And if you want to open your Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 1, Acts chapter 1. Got to celebrate a birthday this week. I say got to, I don't know if that's even a thing in your 40s anymore, but celebrated my birthday at the Lake of the Ozarks, the original redneck Riviera. I grew up going to the Lake of the Ozarks, and because I was there on my birthday and because I was kind of nostalgic, I began to think about what my little brother and I would do anywhere we would go, and that was we would dig for treasure. We were convinced that somewhere, everywhere we would go, some wealthy Indian had passed by years prior, before there were cul-de-sacs and mailboxes and backyards, and had buried treasure all over the known world. And so, as soon as we got anywhere, we'd look for the best place and we'd start digging for treasure. Mark Twain once wrote, "There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure." And that was our experience. We would hit a root and we were sure that root was a treasure chest, and we would spend all day digging holes that my dad would make us fill in before we went to bed. I realized I've been blessed because of what God's called me to do. I realized I was blessed to never outgrow that particular inclination, and at some point I just shifted from digging in my backyard to digging in the Bible. And get to go on these treasure hunts week after week, finding these hidden gems of God's goodness. And sometimes not so hidden, right? Sometimes right there staring at you in the face. I want to, I want to bring that into your imagination because as I was reading Acts this week and also the Gospel of Luke, I, I think I found one of these, uh, these treasure maps in God's Word, and I want to show that with— show that to you this morning.
So Let me read a section of Scripture, Acts chapter 1, verses 12 through 14, and then begin to show you this treasure map. Then they returned— this is following the ascension of Jesus— then they, the disciples, returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they'd entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying. Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers.
Now, what the treasure map I want to show you is that Luke's emphasis on prayer here in chapter 1 is something he's been up to as he's writing the historic account of Jesus' life. Luke has a unique emphasis in his scriptures, in his gospel, and now in Acts, a unique emphasis on prayer. If you're taking notes this morning, the first point I want you to see is that prayer comes before big things. In the Bible, prayer comes before big things. So in this particular text, the Holy Spirit is about to fall on the believers They're about to choose a new apostle. A bunch of people, thousands of people, are about to be saved. Big things are about to happen. And in keeping with this pattern within Luke's writings, prayer comes before big things.
One of my favorite prayers in the book of Acts is in Acts chapter 4.
They just suffered some initial, what would be considered eventually to be light persecution. And when they were released, they went to their friends and reported to the chief priests— reported what the chief priests and elders said to them. And when they heard it— this is the group of believers, Acts chapter 4— they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot in vain?
And they go on and continue and they lift up their church and they ask God for boldness. Boldness in the face of these threats. And in keeping with this Lukan trend, this Lukan treasure map, this prayer comes before a big thing. This is the chapter in which we see that shalom fall into the local church in which they gather together and enjoy one another and break bread and are of one mind and care for one another.
6 · Summarizes Acts 6 (selection of deacons) and directly quotes Acts 6:6-7, emphasizing the explicit textual link between prayer and explosive numerical and spiritual growth
In Acts chapter 6, they have to decide how to take care of these widows they feel have been neglected. And so they pray that God would lead them to a solution, and they find a man named Stephen amongst other men who become deacons. And this is a prayer that they pray that precedes great growth. Acts 6:6-7, they prayed and laid hands on these deacons, and the word of God continued to increase And the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to faith. It's this trend we see that prayer comes before big things.
7 · Rapid-fire summary of three additional Acts examples (Tabitha's resurrection, Gentile inclusion)
In Acts chapter 9, a little girl named Tabitha is raised through prayer, and it says that many believed in the Lord. Acts chapter 10 and 11, when the Gentiles are brought into the covenant, the gospel covenant, Prayer is just all around that situation. Peter is in prayer as he is led into Cornelius' home. It says of Cornelius that he is a Gentile who prays all the time. He's in prayer when he receives a message from God. Over and over again, this pattern shows up, that prayer comes before big things.
8 · Shifts from Acts to Luke's Gospel and demonstrates the same pattern — Luke uniquely records Jesus praying before major events
Now I want to take you back to the Gospel of Luke and show you that it's there as well. You know that a lot of the same stories show up in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in particular. You know, a lot of them share the same content, but Luke puts a unique prayer focus on many of the events you know well in the Gospels. So for instance, prior to Jesus being baptized, Luke alone says that he prayed. Prior to Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit, Luke alone tells us that Jesus prayed. Prior to Jesus picking the disciples, Luke alone tells us that Jesus spent all night in prayer. This is one that I really did not think about. Prior to Peter confessing that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus had just prayed with the disciples. And that's why Jesus says, "Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you." Prior to the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus is praying with His disciples. Prior to Peter's denial, in Luke alone, Jesus says, "But I have prayed for you." Jesus prayed in Luke alone on the cross for the forgiveness of His enemies.
9 · Synthesizes the expositional evidence into an explicit theological assertion
Luke is showing us a plain old treasure map. If you know a treasure map, when you see a treasure map, you'll know this is a treasure map. This is just a simple correlation, even causation, that says, Prayer comes before big things. Now, in a couple weeks we'll talk about whether it's causation or correlation. We're going to talk about prayer a couple weeks, but all I want you to see right now is that Luke is careful to say that before big things happen, prayer happens. Luke shows us in a unique way in both the gospel and the book of Acts that prayer is connected to great growth. All kinds of growth, right? Not just church growth, but also church growth, growth in numbers, growth in faith, growth in love. Prayer is a predictor of great growth.
10 · Direct pastoral address acknowledging the congregation likely already believes prayer leads to fruitfulness but does not live in alignment with that belief
Now, if you've been a Christian for any length of time, and maybe if you've only been a Christian for a relatively short period of time, I suspect you know a couple of things. I suspect you already knew that. I suspect that deep in your heart, If you were to really think about it, you know there's another increased fruitfulness available to those who are committed to prayer. I suspect you already know that. But I suspect most of you would not say that your prayer life is where you think it should be or where you think it needs to be in order to experience this. Increased level of fruitfulness.
11 · Reiterates the central claim with emphasis on Luke's method — he shows rather than tells
But I think you know, I think many of you know, I don't think I'm telling many of you anything new if I say that God uses prayer to bring great growth. This is a pattern that Luke sets up. He doesn't necessarily have to tell us, he can just show us repeatedly, time and time and time again, that prayer comes before big things.
12 · Introduces the controlling metaphor for diagnosing the contemporary American church — an airplane graveyard, full of potential but powerless
And that's somewhat concerning. I'm not an expert in church history, but I'm definitely an amateur enthusiast of church history. And as I thought about it, I couldn't think of a single period of time that I knew about that was so marked by prayerlessness as the time in which we now live. And I will talk a little bit about why I think that is in a moment. But my take is that prayerlessness has made the American church into a big old airplane graveyard. You know what I mean by an airplane graveyard? Have you seen pictures of an airplane graveyard? There's something that just gets me when I see an airplane graveyard. All of this potential with no power. And I think that the prayerlessness of our time in our churches has turned this great American church into an airplane graveyard. Just a soul-aching visual of potential minus almost all the power.
13 · Pivots from diagnosis to strategy
So let's think about prayer. I think we already know everything I've just said. I think the question is, is there anything that God would say to us to help us to increase in prayer? What does a win look like for us? How do we succeed? How do we grow in our prayer together as a church and as individuals?
14 · Announces the sermon's second major claim: small things (busyness, distraction, lack of discipline) are the practical barriers to prayer
So the first point is big things come before prayer. Second point is small things— I'm sorry, prayer comes before big things. That's the first point. The second point is small things often come before prayer. Prayer comes before big things. Small things often come before prayer. Very often, the small things of our lives are the things which keep us from spending and being more devoted in prayer. Just basic busyness. Just basic poor discipline, right? Just basic lack of attention span. You know, we know, we know, we just have a sense that prayer does in fact come before big things. But we also, if we were to look at our lives and ask, why don't we pray more? We would say, man, a lot of small things seem to come before prayer.
15 · Offers a hypothetical challenge (schedule prayer and watch competition arise) and validates it with personal testimony
I'd like you to do this experiment. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong in the prediction, but I would bet that if you set up what you decided to be the optimal time for prayer in your day, or that as we have as a church decided, you know, we did some kind of calendar poll and we decided like this is the optimum time for for us to pray together. I would bet you anything that as soon as you put that on your calendar, you would notice all sorts of competition for that spot in particular. You would notice all sorts of outside competition to get something you just set on your calendar as a new priority. I know I experienced that. I often will schedule prayer, and I'll schedule prayer sometimes with— by myself and sometimes with other people. And I, I, I'm not intentionally doing anything differently, but I can see as the week progresses and that time progresses, that more and more and more competes for this stupid hour I set up to spend in prayer.
16 · Clarifies the sermon's focus: not the peak moment of prayerfulness itself but the cultural formation that made the peak moment possible
So prayer comes before big things, but often small things come before prayer. And that's what I want to talk about today. We're gonna dive deeper in the text in a few weeks. We're gonna look more closely at what these disciples are doing, but today I want to talk about what we don't see them doing. Because they've already done it. We're observing the disciples at a peak moment of prayerfulness. When we approach the narrative of Scripture, when we approach scriptural narrative, we always want to be careful that we're not forgetting all the work that it took to get people where they are in this moment.
17 · Uses Rocky IV training montage as analogy for the unseen preparation that produces spiritual excellence
Seeing the disciples in this moment would be like watching the last 10 minutes of Rocky IV without watching the training montage. And the training montage is crucial. You've got to see Rocky run the mountains and lift logs and stuff in order to understand that his victory was hard fought. All too often, I think, when it comes to these spiritual disciplines, we lack just a reasonable understanding of all that went into getting people to this moment in time. And we see these folks gathered in this beautiful unity, and they've set so much time aside, and we don't ask the simple questions like, how were they able to set this much time aside? How were they able to pray together in this time? What does it mean to be devoted in prayer? And so often there's this sort of abstract angst that we feel because we know this is the goal, and we know this would be right, we know this would be good, and it would lead to growth. What we don't actually think about all that goes into allowing these men and women to spend this time in prayer.
18 · Introduces uncredited quotation defining prayer as dual engagement (God's promises + self-discipline) and announces the sermon's practical goal: identify small cultural things that enable prayer
And it's the small things that come before prayer. I heard someone once say that prayer is grabbing hold of God's promises and grabbing hold of yourself. That you can't grab hold of God's promises until you're able to engage in some level of self-discipline that allows you to actually be in prayer. So today I want to talk at least partially about some small things that we could begin to do in our lives that would make prayer more possible, more likely. I want to suggest to you, as we'll look through this text again, that there are some old things present in this passage that we might want to consider bringing back into our homes, into our church, and ultimately into our culture.
19 · Re-reads the primary text to prepare for detailed exposition of two specific elements: corporate prayer and Jerusalem's prayer culture
Look again back at verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying— Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
20 · Identifies the first cultural element in the text: corporate prayer
There are two pieces of this that are just basic. We'll talk more about this in a few weeks, and that is simply the emphasis of this passage is on corporate prayer. They're all devoted together almost without fail. The worst way to learn something you don't know how to do is alone. That's always the instinct in our winning-first culture, when we're afraid to admit we're not good at stuff, is to try to cultivate a skill level in this thing we're trying to figure out before we learn anything. And friends, if we would just engage at our worst things in community, they wouldn't be our worst things for very long.
21 · Personal anecdote about failed guitar self-teaching serves as analogy for prayer
I've tried a million times to teach myself guitar. And I've never actually sought lessons. And I don't really have time to do that right now at this point in my life. But I'll tell you what, I'm over trying to teach myself guitar. If I really wanted to learn guitar, I'd go find someone to teach me. I just— there's just so many things as I'm trying to learn how to play the guitar that I don't know about enough to learn on my own. And friends, I'll tell you, our prayer lives are so weak, mostly our personal prayer lives are so weak, mostly because we spend so little time in corporate prayer. We spend so little time learning the art of prayer in the environment of the saints.
22 · Unpacks the significance of the Jerusalem reference — a city structured around corporate worship flows
Friends, this reference to Jerusalem is a bit of an aside, right? I don't know how much of a point Luke was trying to make, But the simple truth is this was a city devoted, or meant to be devoted, to prayer. This is a city devoted to groups of people flowing in to engage in corporate worship. And this sense of corporate worship above individual worship, I think that leads to a prayerful culture, a cultural bias toward prayerfulness. When the emphasis is on groups of people gathering together to worship, to pray, to engage in God's Word, then a level of prayerfulness emerges out of that corporate environment that you'll never experience as an individual.
23 · Applies the principle of corporate prayer practically — shared burden, mutual learning, calendar commitment
Praying in groups. Prayer is hard, right? Prayer is difficult. We have our own attention spans to contend with and a million other things. Praying in groups not only requires, not only allows us to sort of share the burden of allows us to learn from others as we pray, but also forces us to set a date and a time on the calendar, right? I will join you at this time. When they entered into Jerusalem, they immediately went up into the upper room. They had set something apart. Corporate prayer is, in so many ways, the entry point to a deeper prayer life. Many of the people— this is again like watching the end of a sports movie— Many of the people you admire in church history who are considered to be great prayers don't know about themselves that the way they became great prayers was they grew up in an environment where prayer was a common thing and people were engaged in corporate prayer on a regular basis.
24 · Generalizes the corporate prayer principle into a transferable discipleship axiom applicable to all spiritual disciplines
So the basic principle is this: if we are weak in a spiritual discipline, then we should join with other brothers and sisters in that spiritual discipline. We will see much more growth as we work together in a particular discipline, including prayer, including Bible study. The list goes on and on. If you're trying to grow in something, don't do it alone. Do it with other people.
25 · Unpacks Jewish cultural context — required three-times-daily prayer for men
So that reference to Jerusalem is interesting. Jews were required to pray 3 times a day. Jewish men were required to pray 3 times a day. So let's just acknowledge as we're watching these people at sort of this Everest moment of prayer, and really Acts is this whole Everest experience of corporate church prayer, let's just acknowledge, like, they grew up in a culture of prayer. They were raised in a prayerful culture. And there are so many pieces of their culture that we would probably disagree with or like to change or redeem, and I'll talk a little bit about that in a moment. But the truth is they had one on us. They were raised in a culture that was committed to prayer in a way that we haven't been.
26 · Unpacks the Sabbath day journey reference — 5/8 mile walking limit reveals cultural commitment to rest
Also notice this reference to a Sabbath's walk. You see that? A Sabbath's walk to Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey. What's he talking about? Well, you know, the legalistic approach to enforcing the Sabbath, the Sabbath was this required day of rest, and a legalistic way of approaching this was to figure out what constituted work and what did not constitute work. And they had to come up with, well, how much walking is work? And how much walking is not work? And they decided that it's 5/8 of a mile. If it's 5/8 of a mile or less, it's not work. It's a stroll, I guess. If it's over that, it's work. So when he says it's a Sabbath day's journey away, he's saying it's 5/8 of a mile away. But they just thought of it as a Sabbath day journey. Now what does this point us to as we think about prayer? This points us to, for better or for worse, these people were committed to rest unto the Lord in a way that we are not. Again, we're finding these people in this peak moment of prayerfulness, and we just need to acknowledge the cultural conditions that were at work. And one of them is they grew up in an environment that celebrated corporate worship And they grew up in an environment that mandated weekly rest. And that matters. All too often, our rest that we call rest is recreation. And there's nothing wrong with recreation. Guys, I am so stress-free right now. It's a beautiful thing. I don't want to brag too much because I'll probably be stressed out tomorrow. But just this idea of being out on a boat for flinging teenagers off an inner tube for 2 days. It's just good for my soul. I'm driving the boat. That's recreation. But let's be clear, they had a cultural focus toward rest unto the Lord. I will spend a day holy unto the Lord. I will spend my day thinking about the Lord, pursuing the Lord, being still before the Lord. Again, culturally, they just had a leg up on us. They just had a leg up on us. They were able, just because they were raised differently, to engage in prayer at a different level than you and I in and of ourselves could do.
27 · Clarifies Jesus' Sabbath posture — rejected legalism, affirmed the principle
Now, I want you to note that Jesus, he wasn't buying, right, the 5/8 approach to the Sabbath, but he was a buyer of the Sabbath. He did believe in the Sabbath. He loved the Sabbath. The Sabbath is an important important thing. We ought to be grace-filled Sabbatarians, not, not measuring off the amount of work we do, not measuring off the amount of walking we can do, but we ought to thankfully take this day, the first day of the week, to gather together corporately and to spend this day enjoying the Lord's goodness. It will make a cultural difference in our bent toward prayerfulness.
28 · Cites Pascal on humanity's inability to sit still, then revises it theologically — the deeper problem is corporate prayerlessness, not individual restlessness
We just don't even know how to sit still. Blaise Pascal said that all of humanity's problems come down to a man being unable to sit alone with himself in a room. The idea being that we are just terrible at sitting still. I would revise that and say I think it's probably all of humanity's problems boil down to a group of people being unable to sit together in a room in prayer. So much would change if it became our regular practice to gather regularly for prayer.
29 · Historical example from Spurgeon's ministry — the secret of his fruitfulness was daily corporate prayer meetings
At the peak of Charles Spurgeon's ministry, someone asked him for the explanation of his success, and he simply opened the door to the prayer room and showed the man Saints busy at prayer. 7:00 AM, 7:30 AM, every day, two prayer meetings gathered every day in Spurgeon's congregation to pray.
30 · Historical-cultural deep dive on the origin of clocks — invented by monks to automate prayer bells, now repurposed as tools of busyness
So we've got to understand that, yes, prayer comes before big things. We need to be people of prayer. We've got a lot of small things to get in order. You know, the Roman Empire, when they would come into a city, they would build a forum of some kind, and they would put up bells, and these bells would ring 6 or 7 times a day. And the first one would ring at 6 AM, and so on and so forth. And these signaled to the citizens of that town when they were supposed to go to work, when they were supposed to take their lunch break, and so on and so forth. These bells became so predictable that entire civilizations would order their religious observances around these bells. And one of the things that Christians did is they would actually, they ordered their prayers around these bells so that every time the bell would go off, they would engage in a particular form of prayer. In fact, in the Roman Catholic Church, there's still something called the Liturgy of the Hours, where they observe these times throughout the day in prayer. Well, in the 1400s, the monks decided, you know, wouldn't it be great if we could make these bells automatic? Right? Let's figure out a way to make these bells so we don't have to ring them. And so they came up with this invention, and they named it after the Latin name for bell, which is clock. The simple truth of history is that clocks were invented to help us to pray, right? The, the regular marking of time was used to help us to pray, and now the regular marking of time is a detriment to our prayers. We've tilted this thing designed to teach us to be still before the Lord into another tool to allow us to be busy and ignore the Lord.
31 · Introduces hermeneutical principle for cultural retrieval — honor tradition, redeem what the gospel requires
So let's just understand that as we seek to pray, there are some ancient cultural things we ought to consider taking up again, if not just redeeming. One example of the redemption that I'm talking about is found in our text in verse 14. So these people are raised up in this Jewish system that prioritized corporate worship and prioritized prayer and stillness. But they were also raised up in a segregated system. Men and women weren't allowed to pray together. That just wasn't a thing under Judaism. In fact, the temple itself had a segregation area for women. But what do we see in this text in verse 14? We see— see, this is this idea of faithful gospel use of tradition. They're committed still to the basic outline, the basic idea. Let's commit to corporate worship just like our forefathers did. Let's commit to regular prayer just like our forefathers did. But that whole segregation thing, that's against the gospel. Let's throw that out. This gospel-informed wisdom that allows us to navigate the old things and see where the gospel would affect them That's really what we need to be thinking about, especially if you're young, if you're in your 20s. This skill is essential, right? This skill of having a bias toward walking in the ways of your forefathers, but always insisting that the gospel redeem what must be redeemed. Instead of a bias to just completely ignore the past and completely ignore all of the things that have come before you, You want a bias of honoring those things, but asking how does the gospel need to change this or that thing. And in this particular case, right away, they continued to gather together, they continued to commit to corporate prayer, but they got away with the segregation, they did away with the segregation.
32 · Synthesizes the cultural formation argument — the disciples were trained
So I want to bring all that up to you because I want two things to be seen clearly. We are seeing in this text men and women who had been trained. Culturally trained to devote themselves to prayer. These people had been with Jesus, but they'd also grown up in a culture far more prone to stillness, far more prone to all the commitments that are necessary for corporate prayer to be a thing. Now, I don't bring that up so that you can use it as an excuse. Honestly, I'm not worried about that. I thought about that. You have plenty of other excuses. Me giving you another one won't really affect anything.
33 · Personal story from Zambia — young soccer players discover the national team's advantage is nutrition, not equipment or practice
I want you to understand two things. I want you to understand that we've got work to do. I remember being in Africa one time, sitting with some Zambian 20-year-olds, and they were talking about the national soccer team. They were trying to figure out why the Zambian national soccer team was so much better than they were, than these 20-year-old guys. They're like, "Why are they so much better than us?" And they're throwing out theories. They're like, "Well, they have better equipment." And then one guy's like, "Yeah, but that really wouldn't affect this that much." And then And the other one's like, well, you know, they practice quite a bit. Well, we don't even have jobs. We practice a lot too. And they're going back and forth. They're talking about why is the Zambian national soccer team so much better than us? And they said, one of them said, oh. And they're all like, what? They get to eat whenever they are hungry. That's why they're better than us. They have nutrition. Friends, as we analyze these things to which we aspire, I want to pray like this. I do. I want to head here. I want to move in this direction. I just need to understand there are things that I need to deal with in my life to move in this direction. There are cultural things I need to change about my family and about my church to move in this direction. It does no good to simply look at the aspirational and say, well, that would be great. Let's figure out how we get to the aspirational. Let's figure out what's missing in our church culture, in our home culture, that leads us to the aspirational.
34 · Direct address to parents — cultural formation for prayer must happen in the home, starting now
And that's why I bring this up. If you and I have it bad, imagine how much more difficult praying will be for our kids. We have got to understand that we're not doing them any favors. With an undisciplined approach to busyness, and with— and here's the other thing— with an equivocation where boredom is bad. Culturally, just, I mean, you can hear from all these childhood psychologists, we'll give you a million cognitive reasons why it's not good. Let me just give you like a spiritual one. Your kids are going to want to pray too. And if you think it's hard for you to train your brain to pray, I want you to really ask yourself, am I helping my kids be good at prayer in 20 years? Is the way that I've ordered my home, is the way that I've forced them to be still, is the way that I've told them to not interrupt and so on and so forth, am I training my kids to have quiet minds, to be okay with stillness? See, if we're going to move back and start to honor these things culturally, we've got to do that in our homes. We want to make sure that we're helping our kids down the road to be better at prayer than maybe even we are.
35 · Signals major structural shift from cultural formation to gospel theology
So that's the first two points. Prayer comes before big things. I think you know that a lot of small things come before prayer. Now let's talk about the gospel and prayer. Let me give you two different statements about prayer and the gospel and just kind of weigh these out with me. You must pray to get the gospel. That's statement number 1, you must pray to get the gospel. And statement number 2 is you must get the gospel to pray.
36 · Unpacks both statements, critiques the tradition that over-emphasized the sinner's prayer as entry mechanism, and affirms both truths while shifting weight to the second: getting the gospel enables sustained prayer
So let's think about these 2 statements. You must pray to get the gospel, and you must get the gospel to pray. I grew up in a tradition, in a sense both those statements are true, but I grew up in a tradition where the emphasis was on praying to get the gospel. We called it the sinner's prayer. And we would say there's a magic prayer, and if you say these words, right? You will become a Christian. So pray to get the gospel. And there was this thing that essentially, not communicated, but kind of communicated, it was like once you've said this prayer, then you're good. You've locked it in. You know, you've locked in eternity at a low interest rate. You're okay. And now you can just kind of cruise. So that prayer was really the way to get in. And that was sort of it. Prayer was seen as something you did to get in. Prayer wasn't really a function of being in as much as it was a thing to get in. So it is true, if someone were to ask me, "How do I become a Christian?" I would say, "Call the name of the Lord Jesus and be saved." I'm encouraging that person to pray. I'm not saying that it's not true that you need to pray to get the gospel. But I think this other thing, this other meaning, that you must get the gospel to pray, is way weightier and way more significant. You must get the gospel to pray.
37 · Lays out gospel essentials (God's existence, human sinfulness, Christ's sufficiency) and shows how each doctrine logically produces prayer
The gospel's central message is that through Jesus, God has unyielding, steadfast love for all who are in Christ. The gospel's central message is that you are loved in Christ. If you are in Christ, you are loved. So let's just think about a few things about the gospel and think about how this affects our prayer life. So first of all, one of the things I have to believe to believe the gospel is that God exists. Does our prayer life look like the kind of thing a person does who believes God exists? I have to believe that I'm a sinner, right? I can't be saved if I don't believe I'm a sinner. I have to believe that I'm I'm kind of a screw-up. Not kind of a screw-up, a total, totally depraved screw-up. I have to believe that I am absolutely in need of redemption that I can't secure apart from any other place but Jesus. I have to believe that I'm helpless and the best stuff I do is, the only stuff I do is screw things up. Right? If I don't believe that, I can't be saved. Jesus came for people who believe that. Well, that's really interesting when you begin to think about prayer. Because I'll tell you, prayerlessness is really a confession that you don't think you're helpless. It's really a confession that you don't think you're so prone to screwing things up. It's really a confession that you think you've got it. And that you're going to be alright. And that you don't need help. See this correlation between believing the gospel and engaging in prayer? There's a sense of unworthiness that I feel, a sense of insufficiency that overflows into prayer. And when I'm not praying, my heart is saying to me very clearly at some level, "You've got it, man. You're good. Things aren't that difficult right now," or, "You've already figured this one out. You've got this."
38 · Hypothetical scenarios (fire, terminal diagnosis) illustrate the point — perceived helplessness produces prayer
Now imagine I woke up one morning and there were flames surrounding my bed. I'd probably be praying then, right? But if I was in an utterly helpless situation, if I received some kind of terminal diagnosis, I'd be praying. Well, what's changed is I have entered a new thing that I think I can't handle, whereas before I thought I could handle life.
39 · Shifts to God's character — His eagerness to give
So these ideas of the gospel, this idea that God exists, therefore I pray. This idea that I'm a sinner, I'm broken, I'm so prone to messing things up that I need constant help, Therefore I pray. I want to talk mostly about God's character. You really have to get the gospel to get prayer, because the gospel says that everything God does for us is a gift, that he is eager to give gifts to his children. You know, the only thing I can give God I thought about this a lot. The only thing I can give God is my neediness. That's the only thing I have. That's the only resource in my natural possession, is my neediness. God is strong and he's glorious and he's powerful. He's a provider. So in some weird way, some gloriously weird way, God and I are the perfect match. He is the perfect provider, and I'm the perfect leech. I'm the perfect parasite. I'm the perfect pure need machine. And in some unique way, my neediness is a gift to to this all-sufficient God. Here's how: He is glorified when He loves the leech. He is glorified when He provides for me. He is glorified when He meets my needs. So in some strange way, because God is seeking His glory, as He rightly should, in some strange way, the totality of my neediness glorifies Him when I bring it to Him. So that's all I have to offer God.
40 · Personal story about daughters eating butter rather than asking for money illustrates human fatherhood's limits
Now, I have seen— I've got 3 kids, the youngest one's 17— I've seen my kids go out of their way not to ask me for stuff because they know they're just gonna stress me out if they do. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. My girls ran out of money one time in college and they had no money to eat, and they were secretly eating butter. And they thought that, you know, we don't want to stress out dad by asking him for some money. Well, I'm kind of stressed out to learn my daughters were eating butter. But they, you know, they say, oh, we don't want to ask him for that. I don't want to tell him about this because, you know, because we don't want to stress him out. We have this other thing. Dad has enough on his plate. And honestly, in every human father-child relationship, that dynamic is at work. You can't get everything you need from your dad, even if he's the best dad ever. And if you do ask constantly for stuff, you will tire him out. It's always better to err on that side, but this is all because there is a limit to my resources. And therefore, I am not always glorified when my children request something from me. Sometimes I'm humiliated, right? Sometimes because I'm made humble because my children ask for something I can't give them.
41 · Pivots from human fatherhood to divine — God's unlimited resources mean constant asking glorifies rather than burdens Him
But what if I was really truly Super Dad and I really could give them everything? Then their repeated approaching me with their needs would be evidence that they understood this central quality. I really had everything. And their repeated neediness, their repeated coming to me time and time again, many times throughout the day, asking, asking, asking, seeking, begging, imploring, requesting, interceding, would be evidence that they knew a central thing about me that the world didn't really believe, and that was that I had everything, including unlimited inclination to love. If you get the gospel, you're gonna learn over time, in spite of all of our cultural obstacles, you're gonna learn over time to start approaching the God of the universe like he really is. In Christ, he is a Father to those in Christ. He has an absolute unlimited inclination to love and generosity and unlimited resources. When you understand the gospel and you see your neediness and you see God's richness, prayer will overflow.
42 · Synthesizes the two major sermon movements — long-term cultural work (Sabbath, corporate prayer, stillness training) and immediate gospel appropriation (believing God's character produces prayer now)
I've brought two points today essentially. And that is, there's this long-term goal. We really ought to— I'm always kind of like the long-term nerd. I'm like, we really ought to do something about this long-term trajectory that I see where we're not really bending our culture to create more prayerfulness, right? We need to do something about that. I'm throwing that in your laps. Go home and take care of that, please. But I'm also giving you something you don't need to do anything about. And that is The gospel is the primary informing power of our prayers. So when we see these people at peak prayer level throughout the book of Acts, let's not forget how they got there. They got there in part because their culture was a lot more prayer-friendly, but let's be clear, they got there because they smelled the blood on the cross. And they saw an empty tomb, and it finally registered to them that God exists, that they are sinners, that the only thing we have is the free gift of grace offered through Jesus, and that through that gift we can be made children of God. And they just started acting like children. And that you can do. I know because I've seen it. The gospel is pointing us in a very clear direction. God wants to be the Father of many millions, and he wants to be the giver of every need and gift I ever receive.
43 · Closing prayer rehearses the sermon's argument — God's unlimited character, immediate accessibility through gospel faith, long-term cultural work required, request for power against prayerlessness
Let me pray. God, Father God, Giver of all good things. You are boundless and unlimited in righteousness, in holiness, and love. You are the Creator of all good things. And when we place our faith in Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for our sins, when we place our faith in that first promise, then, Lord, we can approach you all the time together as a church, as individuals. We can approach you, we should approach you all the time and glorify you with our neediness, glorify you with our weakness, glorify you with our deep dependence on you. Or we do have some long-term work to do to begin to bend this counter-culture that is the church in a direction that is more deliberate in honoring prayer. But Lord, we don't have any work to do to earn your favor. Lord, in Christ we have your favor. Prayer is the claiming and believing and the pressing into your promises, the first of which is when we call upon the name of the Lord, we will be saved. And when we place our faith in you, you will by no means cast us out. So Lord, I pray that you would give us gospel faith that overflows into prayerfulness. God, don't let us be like that airplane graveyard, just a bunch of sad, rusting potential. Bring power into our lives, bring power into our church, Lord. Allow us to be people at prayer. God, I praise your name that you're already doing that in our midst, and I pray that you continue to do that much more. So that you would fan that gift that you've placed in this church into a flame, that we would be a people of prayer. Thank you, Lord, for your word. I pray, God, that you would bless us as we partake of your Lord's table. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.