As we pray this way, we end in this posture of trust, regardless of how

we might feel, that we declare God's ultimate sovereignty and goodness

over whatever situation we are

bringing before him.

I like to call lament

prayers.

Crap prayers, okay?

So when you're feeling like crap, you pray a crap prayer,

you complain to God, you request.

And you praise.

Okay?

So when the crap is hitting the fan, you pray a crap prayer, a lament prayer.

They are powerful and this is where we wanna bring it home.

This morning, I mean, there was another P, which is persistence.

Jesus prays three times.

Did you notice that?

He goes back and back praying and praying and praying.

We pray for as long as we need to.

For as long as our heart posture, as long as it takes for our heart posture

to shift to the right place or for the circumstance, whatever it might be.

However, the Lord is leading us in our particular Gethsemane moment, but it's

really important to pray our pain.

Jesus is praying He's pain in this moment.

He's not just complaining, he's not just moaning.

He's not just sitting.

Getting a little therapy group together with these disciples and

going, my life is really hard.

Can you gimme some there, there, and I must say there's a space for that, right?

As much as that sounds like I'm downplaying it right?

But so important that praying our pain becomes a priority.

And I think this passage is really timely in light of events that have

happened this week, in Luke's gospel Jesus'

recording of saying of this moment, this is the hour when darkness rains.

This is the hour when darkness rains.

And it would seem this week that what happened with Charlie Kirk, which

I'm sure most of you would've seen.

It really felt like this week was a moment where darkness rained

when this awful thing was done, and there's been such an outpouring

of grief over his death this week.

And in modern times, it seems the way that we respond to grief because we're

not terribly informed or formed on how to respond to these moments when

darkness rains very well, the tendency seems to be to flood social media

with words and thoughts and opinions, and I'm not passing judgment on that.

We intuitively know we need to respond somehow, right?

And this seems to be that the way the culture has informed us to do

it, but what does Jesus do in his hour when darkness is raining?

He goes to prayer In the hour of darkness, he pours his heart out in grief and

sorrow in a prayer of lament to God.

If you're a social media warrior here and you've been pouring out your thoughts on

social media, have you been praying them?

Have you poured out this tragedy?

To God, Gethsemane, Jesus's place of prayer, which means oil press, which

in ancient times you, this is machine, as Adam talks about, of stone that's

crushing the life out of olives.

This is Jesus's Gethsemane moment, the hour of darkness raining where the

reality of evil is bearing down upon him.

He prays.

So in this room right now?

Yeah, there are those who've deeply felt the crushing grief of the

hour of darkness raining this week.

Yes, through the events that have happened this week.

But there are many of you facing your own personal Gethsemane moment.

We've talked about this.

How are you responding in this moment?

Are you taking it to the

Lord in prayer?

Mark, I don't even know how

to pronounce his last name, Rogo.

It's a really great book, dark Clouds, deep Mercy, discovering

the Grace of Lament Rise.

Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.

To lament is Christian.

As we turn to God in prayer, lay out a complaints, ask

boldly and choose to trust.

So I have found myself lamenting the events of this week, so interesting.

As you enter into the heart of God, the place that the heart of God leads you.

In these moments, and as I've lamented over the tragedy of a wife now left

without her husband and, these two children

left without a father, and just the horror of, of such a moment,

you know, this happens every day.

Church across the planet, there are those who stand up for the name of Jesus

in whose life their lives are taken.

They're just not played out in the media and we don't see them.

Yeah, these silent martyrs whose names we won't know till we

meet them in the life to come.

This happens every day and it's lamentable every day.

But as I have prayed, and I've lamented over this tragedy, over the injustice

of it, the horror of it, you know, being led to grieve and to lament,

but the person who pulled the trigger.

A battle is not against flesh and blood.

Oh my gosh.

I've listened to divisive voices from the church.

Rise up this week and demonized the left, whatever the heck that means.

Oh, these left people, and I've heard it from Adam mouths of people.

I'm just shocked.

That is not the way of Jesus.

A battle is not against flesh and blood.

Exactly.

It is against the evil forces Lament.

For the young man who pulled the trigger that the evil ideologies of

this world corrupted an image bearer.

He was no less loved by a father in heaven than Charlie Kirk was the father

in heaven grieves over this young man who was corrupted by the evil ideologies and

forces of this world that is to lament over that is corrupting entire nations.

That is something to lament over and cry out to our sovereign

God for our merciful God.

I lament for the father who turned in his own son when the

death penalty is on the table.

I lament for that family who've been touched by the deepest

and most horrendous evil.

How does a family get over that?

So much evil at play, but our paddle is not against flesh and blood.

When we turn to that, the enemy wins.

We start to demonize the other with all our clever thinking

and all our clever phraseology.

We are playing into them.

His enemy's hands have none of it.

It is not the way of Jesus.

Take it to the Lord and lament.

Allow his heart to burden your heart for the true evil of this

world, and pray accordingly to prayers that the Lord will honor.

Allow your heart to be broken for what breaks the Lord's heart.

Amen.

If you don't pray, your heart will look to human solutions, and

that's why we're in the problem of the world that we're already in.

Human solutions are not the answer.

The kingdom of God is not left.

The kingdom of God is not right.

The kingdom of God is above.

Do not forget that.

I'm gonna ask.

You all

are precious in his soul.

Absolutely.

Oh, and remember this, we can get consumed by darkness, but there is

one whose light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

And Psalm a hundred thirty nine, twelve, even the darkness is not dark to him.

The night will shine.

The night will shine like the day.

For darkness is as light to our God.

So we need not fear and we need not give in to the waves of

fears.

Very good.

I'm gonna ask the music team to come up and I just wanna read Psalm 20 over

us before we sing together to close.

Psalm 20 says this,

may the Lord answer you when you are in distress.

May the name of the God of Jacob protect you.

May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion.

May he remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings?

May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.

May we shout for joy, joy over your victory and lift up our

banners in the name of our God.

May the Lord grant all your requests.

Now this, I know the Lord gives victory to his anointed.

He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious

power of his right hand.

Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, some trust in human solutions, but

we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm on the rock.

Lord, give us victory to the king.

Answer us when we call

when he stand.

Father, thank you for your presence amongst us.

Lord, may we firstly have a fresh desire just to be with you, to find

peace in the midst of the lament, to praise you when we don't feel like it.

To come to you when we would rather work it out ourselves.

Humble us that we would run into the throne room of

heaven and find your presence.

Find you with us

for all of us, Lord youngest to oldest over our red door family.

We just ask Father, for the appetite to draw close to you,

would increase in the coming days and months ahead and in that place.

We would find you in Jesus' name.

Amen.