"Dear Lord. . .huh?" Going the Distance with Distraction
Learning to Pray, prt. 6
Wildwind Community Church
Feb. 27, 2005
David Flowers
Have you ever made a promise you didn’t keep? Have you ever stood in front of a hundred people and made a promise you didn’t keep? Last week I told you I was going to do something, and this week I’m here to report to you that I didn’t do it. Remember the alarm thing? Last week I said I was going to set a watch alarm for every two hours for a couple days, and every time the alarm went off I was going to use that as a signal to become aware of God’s continued presence in my life. Sometimes I’d be able to pause for prayer – other times I’d be so involved with something that the sound would jar me just for a moment into conscious awareness of God before I would slip back into activity again. But I was going to do this for a couple days and then come back here and report to you what happened. I even challenged you to do it with me. Did you do it? I didn’t.
I struggled with whether or not to tell you that this morning. In fact I started this sermon at 8:05 pm on Friday night because all week long I really hadn’t applied myself much to prayer and I knew I didn’t have a whole lot to teach you this week – at least not if I was going to keep my commitment to only teaching from my own experience, to applying this stuff in my own life just like I’m asking you to. All day Friday as the hours clicked away I kept thinking of options. I knew I could grab a book on prayer and teach you a few good principles from that book – I figured few of you would know the difference. I thought about not doing a sermon this week and just having an extended worship time. That would have seemed spiritual wouldn’t it? “Folks, it’s been a while since we really just spent time together focusing on God so we’re just going to sing and worship this morning.” Heck at one point I even thought about going through my old sermon archives and dusting off a sermon I preached on prayer to another congregation six or seven years ago. That was approximately six or seven years before I really decided I was going to actually learn to pray and not just preach to other people about it.
I thought about all of these options and came very close to picking one and just running with it. Then something incredibly important occurred to me. Wasn’t my struggle with apathy this week precisely what so many of us deal with on a regular basis? How could I neglect to get up here and talk to you about this, since this is the reality we deal with all the time. We’re hot then we’re cold. We’re up and we’re down. We’re close, then we’re far away. At least I am. Does that reflect your experience at all? The longer I preach the more I’m learning to be careful about assuming that everyone else’s experience is the same as mine, but are some of you with me?
I told you at the beginning of this series on prayer that I was going to speak from my own experience, and I’m convinced that this week my experience was similar to what many of us have to deal with on a regular basis. Distraction. A loss of the passion we seek in prayer. A lack of focus. As I got to thinking about that I realized that these ideas I had come up with to cover over my distraction this past week – well, if I went with one of those ideas we all might miss one of the most important lessons during this series on prayer: the idea that sometimes we lose heart, we get discouraged, we revert back to old habits and ways of thinking and behaving. So today’s message is called "’Dear Lord... huh?’ Going the distance with distraction.” Watch this.
[Video clip - "Where Was I?" from Group’s Shockwave Video Parables, Vol. 1]
Ever felt like that guy? This week, I WAS that guy. I had practically everything in common with that guy. First of all my intentions were pretty good. Second, I was putting off prayer until I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. Third, because of my good intentions I tried to pray anyway but my mind kept wandering – though while I’m being honest I have to say my mind didn’t quite wander in the same ways his did this week – but it wandered just the same. I even had a night where I was praying but got so tired I decided to finish my prayer in bed. You know how that turned out. I can only hope the drool on my pillow that night served as a good conductor of my unspoken and completely unconscious prayers – right to the ears of God. All I can say is I hope God answers my prayers with more enthusiasm than I pray them sometimes.
Last September we did a series based on the account in the Bible of when the disciple Peter walked to Jesus on the surface of the water. That was one of Peter’s finest moments. Don’t you think he must have looked back for the rest of his life on that day and thought, “That was a really good day for me.” Well I want to look now at a day that was not one of the best days for Peter and the other disciples. This was probably one of those days they looked back on later and thought, “I can’t believe I did that.” I’m certain none of you can relate to that at all. Let’s look at this. This takes place in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is where Jesus knows he’s about to be betrayed and he’s begging God to spare him the suffering of the cross. Now you should have a handout today that contains the account of this story from all three of the gospels it appears in. I want to speak to you from all of these accounts today, but let’s look at the Mark passage to get us started, then I’ll refer you to various places on your handout as we go along.
Mark 14:32-42 (NIV)
32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray."
33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.
34 "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he said to them. "Stay here and keep watch."
35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.
36 "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."
37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Simon," he said to Peter, "are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
39 Once more he went away and prayed the same thing.
40 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.
41 Returning the third time, he said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"
Now a key to reading the Bible and “getting anything out of it” is seeing yourself in the characters and stories that are there. And I don’t know about you, but there’s perhaps no place in the Bible where I see myself more clearly than in these sleepy disciples who, while Jesus is in mental agony praying literally for his life just a few feet away, just can’t rouse themselves to prayer. Twice Jesus comes out and wakes them and urges them to pray – they must have seen his distress. Yet, you know – [YAWN].
Ever been there? Let me tell you, I spent this past week sleeping in the garden. Oh I tried to pray. I tried to “stir it up,” spiritually speaking. But I was tired and I was distracted, and I was – well, I was everything except available to really invest myself in prayer. I did my study in Andrew Murray’s book. I prayed every night or almost every night this week. But I didn’t invest in it, really. I made that commitment to you last week that I’d do the two-hour alarm exercise and I really meant to. My watch had broken and every day I really meant to get a new one – I just somehow – didn’t. And before you know it the week was gone and I knew I had to teach you something about prayer today. What a predicament. Let’s look at this passage today and see if we can take away anything to encourage us all on our journeys this week.
The first thing I’d like to point out is the contrast between Peter’s words and his actions. In all three gospel accounts, Peter brags to Jesus that no matter what happens Peter will stay with him to the end. (It’s not included in the Luke passage because it happens quite a few verses earlier.) “Lord, even if I have to die with you I will never abandon you.” I’m in your corner, Jesus. You can count on me. Nothing can cause me to waiver in my commitment to you. Not torture, not death, not disease, not war, not famine – well, maybe sleep. Maybe if you’re about to be nailed to a piece of wood and you’re in a garden begging for God’s mercy to spare you and you’re counting on me - to support you, to stand with you, to pray for you, – but you know, like if I’m really tired because I’ve been up since 4 in the morning and I followed you around all day while you preached on hilltops and I miss my family and am just beat and worn out after a hard day – well, maybe then I might not stick with you. Threat of death I can deal with, Lord, but only if I’m not a bit sleepy.”
Isn’t that just like us? Don’t we make our gallant pronouncements of faith in Jesus? Don’t we sing our worship songs and proclaim, “God it’s all about you,” and then live like it’s all about us when we get a bit hungry or sleepy or when things don’t go our way? Don’t we believe sometimes that we’re really going places – really growing in faith and commitment to Jesus – and then find ourselves at the next moment just completely blowing it? Remember, Peter had already walked on water when this happened. He’d already had just about the highest high anyone could ever have. And I’ll bet he thought he was really mature – a man of spiritual steel. He was willing to die for Jesus, as long as he didn’t have to – you know – stay awake for him.
That’s me. I’m up here on Sunday mornings going off about God and his love for me and the way his love has affected my life, then snipping at Christy on the way home, or even falling into depression if the service didn’t go just so. One minute I’m reading in Romans and singing, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ – shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No in ALL THESE THINGS we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through him who loved us – for I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers – neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And I say it and I get goosebumps. And God is so real and I sense his presence all around me. And four hours later I can’t bring myself to shut off the TV and talk to Him for a few minutes – I’m just too sleepy. That was the story of my week.
See that’s the thing we have to understand about what Peter does here. When Peter tells Jesus he’ll die for him, he means it. He really means it – he believes it. It’s simplistic to say that Peter was just a hypocrite, because he wasn’t. See, eventually Peter DID die for Jesus, many years later. He just wasn’t ready when he thought he was. Peter’s problem wasn’t that he was insincere, it’s that he didn’t know his own heart.
Do you see any of yourself in Peter? I see a whole lot of myself in him. And in one way it bugs me because I know that sometimes I have probably deceived myself as completely as he did. On the other hand, long before Peter ever made this blustering statement, long before he ever denied even knowing Jesus when he feared it might get him arrested, Jesus had had a one-on-one with Peter, where he said to him, “I tell you that you are Peter (which in Greek means “rock”). And upon this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Jesus saw who Peter was going to be. There was a time when Peter made these big statements about his faith in Jesus and his willingness to follow – and those statements were not yet true. But they would BECOME true because of his faithfulness and his willingness to hang in there and become exactly who Jesus called him to be – a ROCK.
I read that and I have hope that as I plod along in the faith, my words and my actions will get closer together; that the blustering ignorant things I say right now with the best of intentions about my commitment to letting God have his way in my life will become truer and truer as I stay on my journey; and I realize that my failures right now do not mean I am a hypocrite – that I don’t mean what I say at the time – or that Jesus isn’t who he claims to be. It just means that I’m not there yet – I haven’t arrived. I have not yet become all that Christ has called me to be. But like Peter I want to remain faithful through my failures and let God make them into something he can use.
The next thing I want you to see is the incredible contrast between the experience of Jesus in the garden and the experience of his disciples just a few feet away. Here’s Jesus praying for his life. The account in the gospel of Luke says Jesus’ agony was so great that he began sweating profusely – literally sweating blood. By the way this is actually medically possible – it’s a rare event called hematadrosis. It is caused by capillaries under the skin bursting when a person is under extreme stress. Blood oozes out and mixes with the sweat, so this isn’t just metaphor. Jesus probably was literally sweating blood. That was the reality of his world at that moment.
But the disciples, well – they were afflicted by a very different condition. The medical term for their condition was – “fatigue.” Jesus was over there sweating blood and they were sleepy.
I think we have to understand this, folks. There is a spiritual reality out there and in that reality there is great need for prayer. There is desperation. There are people depending on us to pray for them.
The account of this same story in the gospel of Luke records that when Jesus reached the garden he specifically told his disciples, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” [Luke 22:40]
In fact when they get to the garden, what else does he say to them? He says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death.” [Matthew 26:38]
“Yes Lord, we understand that, but we’ve been up since 4 this morning. Sorry about that.” It’s not that our intentions aren’t good, it’s that we don’t understand the urgency. Prayer is what draws us into spiritual maturity, but spiritual maturity is what helps us see the urgent need for prayer. We are stuck with the strange reality that to grow we need to pray, but in order to pray we need to grow. What are we left with? Folks, we are left with obedience. Faith – trust in God and in Jesus that when they say we need to pray, we need to pray. Faith that though we cannot see the pressing spiritual need all around us, God can and that God knows we need to struggle against spiritual darkness, fight off our fatigue, our inclinations to blow it off, and pray like our lives depend on it. What did Jesus tell his disciples? Pray that you will not fall into temptation. [Luke 22:40]
What does that mean? Do you think they understood what that meant? No way did they understand at the time what that meant. But a few moments later when Roman soldiers came stomping into the Garden and all the big strong disciples ran and hid like spiritual girly-men, I’ll bet they understood what Jesus meant as they stood there hiding behind bushes and ducking to avoid the suspicious stares of women and children. Jesus understands spiritual realities we don’t understand. At some point we either take him at his word and pray like he has asked us to, or we face being overtaken with temptation when the time of testing comes, as the disciples were. Their courage failed them and, to that extent, their faith in Jesus failed them. At least for a time.
Finally, I want to leave you with the last thought this brings to my mind, and that is that Jesus affirms the reality of our struggle. One of the most famous things Jesus ever said is in this passage in Matthew:
Matthew 26:40-41 (NIV)
40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter.
41 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
The spirit is willing, but the body (the flesh) is weak. Do you see what Jesus is saying there? Jesus affirms our desire to pray. The spirit is willing. Jesus affirms our intention to pray. The sprit is willing. Jesus affirms our willingness to pray. But he also understands our weakness. The body – the flesh – is weak. He understands the struggle. He knows our hearts – my friend he knows YOUR heart is in the right place but your body fights you all the way. You are tired and you are moody and you are hungry and you are sick and you are all kinds of things that cause you to not want to pray. You are weak. We are weak. I am weak. I was distracted this week. I did not give my energy to prayer. My spirit was willing, but my body was weak. And last week my body got the best of me.
But church is where we come to get the energy, the motivation, the encouragement, to stay engaged in the work – to keep our eyes on Jesus who told us we need to pray – to remind ourselves that he knows best and we really do desire to listen to him and learn from him how to really hear God. So that is what I am here for today – to speak to you words of encouragement. To tell you I know your intentions are good – so are mine. Jesus knows your intentions are good. To tell you your failures and mistakes and sins and flaws do not make you a hypocrite. It just means that, like those disciples so long ago, God has more work to do on you still. Hang in there, my friends. I am going back to the business of prayer this week – recommitting to it. You’ll know by next week whether I kept that commitment. And if like me you have struggled this week with distraction, with lack of motivation, I encourage you to go the distance – keep praying. Let’s pray right now.
