Praying Through the Motions

I discovered a good sermon resource from preacher Darryl Dash in Ontario. Last night at church, I used the following outline from his sermon, The Temptations of Prayer.
Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, but He also taught them about a temptation when praying: Going through the motions of prayer.

I. Going through the motions (Matt. 6:5-15)

A. Prayers that are for show only are like the nice furniture in your grandmother’s den with the plastic. Looks nice, but not useful.

B. Or how about the show we put on when our marital relationships get rocky. When you’re away from home, you look like everything is just fine, when really you’re just a couple of phonies. That is the definition of a hypocrite. It’s a term from drama. It literally means “false face.”

C. There is a temptation for prayer to become nothing but a show or something that is not what it seems. Perhaps it has become like those couples in the restaurant. They eat in silence, and barely look at each other. They’re not trying to fool anyone, but it’s not what it could be.

II. Jesus claimed that some prayers were only for show.

A. Matt. 6:1, 5-8. They prayed, but they only went through the motions. Their prayers were useless, phony, and not all what they could be.

B. Verses 6-8 tell us how to keep our prayer lives from falling into the temptation of going through the motions.

C. Keep prayer private and meaningful

1. Private Prayer (v. 6)

i. Note first that Jesus’ answer to learning how to pray and even in watching out for temptations in prayer is to …PRAY, “When you pray,” He says.

ii. And it isn’t that public prayer is wrong; it is that private prayer is terribly overlooked. Private prayer must come first. Public prayer is to be the overflow of the prayers in private.

iii. Look at the language here to see if your prayer life models what Jesus is describing…”inner room” “shut the door” “in secret.”

iv. Notice that the Father is in secret. We might infer that we do not reach Him in prayer unless it is there in the inner, closed off, secret privacy of secluded prayer.

v. I recall Proverb 25.2, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” In other words, God enjoys having us come after what He has hidden away in secret. And it is our privilege, our joy to discover the hidden things God has for us.

[Don't underestimate the power of private prayer as well as keep prayer…]

2. Meaningful (v. 7)

i. Some things we pray are repetitious. We pray for loved ones, sick ones, we pray for protection, and forgiveness over and over. Repetition is not a problem as long as it is meaningful.

ii. These people were praying with “meaningless repetition.”

a. (v.2) They talked to be heard by others

b. (v.7) They thought that many words would get them heard by God.

c. So prayers are meaningless when we try to persuade men when we talk to God, and prayers are meaningless when we try to persuade God by talking too much.

iii. Words don’t impress God. Fight the idea that if we say things a certain way, God will hear them. Darryl Dash wrote, “It’s better to have a heart without words than words without heart.”

a. It isn’t what you say, it’s how you come to God. Just like David wrote in Ps. 51:16-17, “For thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; Thou art not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”

[graphic used with permission]

Grace for the Dark Times (when your hut is on fire)

Have you ever believed what they say about it being darkest just before the dawn? That may be true, but it’s often a much longer night than you really want.  Our Christian faith tells us that we’ve got to hold on.  We’ve got to hope.  That is what this Easter weekend is all about. Friday was the darkest time ever in the world, but that night wouldn’t last forever.  I love what Tony Campolo brought out in one sermon, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.”
 
That is the kind of hope we need for the dark times of our lives.  And consider this, without the dark times, we would never be as inclined to turn to God. Listen to what Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:14-16,

14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,[a] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

The Amplified Bible puts verse 16 like this, “…that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it].

The dark times in our lives can summon God in a special way.  I think of David crying out in the Psalms, “Incline Your ear to me.” Ps. 86 (1-4, 13-17)…

1 Hear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
2 Guard my life, for I am devoted to you. You are my God; save your servant who trusts in you.
3 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.
4 Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
…
13 For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.
14 The arrogant are attacking me, O God; a band of ruthless men seeks my life—men without regard for you.
15 But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
16 Turn to me and have mercy on me; grant your strength to your servant and save the son of your maidservant.
17 Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

I got an interesting email this week that tells this excellent story of God’s grace for our dark times…
 
When your hut’s on fire
The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, “God! How could you do this to me?”
Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! “How did you know I was here?” asked the weary man of his rescuers. “We saw your smoke signal,” they replied.

The Moral of This Story:
It’s easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn’t lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.
 
This easily demonstrates that we can’t just base what we think and feel on how dark it looks around us.  We must hope in God, keep the faith.  Jesus dawned Sunday morning after the world’s darkest night!

7 Characteristics of the Ingrown Church

7 Characteristics of an Ingrown Church from C. John Miller’s Outgrowing the Ingrown Church. I’ve condensed what was originally posted at joethorn’s blog:

1. Tunnel Vision.
ministry that can’t see beyond the on-hand resources available.  This is NOT faith, is it? 

2. Group Superiority.
ministry that justifies its non-growth because they focus on un-popular, yet spiritually important aspects of ministry, but at the same time, they put down other growing ministries that they say use popular, but spiritually shallow methods.   

3. Extreme Sensitivity to Criticism.
ministry that avoids conflict at any cost because they fear that anxiety will hasten extinction.

4. Niceness in Tone.
ministry that provides a safe, comfortable, non-challenging atmosphere as opposed to walking in lock-step with Jesus as he leads his people into the world.

5. Christian Soap Opera.
ministry that self-destructs with gossip, love/hate relationships, and lack of forgiveness and restoration.  

6. Confused Leadership Roles.
ministry where the pastor is expected to do all the work in the church without challenging or equipping members to participate in the mission of God themselves.

7. Misdirected Purpose.
ministry that thinks “survival,” not growth through the conversion of the lost.  The survival mentality robs the church of hope, and consumes her time with inward activity. 

HT:Bobby Daniel

Our kids put on a neat shadow show

Here are our kids doing a show for a church party around Valentine’s Day.   Click “read the rest of this story” to see the video…

The trampoline is dead

Here’s what’s left of the trampoline…

My wife sent the following in an email, describing the incident…

Our trampoline committed suicide last night. And it tried to take out a 15-year-old boy driving by in a truck too. Apparently, the wind picked it up like a parachute and hurled it into the road. The boy swerved and got stuck in the ditch. And all this happened 2 minutes after the power went out for the entire road. (It was out from 9 pm to 4 am.) So Steve was out there in the rain, sloshing through mud, with the only flashlight we had managed to find, trying to help the guy.

Meanwhile, our two-1/2 year old was fascinated by the whole thing. When he came out of his room asking for lights I told him the power was out. As we walked through the house, he said, “Ooohhh, mine power out too. Ooohh, Sister’s power out too. And he named everybody in the house, saying, “Oooh, so and so’s power out too.” He really wanted to go outside to help Daddy. It was almost as good as watching the Wiggles – looking through the window at the big truck with blinky lights pulling the little truck out of the ditch. “Ooohh, it can go now!” He wasn’t afraid of the dark at all, but we ended up sending him to bed with a flashlight. He thought it was the best night ever. I’m glad someone enjoyed our power outage.

Can you imagine that sprattle-legged thing rolling toward you???  Good defensive driving I think.

It seems pretty obvious now that I should have had the trampoline anchored, seeing as we live in a supernatural wind vortex or something. A friend told me the day after it happened that he has meant to ask me whether it was anchored or not. Well…that’s the epitome of “a day late and dollar short.”

I’m sorry that the trampoline is dead, but everyone’s fortunate that no one got hurt.

—>UPDATE:  We actually did buy a kit made to hold it down.