Good morning. I’m so appreciative of Aaron’s worship leadership here. I don’t know if you realize that the first song each Sunday is to sort of orient us towards the and that was the one battle belongs to the Lord. And if I fight, I’ll fight on my knees. That was a little hint about what was coming this morning.

Thank you, Aaron, for that. My name is Peter, as you heard, and I am South’s head usher.

That’s just a plug. I need help. Next, next step, Sunday. Hint, hint. Speak to me if you are interested in helping me be an usher here. Last week, Alex talked about service and people who work behind the scenes. There’s a group sitting here that I’m a part of that’s also working behind the scenes. It’s called the Watchman Prayer Ministry.

Whoever belongs to Watchmen, if you would stand up right now, just so that people know who this illustrious group is. You see, you,

you see us Sunday for Sunday. Okay, You can sit down. Praying here after the service. Gary is also part of the Sunday prayer team here. And this is a wonderful group. We meet Wednesdays for a couple hours in the evening. And we pray. We pray for the church. We pray for international things. We prayed for Ukraine and Gaza and all kinds of things, the highs and lows of the church, pastoral transitions.

If you’ve come within the last 20 years, that’s about how long the Watchmen have been meeting, and you felt that this was your home, you came home when you came here, well, prayer was behind that. The Watchmen were behind that. Part of, had a role in you feeling Like you’re at home here. There’s another group here sitting that you don’t see standing Sunday for Sunday.

They’re part of a little bit larger group that prays for the service is praying now, hopefully for me and and I asked them to pray for those around them as well. If you’d like to get an email from me. Friday or Saturday telling you what the service is about week for week, then let me know that as well.

We’re in a series In the Way of Jesus. You can tell by the background here. And this is about spiritual practices that we are learning about that help us create room, create space in our lives for Jesus. Scripture teaches these practices as well as our spiritual forefathers and mothers through the millennia have practiced many, many things to help them create space in their lives.

to live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus. Alex, two weeks ago, introduced the idea of a trellis in connection with the rule of life. A rule of life, it’s, it’s not rules, it’s not law, it’s a rule of life, is a plan, a personal plan to walk with Jesus. And spiritual practices are a part of that rule of life.

And it’s, there, in the literature about it, it’s compared to a trellis. How a trellis helps a plant to grow and flourish. Spiritual practices are like a trellis. This rule of life is like a trellis. It, it, it gives support. It gives structure. It gives us a plan to spend time and to walk with Jesus in his way with his heart.

Everyone has a rule of life. It’s just how obvious it is to you individually. And we’ll be hearing more and more about that. I want you to hear from a New Testament scholar, D. A. Carson, what he thinks about having a plan. People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness.

Prayer, obedience to scripture, faith and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance. We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom. We drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self control and call it relaxation. We slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we’ve escaped legalism.

We slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. In other words, intentionality is essential for the way of Jesus, for life in the way of Jesus. I don’t know if all of you picked up an outline on the way in. This is a pattern we have now, the last three weeks. to help you through this through the service.

Today, the spiritual practice is prayer. As you heard, it’s a little bit awkward for me. I have to say, standing here talking about prayer because I don’t want to give the impression I’ve actually got this figured out. Just listen today and you can go home and have A happy life in the area of prayer. That is not the case.

I’m a practitioner, I will admit that, but I’m not an expert. My, my learning curve is still a steep one. So view today is sort of an interim, interim report. Your head usher is up here standing, giving an interim report on his journey in the area of prayer. This is the stuff that Jesus has led me to understand, and this is what I do.

So it’s sort of a testimony, and if we can agree to that vibe I’m very happy. And that’ll give me a little more freedom today to stand here. So I’m describing today discoveries that I’ve made. on my journey with Jesus. First, maybe you haven’t been here the last couple weeks. Let me give you a, the big picture of what’s going on here.

And I want to start with an unexpected verse. This is describing Jesus when he was 12 years old, when he was a middle schooler, so to speak. The Holy Spirit led Luke to write this about Jesus. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. It’s not original with me, but to look at these four things, these four characteristics, or areas of growth that Jesus was experiencing, and to sort of give them names for areas of life.

This doesn’t describe all of life, but this describes a 12 year old. And some of the areas where he was growing. He was growing in his, in wisdom. We can think of knowledge and discernment and wisdom in that area. The mind, he was growing physically, obviously, and growing in favor with God, spiritually. And in favor with man and that got me to thinking a couple decades ago, you know is there a, is there a a prime an important added area here that has more priority.

Well, I think if you’ve been in Sunday school, you would know the answer, you know favor with God, but let me show you just to give you some biblical background for that, for that aspect to have a priority. You know this verse probably. Jesus was asked, what’s the most important law, and he said to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor.

And I’ve just summarized it here at the bottom. Love the Lord your God with your whole being. That’s the most important thing he says. So Jesus taught that and he lived it already. When he was 12 years old. Here’s another verse, Alex referenced it last week. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

Or what can anyone give in exchange for the soul? So, the first summary statement here. From my viewpoint is living in the way of Jesus is a God centered life Impacting all other areas of life. So that’s sort of the the foundation for today We want to walk in the way of Jesus because a God centered life was one that he led.

So now comes another question On our journey here. Oh, yeah. Was prayer an important part of his journey, of his life back then? Is this really legitimate to be a part of a series on spiritual practices? Or is this sort of Alex’s favorite little thing and he’s sneaking it into a series on spiritual practices?

I wouldn’t, no.

I want to demonstrate the answer to here. And the answer, the basic, the answer to this is basically the sermon point today. This is critical. This is a critical aspect of the trellis, the area of prayer. But just watch, watch these verses here. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too.

And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him. This is probably very typical for, for Christ’s life when he was ministering. Very early in the morning while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place. Where he prayed. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.

One of those days, Jesus went out to the mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he calls his, his disciples to him and he chose them. So he prayed the night before he chose his disciples.

And then Gethsemane, we know that he went there to pray. So Jesus prayed. This was part of his life. The disciples didn’t ask him, Would you teach us how to walk on water? Would you teach us how to change water into wine? What did they ask him? Teach us to pray. That’s what they noticed about him. That was, that centered him.

He talked with his father, and they wanted to learn. The

other question is, when did he start praying? Do you think it was at his baptism? Well, it says in Luke 2, he grew in favor with God. He was communicating with his father. Jesus was praying back then. This was his life. He grew in favor with God because he was communicating with his father.

So then the other question is should this practice impact us? Should it be ours as well? John the Apostle has an answer for us here in 1 John. This is how we know we are in him. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. His invitation to us is come and follow me. Alex referenced a book last week Practicing the Way.

There’ll be a copy up here afterwards if you want to look at it. Written by John Mark Comer. And our Life Group is reading it, Alex is reading it. And John Mark Comer says, An apprentice of Jesus is one who has arranged their life around becoming. Like Jesus. So my summary statement here is then anyone who wants to live a God centered life Senses the strong need and a growing desire to follow Jesus into life sustaining prayer.

Christ’s example here I have to be transparent with you. Didn’t start impacting me till I was over 40. I knew my Lord prayed, but it didn’t really go deep into my soul. Was I thinking, well, he had important stuff to do. Of course he would pray. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I’m just a slow learner.

So, don’t follow my example.

But Alex just said it before he, I came up here. Prayer is hard, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem to be natural to us, and there are reasons for that. There’s a book I’ve read that you can look, look at it after the service from Paul E. Miller. He speaks to this thing that we’re talking about, why prayer is so hard.

I love these quotes. American culture is probably the hardest place in the world to learn to pray. We are so busy that when we slow down to pray, we find it uncomfortable. We prize accomplishments, production. But nothing, but prayer is nothing but talking to God. It feels useless, as if we’re wasting time.

Every bone in our body screams, get to work!

Do you relate to that?

We have an allergic reaction to dependency, but this is the state of the heart most necessary for a praying life. A needy heart is a praying heart. Dependency is the heartbeat. This

is my statement. I’ve changed a statement from my prayer mentor, Daniel Henderson, if you know that name. He said prayerlessness is a declaration of our independence from God, and I, I changed it to this. Prayer is a declaration of our dependence on God. This phrase, this thought, is the one that’s motivated me most in the last I don’t know, five, seven years to keep on keeping on.

A couple more quotes here. This is really a snarky one. If you’re not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. Ah! Should we add luck to that, too?

I’ll end with one that’s a little more encouraging. Jesus does not say, Come to me, all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander. And I will give you rest. The book is worth reading just for the quotes. So my summary statement here.

Oh, I had one more Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life. It offers us a less busy heart. That’s really the comforting one So Americans are a proud independent get er done folk. Hence It is hard for us to declare our dependence on God, which is absolutely necessary for a way in the life

My reading through the scripture many times sees pride as man’s main sin. So that, that we have a part of us and then we’re Americans, we’re getter done people. So we have two strikes against us. We like action, we like creating things, solving problems, and declaring our dependence on God. It’s hard. So what is prayer exactly?

I haven’t defined it yet, and this is where I’ve landed personally. Prayer is a deep personal conversation with our Abba, or our Father. Abba’s Aramaic for father might, it could possibly mean Papa. Jesus spoke Aramaic, so this is the word he would have used when he said our Father. Abba, Papa, and this conversation is in response to him.

He initiated this conversation. He said, he came to us. He’s the one knocking on our door. He’s the one who invited us to talk to him. He initiated this conversation that we want to have with him. And maybe the top verse, or one of the main verses in this area that where we see the invitation is cast all your anxiety.

That’s the NIV translation. Cast all your cares. on him. Why? Because he cares for you. This is an open invitation to come to him with all of our stuff. And we’re really good at that, typically. But this, this isn’t the only teaching on prayer. And this can give us the idea, this is I’m gonna pray now, and I’m gonna tell God what I need.

King of kings and Lord of lords, I need you to do these five things for me today. They’re really important to me. Oh, bless the missionaries too. Amen. That doesn’t sound like a one-on-one conversation with our papa, with our abba, with our father. Does it? It sounds more like a Starbucks drive through or assigning God the task of being our executive assistant.

We need him to do stuff for us.

This is a learning curve for all of us probably to figure this stuff out. You know, when we’re praying, we’re entering the throne room of heaven. And on that throne, we see the King of kings and Lord of lords. And find out he’s our Papa. And we can sit on his lap and have a one on one conversation with him.

A conversation involves listening, doesn’t it? Usually from the get go. Listening well. Alex said last week that based on Matthew 16 and 17, we listen to him and then we talk to him. But don’t we normally do all the talking?

And that kind of prayer sounds like we really don’t need any input from God on how we should pray. We’ve got it figured out. We know what we need. But when we were going through the seven letters in the beginning of the book of Revelation, Alex and Aaron, Steve and Dan, we often heard He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church.

We can’t hear our father’s voice if we’re talking all the time.

And then, Paul wrote in Romans 8 26, In the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. Doesn’t it happen a lot? We really don’t even know how to pray. You’re confronted with an issue, and you’re just, Lord, do something, I don’t know what to say right now.

So sometimes we, we talk the whole time, and other times we don’t even know what, what to say. But listening first has been an important lesson on my journey in the area of prayer. I’ve come to ask the Lord each morning. If he wants to show me anything that I need to be praying about during my deep personal conversation with him.

So prayer is a deep personal conversation with our Abba, with our Papa, with listening to him being a critical life sustaining priority. But then comes the question, what should we pray for actually?

Here’s an interesting verse for us. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. And find out what pleases the Lord. Well, we have scripture to know what pleases the Lord. People coming to, to Jesus Just this last week at Watchman, we prayed for a revival in America.

We can pray for our daughter to find a friend at school, for our son’s marriage to be restored, for health to honor and glorify our father for you to find the profession that you can provide for your family so you can provide for your family, for you to stay awake while you’re driving home late at night.

All these things are things we can No, we know we please the Lord for a conflict to be resolved. Prayer for missionaries. This paper is out at the mat team table. We can pray. This would please the Lord to send missionaries from self would please the Lord. These are all things that are good, but let me give you another concern that I think I know we should have.

God said in Leviticus, be holy for, because I’m holy. Romans 8, 29, we’ll be reading it in a minute. Be conformed to the image of his Son. Paul says, I’m having birth pangs until Christ is formed in you. And then to the Thessalonians, he said, be sanctified. All these are synonyms for the same thing, for Christlikeness, for our hearts to become transformed.

Becoming more and more like Jesus has to be something that we pray about. Becoming like Jesus is really a big deal in Scripture. Heart transformation has to be a priority of ours, as does worship. Heart transformation has to be one of our ultimate cares that we cast on the Lord. Is growing in Christ’s likeness a care of yours?

Are you worried about it? Have you thought about your joy? Is, is it a concern for you that you don’t have joy or one of the other parts of the fruit of the spirit?

Is heart transformation something on your radar? It pleases our Abba if we’re growing here.

We quote a verse quite often. The context we sometimes forget. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. But what is his purpose? Is it that we have happy lives? No, you know, all details of life work out for us. The next word in first Verse 29 is the bridge for us for, for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

All the things he’s working out in your life is for this goal, for this purpose, for you to become more. Like his son. This is a really big deal.

So my summary statement here is, because it is God’s purpose for my heart to be transformed into the likeness of Christ, praying for that to happen must become a deep concern and a high priority.

Here I’d like to give a little bit of a testimony.

25 years ago, I can’t nail it down any more than that. I just had a strong sense from Bible reading and the Spirit talking to me, I needed to grow in certain areas. I started praying daily for five things. The first thing was, to grow in the area of discipline. And the last thing was to grow in the area of being able to be still and to pray.

I won’t tell you what the other three were.

I prayed for eleven years, five to six times a week for those five things.

And when I had a chance to share some of this stuff with our church leadership in Vienna, just before we left, I told them some of, about my spiritual disciplines, prayer and fasting and things. And we had an Alex in our church leader. Leadership team and he came up to me afterwards and he said, Peter, you didn’t need to pray for discipline.

You are disciplined. Yes, this prayer thing works. He thought that was my DNA. Oh, no, no Not at all.

God had answered my prayers that someone who didn’t know me from before Thought I was disciplined

and oh, by the way, my last ministry was prayer I was the global director for global director for global initiatives prayer initiatives for our mission for three and a half years. This prayer thing works for heart transformation. God answers. He honors those, those prayers. Maybe it wouldn’t take 11 years for you to grow in an area.

I’m just a slow learner, maybe. But heart transformation moves at the speed of a glacier. Right? So how bad do we want it? How bad do we want it? So pulling all of this together in the minutes we have left here I want to share how God has led me. The way I pray is called praying scripture. And this combines both the first discipline that Alex talked about two weeks ago and prayer today.

This is my go to way to pray. For me, reading scripture is the primary way to hear God’s voice. We learned in a series on the Lord’s Prayer that teaching was, that the teaching was a response to the plea from the disciples to the Lord, to the Lord for them to learn how to pray. And I’ve come to use The Lord’s prayer is my template of in my daily times of prayer, and I want to show you how I do it.

I’ve been practicing for over 25 years, probably longer, a specific way to read scripture in the last nine or 10 years. I’ve been using the Lord’s Prayer as my prayer template, and the way I pray is called Praying Scripture.

This is my go to way. I want to hear his voice before he hears mine, so I read. Scripture guides me into life, sustaining prayer. I read and then I pray in response to what I’ve read, to what I’ve heard. So, over 30 years, and more than that, I’ve used one simple way of reading scripture. If it’s a paragraph, if it’s chapters, I’m reading through the Bible now, so it’s three or four chapters a day.

I ask, the first question is, what do I learn about God here? And then, what do I learn about His will for me? Here. Two very simple questions and they yield great results. Then I realized, like I said, nine or 10 years ago, this is actually the first request about learning about God is basically the same thing.

How do I hollow his name? What do I learn about, to about God today so that I can hollow his name? And this is where doxology comes in. Alex talked about that too. Two weeks ago. So what I had been reading and doing intuitively, I realized lines up with the Lord’s prayer and two Thursdays ago when I was Reading and I needed to talk described to the daily devotion team.

What the sermon was about. This is what I had read was I was in Job 21 to 23 that day and in 23 10 It says but he knows the way I take and when he has tested me. I shall come forth as gold Here are two statements about God. He knows my way and he tests Those are two important things to learn about, about God.

The context, maybe you know about Job. He lost everything except his wife. The way she was not a support to him. But he had three friends, teaching basically good theology, but using it as a sledgehammer, totally inappropriately. They thought they knew what was going on in Job’s life, but they didn’t know.

And he, all he wants is an audience with God. He knows God will vindicate him. He knows that God understands. And he just wants God to, to, to say hi. And, and God is so silent, it’s deafening. And he’s arguing with his, with his friends. When I see God, he’ll, he knows the way I take. He knows my life of integrity.

He knows my life of faith, how I help people. This is great comfort that the Spirit is teaching us here. God knows. Have you ever been accused of false motives? When you know your motives were good? Of doing something you didn’t do? God knows. That’s Job’s testimony to us. God knows that. And it’s also important to know he tests us.

You know, things haven’t slipped through his fingers. That’s why things are going so poorly right now. There’s times when he just tests our faith. And Job said, when I, when I get to talk with God, I know I’ll, I’ll go through the, my, my metal will be, you know, the refiner’s fire, and I’ll come forth as gold.

Then I asked, you know, what’s his will for me? Well, this lines up with the second part of the Lord’s Prayer. And this is really important for me. When I’m asking for God’s will to be done on earth, that’s not at the next election primary, or in Africa, or whatever. I start with myself. What is God’s will for me?

I want his will to be done in my life. Today, starting today. So, verses 11 and 12 told me a lot about God’s will. These, these things that Job was saying, they show up in other parts of Scripture. In Deuteronomy, in Psalm 119. He knows if he has a chance to talk to God, he could say these things. I’ve closely followed his steps.

I’ve kept his way without turning left or right. I’ve not departed from his commands. And I’ve treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. Here are things that are definitely God’s will. For my life that I need to integrate into my life.

So here are the the verses and and I wrote these down in my journal and then I started praying Lord. Thank you for revealing these things to me Thank you that you know my way what a comfort that is and Lord. I need to acknowledge Yes, even what we’re going through right now due to health things. You’re testing us You’re seeing how our what our faith looks like and you’re revealing your faith to us But Lord, we want to come forth as gold.

And Lord, my desire is to follow you. I recognize I need to obey you. I need to walk straight, not turning left or right. And oh Lord, you say here I need to treasure your words more than my retirement income. Lord, I don’t think I can sign that today. But I, but I want to. That’s my aspiration. More than my daily bread, I want to hear from you.

And by the way, Jesus taught that when he right after the encounter with the woman at the well, he told his disciples, my food is to do the will of God. And he also taught the the words coming out of his mouth. One, man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the Lord’s mouth.

Jesus lived this. And by the way, these last two verses, they mirror our vision statement. Walking in the way of Jesus, and this is his heart. To treasure God’s word. You can do this. Like a robot, you know, not do this and do this, but to treasure his word more than daily bread. That’s, that’s the heart of Jesus.

Then I continued on praying, and I need to move quickly here. You know, I don’t live hand to mouth, you know, back then. They had to go fishing every day to eat. So I’ve changed this. Lord, give me the resources that I need to do your will today. To live this kind of life. Today, and also for what is on the agenda for that day.

Forgive me my debts, or the things I need to confess from yesterday, or things I need to confess based on Job 23, and lead me not into temptation. Here I’m praying Alex’s prayer that he taught us when we were going through the Lord’s Prayer. Lord, on this journey full of trials, keep me faithful to your way, what we’re talking about, and protect me from the one who would do me.

And then this is how I pray for other people. I pray first for my family, and then I pray for our mission leadership, then I pray for South staff. There are some people I pray for daily, some people I pray for weekly. On this Thursday, on Thursdays, I pray for Steve, Teresa, and Sean. So what I just prayed, that’s how I prayed for them.

Prayed that they would want to know more about God than their paycheck. I don’t know if you’d have, give me permission to pray that for you. But that, that mindset is, is God’s will for us.

So this is how I pray for others, as I said. I, I don’t know what’s always going on in Alex’s life on a certain day. And on those, some of you I pray for daily. But I know what God’s will is for you. That what I just learned for myself. So asking questions of the biblical text bears much fruit. That’s my testimony.

So the summary here is, God through scripture guides me into deep personal conversations with him. This is how I try to live out my love for God and my love for others with my whole being. By worshipping God and by praying for the heart transformation for myself and for others. My love for God and for others keeps me motivated.

When my motivation is lagging, I check out my love for God and my love for others. This is my attempt to lead a God centered life with the focus impacting all other areas of life. Prayer is critical, a critical component of it, because I can’t do anything without my Lord. That’s what he teaches in John 15.

Yes, prayer is hard at times, but we all need to choose our heart. We don’t drift into Christ likeness. We, we need grace. Driven efforts because I have a strong desire and need to hear from God every day. I read scripture every day That’s the way I do it and I use the Lord’s Prayer as a template to help me respond to the insights about God’s character and his will for me a number of years ago I had a major crisis in in God’s good and purposeful plan and In God’s good and purposeful plan.

I was reading through through the Bible that year And I wanted to keep, keep going. And I wanted to keep leaning into God, so I kept on reading. The first day that I opened up the Bible after the crisis started, I so desperately needed to read something that was in bold print. There for me, you know that feeling?

Nothing. Part of the problem when you’re in a crisis is the text for me gets blurry, and I have so much noise in my head. It’s hard for me to see anything, so I counted on the Lord coming through the next day. Nada. I kept on reading. I kept, you know, in a crisis you need to lean into God and not away.

Lean into God and not away. So I kept leaning in, and in God’s providence on the sixth day, could have used it five days ago, I think, my personal opinion, but in God’s good plan for me, He wanted one verse for me, and I had to wait six days to get there. And that verse is Psalm 54, 4. Surely God is my help.

The Lord is the one who sustains me. I looked up, the word sustain is what jumped out at me. And the Hebrew word means to prop up. I’ve taken pictures since then of fences that are leaning over. In Austria, there are many fences that are hundreds and hundreds of years old and they’re propped up by long boards.

And that was the picture that I needed. The God, my God was going to prop me up. My, my experience with the Lord is He doesn’t make problems go poof! My experience with the Lord is He, He sustains us.

He was promising to prop me up and this experience has impacted how I pray as well, both for myself and for others. So the goal today was not to copy me, but rather to take up a couple of challenges. There’s no room on the outline for these, sorry to say, but first, surrender the illusion of independence.

You are dependent on the Lord. Secondly, discern some next steps. in the area of prayer and pray for heart transformation regularly. It’s a really big deal. Choose your heart. The pain of discipline is less than the pain of regret. In other words, choose your heart. Stay afterwards today. If you want some prayer about prayer, coming forward after service for prayer on any Sunday is nothing shameful.

It’s a declaration of clarity that you have that you’re dependent on the Lord. For his work in your life, like Alex said last week, life with God empowers life for God, and that is why we pray. So my prayer for us all today is that we can fill in that last line, Lord, teach me. to pray. It’s the Jesus way.

Lord, I pray that something that was said today would go deep into every person’s heart here. Take root and bear fruit until you, Lord Jesus, have been formed in them. Not only for our benefit personally, But for the benefit of others and above all for your honor and glory among the nations, we pray these things in your name and for the sake of the gospel.

Amen.