Yield: Listening To God Series

Yield: Listening to God

Series: Meeting with God in Prayer

May 29, 2020

NOTE: The following message was share during the season of the Covid-19 pandemic...and as such... one will note some references to this being streamed from home and to the challenges such a season of being unable to meet with others included.

Intro

Welcome to our final week of this particular series on meeting with God in prayer. I’m so grateful for you sharing in this time.

I know that this is still a strange time. At some level this more separated season of life is not new...and we may be used to the changes...but if your anything like me.... nothing really feels normal. I still feel like I am living in a surreal state of life.

And my hair is getting wilder every week. And I wasn’t sure where the process of haircut services was at...so yesterday I called Supercuts... it rang and rang and rang...and finally the answering machine came on and said: “Messages full. We cannot take any more messages.” So I may just consider this an opportunity to reclaim my youth.

I suppose it isn’t that simple. The truth is that our hope is not simply about going back...but about going forward. It’s about discovering that God is here.

He is not contained or constrained by anything.

And it’s in that spirit that I want to welcome us to our final week of this particular series on meeting with God in prayer.

By way of a quick review... we noted that this time in which we may be more physically disconnected from other people... provides an opportunity to develop our awareness of God’s presence.

We tend to live as creatures who think we are primarily physical creatures... we tend to relate to the physical world... with perhaps a slight sense that there may be more. We tend to assume that whatever is spiritual is secondary in nature...less real.

But what if ultimate life is not physical but spiritual? What if life is actually most rooted in relationship to what is spiritual and eternal?

That is how Jesus lived. He lived out of a relationship to God the Father who is spirit.

It’s important to be clear that Jesus did not negate the significance of being embodied being. Having a spiritual nature is not a matter of negating or neglecting the physical realm. The Scriptures tell us that God created us as communal creatures... that our existence is rooted in a shared life with other human life. You may recall that God said it is not good that the first man should be alone.

(In fact this Fall we are going to focus on developing healthy live giving relationships)

So our relationship with God is not a substitute for relationship with other people.

But our relationship with other people cannot be a substitute for our relationship with God.

And what we are seeking to grasp in this season is this: God is Spirit...and He is present.

And prayer is simply coming into that presence. Meeting with God is the essence of prayer. [1]

That is what Jesus’ followers began to realize.

And so they asked...”Lord, teach US to pray.”

They see that prayer is not simply a religious ritual...but a relationship.

Prayer is not simply what we do when we are in trouble.

Pray is bringing ourselves into alignment with God which allows Him to have the influence in our lives that He desires and that we deeply need..

And when they asked...”Lord teach US to pray”... we noted that Jesus began by saying...don’t be like the religious leaders who are living like actors...wearing masks...to impress others. Stop being performers...and... “get real.”

It’s been common to assume that we should question whether God is real.

Jesus says we need to face the question of whether we are being real.

Jesus says that we should get away from the performance...and go into a space where we can shut the door...and really come to God.

Then Jesus says...pray like this... and he gives an example...which is commonly referred to as the Lord’s Prayer. It captures the core elements of relationship with God. [2]

From that and all we can gather from prayer through the Scriptures...we have been looking at these elements.

We’ve been using an acrostic of the word PRAY.

We don’t have to structure every prayer this way. But all four elements are central to our life with God.

And I would suggest that we can follow this pattern,

We can begin with

Praise... that is, begin by recognizing the reality of who God is.

Praise refers to every way in which we might acknowledge the truth of God’s goodness and greatness.

Our recognition of Him, and who He is in relationship to our lives allows the flow of our relationship, putting into perspective all that may follow in our prayer. [2b]