Sabbatical Sermons - Coldplay and Pray

But today, like I said, we finish the sabbatical sermon series. I had a difficult time

deciding which experience, which thing from this summer was going to kind of be the thing that drove the point, the car that the point

was in. I went to California. I've been to California a couple other times, but mostly for conferences.

This was the first time that I actually like got to go see the ocean in California and

got to see a little bit more of the mountains and traveled just a little bit. I was in San Francisco,

Woodland Hills, I went to Sacramento. Some of you remember Kathleen and Dami Badajah.

They have moved recently to San Francisco, and I took it as an opportunity to see them while I was going out to see one

of my spiritual overseers, Reverend Michael Umbanauer.

One morning Dami was going, hey, I'm going hiking. I said my knees can't do that. He said, oh, there's a beach nearby.

I said, all right, I'll sit on the beach. So I was on this very rocky picture-esque beach that very much looks like it would be

on the screensaver for an iMac or something. It was really, really beautiful. I was probably a little too adventurous,

but I'm going to save that for another time.

I spent, I

thought maybe I would talk about mental health,

because one of my commitments for the summer was that I would see a therapist just to continue my own

mental health journey. I saw a therapist eight times this summer, and I'm going to continue to see him

monthly for the foreseeable future, because I do think that it is becoming increasingly important for the church to

normalize and destigmatize mental health issues.

Some people think that if you're Christian, you're suddenly not supposed to feel any anxiety or have any issue,

or you should never be depressed, you shouldn't be on medications, but we need to normalize that these are things that are very important in

our lives.

But then there was another experience that just

kept rising to the top as I kept thinking about what are the experiences from this summer that I think are important to relate back

to the church. But I want to hold you in suspense a little bit. So let's open up our Bibles and

read

some scripture together. We're going to be in the book of John.

It's in what's called the New Testament. It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans. If you see any of those,

you know you're in the right neighborhood.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. John 17. If you don't have a Bible,

we have physical Bibles out on the bookshelf that you can take home with you, or you can download

one from any of the digital app stores. Okay, John 17.

We have a tradition of standing as we are able, as we read the scriptures.

And so if you will stand with me as you're able or willing,

we will read from John 17 starting in verse 20. It says this.

This is Jesus praying, My prayer is not for them alone.

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one.

Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one.

I in them, you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity.

Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved me,

loved them even as you have loved me. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray to you in the same way that Jesus prayed to you.

And today we thank you for the scriptures that we have,

the way that they have persisted throughout the millennia.

I pray that whatever you have for us to learn today, I pray that it would stick.

That it would become a part of the framework of our faith.

That our faith would become stronger, that we would become more like your son Jesus.

Amen. Thanks, y'all. You can have a seat.

So the first thing that we see here in verse 20 is that Jesus prayed for his disciples.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John show Jesus praying at least 25 times,

but this is the only time that is recorded that he prays out loud for his disciples.

Now, while the Bible doesn't spell it out, I think that we know this isn't the only time Jesus prayed for his disciples.

Yeah? Can we agree on that?

But it could be the only time he prayed out loud about them so that they could hear him.

That might be true. Let me ask, how much time do we spend praying for someone before we talk about someone?

Or before we want to talk to them, have we spent time praying for them,

listening to God and what he has to say about them?

We can spend so much time thinking about what we would say, what we would do,

or to the point that we don't always turn that time into prayer for the person that we're thinking about.

Have you heard that phrase, live rent-free? Someone lives rent-free in your head?

Or an experience lives rent-free in your head? Like it doesn't belong there, it doesn't need to be there,

and you spent all this time rehearsing it and going over, oh, this is what I was going to say,

oh, I know what I'm going to say the next time, oh, this is what I should have said.

Some of us have things living rent-free in our head from a decade ago.

There's a meme online, I think it's about how sometimes you wake up and you remember the awkward thing you said 20 years ago.

I do that all the time.

I think it's important for us to acknowledge and understand that every person that we know in this room,

in our homes, at our families, at our jobs, in this city, that we can pray for them more than we talk about them.

We can pray for them more even than we talk to them.

It actually reminds me of Greenbush and the way that we've been praying for Greenbush.

We started intentionally praying for this neighborhood every Sunday during the service.

Does anybody know how long ago? It was just this last January.

We've been here for much longer than that, but it was this past January that we started making it a part of our service,

that we put it on the wall, that we said we want to be intentional about it.

It's been 35 Sundays, 35 prayers that we have prayed for our neighborhood.

It doesn't mean that we haven't been praying for them individually, but when you put it that way, you realize, wow, that's not that much prayer.

But we wanted to start with intentional prayer before we moved into intentional action.

So that when we develop the right plan for how to walk through this neighborhood or how to reach out in new ways,

that we will know and they will hopefully feel that we have been praying for them long before we talked to them.

Does that make sense?

And it's important that we end up talking to them, isn't it?

It is important that we end up talking to our neighbors because Jesus didn't only pray for his disciples or for the disciples that he had.

Did he? No, he prayed for those who will believe in me through their message, he said.

So it's important we pray. It's also important that we end up talking to them.

There are people that are in our neighborhood that will believe because of the message that we carry.

And it matters how we carry it. Amen. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get some amens.

Come on. Listen, it matters how we carry it. And this is why Jesus actually pivots from praying for them and for those that would believe and pray.

And he starts turning into the direction of praying about unity.

Because he knew, because he knows that a full and whole and perfect message will always be filtered through the unity of the people that carry it.

Amen. It will always be filtered through the unity of the people that carry it or the lack thereof.

What do I mean? Well, we probably all know somebody. Think of the people that you know that used to but no longer believe in Jesus.

Now, how many of them stopped believing in Jesus and how many of them stopped believing in the church?

Or how many of them stopped believing in Jesus because of their experience with the church?

There's probably a time where I would have said, I would have preached.

You know, you shouldn't stop believing in Jesus because of how Christians act.

You know, you don't believe in Christians or the church. You believe in Jesus.

The only problem with that is Jesus doesn't really give us that out.

He doesn't draw that as the way for us to excuse behavior.

Listen again. My prayer is not for them alone.

I also pray for those who believe in me through their message that all of them may be one father, just as you are in me and I am and you may they also be in us that the world may believe that you have sent me.

I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one.

I am them and you and me so that they may be brought to complete unity bars.

Then the world will know.

Then the world will know.

Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them.

Even as you have loved me.

Jesus says that if we believe in him, he is here in us, one with the father, one with us.

The scripture teaches us that Jesus is the physical image of God and the church is the body.

That Jesus is the physical image of God and that the church is the physical representation of Jesus.

If we live in unity, then the world will see.

If we live in division, the world will also see that.

Both these affect how or when someone might believe.

So let's talk about unity.

By that, I mean let's talk about Coldplay.

Some of you know that I like the band Coldplay.

I don't follow their every move.

I'm not Eric and you too.

I don't follow their every move.

I haven't bought with my own money every single album.

But I do think that they are legitimately one of the best bands of my generation at the very least.

When they first came out, the truth is I did not want to like them at all.

I saw their marketing before I heard their music and I thought that they were trying to look like an 80s cover band.

And so I just was really not interested.

And then everyone was interested.

And so I definitely was not interested.

That only made me want to not like them more.

But then I heard a song from their third album called Speed of Sound.

Listen, it's not even remotely their best song.

But this song caught my ear and I thought, you know what, I don't know.

Okay, third album.

They made it past the first.

They made it past the sophomore slump.

You know, like they got a third album.

This song is pretty decent.

I was like, but if I'm going to give them a chance, I need to really give them their due.

So I went to Walmart, went to the cheap music rack, and I bought their first two albums.

And I was like, if I'm going to listen to the third one, I need to start with the first.

I need to go back to the beginning.

And I found out how wrong I was because they are great.

If you're a Coldplay purist, you probably think that first album is the best one.

And then right there when they put out that third album, they did a VH1 storyteller.

Remember VH1 storytellers?

This is how long ago that was.

They did a VH1 storytellers that we DVR'd.

And for the longest time, it was the only thing that would help our son Brennan fall asleep.

He was just a little baby.

And it played all the time.

Absolutely all the time because we were like, we just need you to sleep.

If you will please sleep.

It doesn't mean that the music was boring.

It was soothing.

Now fast forward a few years, and it's 2009.

We're living in Georgia, and it is our seventh wedding anniversary.

Coldplay was touring on their fourth album, and they were going to come to the Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta

that holds just under 13,000 people.

So I used tax return money to get tickets for an anniversary gift.

So I got good tickets, like good tickets.

We were in the pit tickets.

We were standing at the very front tickets.

To this day, Cindy's convinced she saw Gwyneth Paltrow backstage tickets.

No one in front of us tickets.

And it was amazing.

Absolutely pitch perfect.

We got to the end of the night, I was like, I do not know how he just sang every one of those notes so perfectly for two and a half hours, 25 songs.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

The crowd singing along.

If you're familiar with Vita La Vita, then you know that has this chant where everyone's just singing, oh, like all together.

They stopped.

The crowd kept going.

It was absolutely amazing.

The best concert we had ever been to.

Now fast forward 13 years to this past summer, to our 20th anniversary.

We went to see Coldplay in Chicago at Soldier Field for the first time since our seventh anniversary.

Again, it was tax return money.

Again, it was an anniversary.

But these were not tickets next to the stage.

These were the exact opposite.

This time our seats were about as far as you could possibly get from the stage.

All the way at the top in the highest row in the furthest corner of Soldier Field with a sold out capacity of over 50,000 people.

I asked you about space.

You know the part of Soldier Field that looks like a spaceship landed on the stadium?

Anyone familiar with that?

It's just weird and metal.

And everyone went in, wait, first day they were like, it looks like they put a spaceship.

Well, it looks like that because if you sit up there, it feels like you are entering space on your way to your seats.

I'm not kidding.

And on the way up, the higher we went, the lower my expectations were of how this concert was going to go.

I started thinking maybe this isn't going to be a good concert.

Not because the band isn't good, because of our location.

We were so far from the front.

Cody and Eric were there as well.

We chatted about it.

And I sat down and I told her I was going to talk about this.

And she goes, you were in the very last seat.

I was like, yes, yes I was.

I'm going to mention that.

We were as far as we could get.

But here's the thing.

On the way into the stadium, they were handing out to everyone these wristbands that looked kind of like an oversized Fitbit.

It was like white.

And you could tell it was probably going to light up.

It looked like they lit up.

But I had no idea, absolutely no idea that this wristband would make the worst seat feel like one of the best.

I took a video.

Let me show you.

Go ahead and play that video.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Did you see it?

I mean, I thought they would light up.

I thought maybe they would change colors.

I thought maybe when they sang the song yellow, they would turn yellow.

Yeah.

But I had no idea that they would unite 50,000 people, that every song would be choreographed to connect us, that every song would connect every person in the stadium with light.

And he was gorgeous.

Absolutely gorgeous.

And it was unity.

And I thought that 50,000 different people with different backgrounds, races, genders, geographies, identities were unified by light.

And while it feels like at most concerts you're supposed to listen to the music and look at the band, this was like they wanted us to look around.

They wanted us to see what the lights were doing, to see how we were connected, to see how they had connected us to each other.

That is unity.

It didn't matter how far I was from the stage.

Coldplay united me with the entire stadium by giving me something that I had completely underestimated.

Verse 22, Jesus prayed, I have given them the glory you gave me that they may be one as we are one.

That English word glory is the Greek word doxa.

Literally means what evokes good opinion or that something has inherent or intrinsic worth.

Some commentaries think that what he means there is he's given us this future hope of heaven.

But other theologians say, and I agree that Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit.

Why?

Because in context, if you go back and read the chapters before this and what he's teaching them, he's talking about how he's going to give them the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, because he knows, Jesus knows that the Holy Spirit has a surprising way of winning people over, of evoking a good opinion.

And I think that we underestimate the Spirit's ability to unite us even with people that we assume wouldn't have a good opinion of us.

The Spirit's ability to unite us with people that we would rather talk about than to talk about or to rather than pray for the Holy Spirit can unite us with.

We underestimate that.

A few weeks back, I got tagged on a Facebook post, which isn't always a good thing.

It's like sometimes it's someone got scammed and suddenly you're getting tagged in all these posts.

But a couple of weeks ago, I got tagged by two different people in the same Facebook post.

One of them would probably call themselves a lapsed Catholic, what they would call themselves.

The other is probably an atheist or an agnostic based on the conversations that we had.

But they tagged me because there's a local nonprofit called QC Harm Reduction.

They do needle exchanges and they hand out Narcan for people with addictions.

When QC Harm Reduction posted that they were looking for a church parking lot where they could host their needle exchanges and give out Narcan to people struggling with addiction.

Both of these people tagged me because of our church.

This Friday from 3 to 5 p.m. QC Harm Reduction will be in our parking lot helping people with addictions.

I can take credit for that, but it's not just me.

It's you.

It's this church.

It's the spirit uniting the people in this church, creating opportunities for unity with people that don't even go to this church.

Because of how we're trying so hard to just carry his message well.

Listen, everyone that believes in Jesus has this spirit.

Everyone that wants to get a wristband gets a wristband.

In the kingdom of God, everybody gets a crown.

You are all sons and daughters.

You all belong.

And it's the kind of wristband that you get to take off and give to someone else if you want to.

It's the kind of crown you get to crown someone else when you get the chance.

Jesus gives the spirit to all of us.

It doesn't matter how far you are from the stage.

Or how far we're from the moment where Jesus prayed this for the first time or how many thousands of years it has been.

Doesn't matter how different we are, how different our backgrounds, our genders, ethnicities, our identities, our geographical origins or how different some of our beliefs might be because it is the spirit that makes us one.

Listen, it is not believing exactly the same way that makes us one.

It is the Holy Spirit that makes us one.

Jesus in the Father, the Father in Jesus, the Holy Spirit in us, uniting us with him.

We are one because of the spirit.

Not because of anything we've done.

Scriptures are clear that there is no division that the spirit can't unite.

We sure do try. Yeah.

We sure do try as human beings to create divisions and we test, we test the flexibility of the spirit.

But Christians listen to what Paul said in Ephesians 4.

Make every effort.

Say it with me.

Every effort.

Make every effort.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit.

Through the bond of peace it says.

Because there is one body, one spirit.

And Jesus says, you were called to one hope when you were called.

Right.

So what do we do with this?

How do we practice this?

How do we participate with any of this?

Well, we pray.

We pray.

At least that's where we begin.

It's the example that Jesus gives us.

He's praying when he's teaching this.

We pray.

When?

Well, one.

When it's on purpose.

Pray when it's on purpose.

Choose a time when you're going to pray on purpose.

No, really.

On purpose.

Some people this comes very naturally to them.

They're like, mmm, 545, can't wait, going to pray on purpose.

When I first got out of college and I came back home, I had these cards.

I had three by five cards.

I had all these people with names.

And it was just, man, it was so much easier, more natural for me back then for some reason.

And I try to go back to things like that.

And I have a hard time getting into the rhythm of it.

But I think that there is value in meaning in praying on purpose, choosing a time to do that.

We have an example from Jesus of choosing time early, choosing time in the evening.

Two.

Pray when it's on your mind.

Pray when it's on your mind because every time a person or problem comes to your mind, you can pray.

Listen now, Paul opened his letter to the Philippians.

He says, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank God every time I remember you.

Every prayer in prayer.

Sorry.

I thank God every time I remember you.

In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy.

We can pray on purpose, but we can also just pray when it comes to mind.

We talked a little bit early about the people that live rent free in our heads, the things that we think.

If that person, that thing comes to mind, that is an opportunity for you to pray for that while it's on your mind.

And then if it's something that is consistently and persistently on your mind,

now you need to choose a time to pray on purpose about this thing.

Because it's showing up often enough that it's going to cause you to not have the peace of mind that Jesus wants us to have.

So we pray on purpose.

We pray when it's on your mind.

The third, we pray on the spot.

If someone asks you to pray for them, I want to encourage you to get in the habit of asking if they would like you to pray right then and there.

For a couple of reasons.

First, because we are forgetful people.

We used to say back in college, we went to a Christian college, we used to say that, like, I'll pray for you was just another way of saying how you do it.

Like, no one meant it. At least it didn't feel like anybody meant it. It meant more like, okay, see you later. I'll pray for you.

Like. When someone asks you to pray or it seems like there's an opportunity to pray.

There's something meaningful about asking then and there. Do you want to pray about this now?

Hmm. But more so, I think. Not just praying right then and there, but I think that there can be something really meaningful.

When someone hears someone else praying out loud for them.

It's one thing if I tell you I'll pray for you and you never hear me pray for you.

It's another thing if I say I'll pray for you and then you hear me pray for you.

We pray on purpose. We pray when it's on our mind. We pray on the spot. And the last thing is I close.

I would just say if you don't know what to pray for. If it just seems like a vast empty landscape when it comes to prayer, pray for unity.

Pray in agreement with the Holy Spirit and with Jesus that unity is God's preference.

Pray for unity. Pray in agreement that God prefers unity.

Then I would say pray for each other. Pray for unity. Then pray for each other.

Pray for each other. The people that are around you. Pray for them, not just about them. Right? Dear God, so and so did such and such today.

That's about. Praying for is dear God. I know so and so. I pray that you would give them peace.

I pray that your spirit would be evident in their life. That you would build them up, encourage them.

That you would empower them in every way that I have ever felt you empowered me. That they would be blessed.

If they're a mother, they would rise. Their children would call them blessed.

If they are father, they would feel honored and blessed to get to be a father that their quiver is full.

If they're elderly, that they would feel that the gray hair is a crown of honor and wisdom.

If they're new parents, that they would feel that you are giving them strength to raise up children that will love them, love you,

and be strong, autonomous people that will have a positive effect in this world.

Don't just pray about. Pray for. So pray for unity. Pray for each other.

And lastly, pray for the future in the same way that Jesus did.

Because Jesus, I do not just pray for the people that are here right now.

I pray for all of the people that will believe because of them.

Because there's still more to come.

Still more people to see.

And the unity that we carry will help them see and believe.

Amen. Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for unity, for the way that you bring us together, the way that you unite us.

I pray that you would teach us to pray the way that you taught your disciples,

the prayer that we prayed together earlier.

Teach us how to pray for each other on purpose when it's on our minds and on the spot.

Pray for unity, for each other, for the future. Amen.