Devoted to Prayer

6 · Personal story of discovering a prayer chapel in college and learning what it means to commune with God through prayer, Bible reading, and hymn-singing—moving from transactional prayer to relational fellowship

I didn't know what that was when I was younger. I prayed, I sort of went through the motions of prayer, and I don't even know when it first started, but when I got to college, I discovered that this thing on the college campus that I went to this little prayer chapel and it was tucked above, they called it Benson Great Hall, it was this huge beautiful hall that was full of people, had amazing acoustics, we'd worship, there was something like Vespers where thousands of students would come and they'd praise God and tucked above it kind of away in this little secluded corner was this little prayer chapel. I don't know when I first discovered it but I found it and I just started going there and you could go in, it was totally quiet, it was a small room, it was maybe like 10 feet by 15 feet. There's a cross at the front of it and just kind of big steps that you just kind of sit on. There's no chairs in it. You just go and pray. And I learned in there what it meant to commune with God. Initially, I started coming because I think I wanted to pray and I wanted to get things from God. I had requests to bring. And then I started coming because I realized I was encountering the living God. So you know what happened? I started coming with my Bible and I started reading and doing devotions in there and praying as I was doing my devotions and these devotions went from like 15 minutes to long. I had to like carve out special spots in my day because it was like I didn't know how long I was going to be in there. There was communion happening. Then I started, I went to the bookstore and I bought a hymnal. The Trinity Hymnal. Because when I was coming in there I realized I'm praying and my heart's being stirred and I want to sing. And I didn't know any songs, I didn't have them memorized, so I went and bought a hymnal so I could go in there and as I was praying, I could turn and I could just sing. And then it sort of spilled out from the chapel. We had the campus and there was like this walk, the Sem Path, it was kind of where you went to have your DTRs with girls, defining the relationship talks. And you'd go on that, but there are these kind of, you can go off into the woods and I started going up there at night and just, praying and bringing the hymnal and just singing in the woods. I didn't have a word for it or a category for it. It was communion. It was praying with a real person in mind and encountering His presence.

7 · Introduces the second major point: devoted prayer looks like praying like a child

That's what devotion to prayer looks like. We pray for communion. Devoted prayer also looks like praying like a child. To be devoted to prayer means you pray like a child. Now, Jesus loved children. I think it's one of the most stark things about His ministry. It's one of the things that probably set Him apart in significant ways from all the other itinerant preachers of that day, the prophets. His love for children. It completely catches the disciples by surprise, right? They're trying to scatter the children because there's important stuff to be going on. We've got to remember they have a totally different concept of what children is. We think of children like, 'Oh, cute children.' They didn't have that concept. It's like, 'This is a person that's without rights, not all that useful. If they survive to adulthood, then they're worth something and now they can inherit your things.' Kids weren't viewed as little cute— their world didn't revolve around children like ours can. It was a different day and age. So we read like, 'Well, why wouldn't the disciples let the kids come to Jesus?' That's because we got a different idea of what kids are. But Jesus loves children. He embraces them. He wants to touch the infants. He wants to bless them. He calls for them. 'Let the little children come to Me. Bring them to Me. Don't hinder them.' And he says this, 'For to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.' To enter the kingdom, Jesus says, we have to become like children. And I think in part what he's saying that we kind of lose in translation culturally is he's saying you have to set down your rights and you have to set down your identity. You have to become like a child. But part of what he's saying is these are the people that the kingdom belongs to. And so when I instruct you to pray, you should have in the back of your mind, you should pray like a child.

8 · Expounds the first dimension of childlike prayer: helplessness

Now, how do you imitate a child in your prayers? What does that look like? First, I think to pray like a child means there's a sense of helplessness. Kids are aware of their helplessness, and they're not embarrassed by it. Think of all the little things that little kids simply are unable to do. If you have little children, or you've been around little children, all the things that they just can't— I mean, when it's bedtime, we have to brush their teeth. I hate brushing their teeth. Sometimes I pretend I brush their teeth and put them to bed, and Hannah gets mad at me. 'You didn't brush their teeth!' I know, I didn't want to brush their teeth! They can't brush their teeth. They can't dress themselves when they're really little. They can't bathe themselves. Even when they're like past the drowning phase where it's like you can have 2 inches of water and they might die in the tub, now you can put 4 inches in and they're gonna survive. Your floor's gonna be wet, but they can't clean them. You still have to come in and soap them up and clean their hair. They can't— here's one that I was thinking of this. They can't zip their coats. When's the last time you gave a thought to zipping your coat? To buttoning your shirt. Hannah said she went to pick Case up from preschool the other day, and he and another student were both trying to tag team his zipper. And it was like, 'Ahh!' They're working together to try and zip up the coat, and they couldn't do it. Even two little kids together can't zip. They're helpless. And they know they're helpless. And they don't care. You know what their helplessness stirs up? A desire for help. Kids are constantly, 'Mommy, Daddy, help me! Tie my shoes! Put on my coat! Clean my face! I'm hungry! Make me some food!' Jesus commends becoming like a child. I think he does that because he knows we are in danger. You grow up, you become an adult, and there's a sense of self-reliance. Most of us are competent zippers, right? I hope so. We think, I'm good, I can help myself for the things I need. Self-reliance, though, is a death to prayerfulness. Jesus commands us, become like children. He's reminding us, when you come to God, you come helplessly, you come in need of him. And if you come like a child, there's no reason to be embarrassed. Devotion to prayer is the recognition we are powerless on our own. Outside of Christ. Praying like a child means admitting our need and turning to God for help in the confidence that he would love to help us. Childlike prayer admits our need and proclaims God's open-handed wealth. I pray because I lack and because God possesses. I pray because I need help, and God is a Father leaning over, inclined to assist.

9 · Expounds the second dimension of childlike prayer: trust

Pray like a child in helplessness. Pray like a child full of trust. Children just trust, don't they? One of the greatest unspoken obstacles to prayer is that we cynically fear God won't answer. Now, that's not something we tend to volunteer in our care groups. What are you struggling with? I don't think God's going to answer my prayers. Most of us don't vocalize that, but if we're honest, I think there's a part of us that recognizes, 'I don't pray because I doubt that God's going to answer. I don't pray because I think, "What's the point?"' And if I'm saying, 'What's the point?' there's a part of me that's saying, 'He's not going to respond.' That's believing Satan's lie that prayer is powerless. It's believing the lie that God isn't listening. Well, that He's listening, but He's just kind of capricious. He's listening and just sort of chuckling, 'Oh man, they are worthless. They need so much help. Stinks to be them.' It's believing the lie that He finds our requests silly and insignificant. For real? I'm the God of everything. I'm trying to run this whole thing called the universe. It's kind of big. There's a lot going on. And you're going to bring that to me? Satan wants us to think that. A child comes and says, Daddy, my zipper's stuck. Expecting that Daddy is going to stop the email. Mommy's going to turn away from the stove. The more important things are going to wait to help the child we love. They do that because they trust. They do because they understand implicitly what Jesus promises. Matthew 7:7, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. When we pray, God will answer. Jesus promises us that when you pray, God will answer. Jesus has given his word. When you call upon the Lord, your heavenly Father says he inclines his ear, he listens, and he responds. Our kids interact with us this way. Something happens and they come running and asking for help. And what happens if you're kind of too busy? Do they just stop? No, they pester. 'Daddy! Daddy!' They keep asking. There's parables Jesus gives about the persistence of prayer. Continue asking. Prayer about the widow and the unjust judge, and she just keeps coming. Finally, he just says, fine, have it. The point isn't that God's an unjust judge. The point is God is a just judge. He's more than a just judge. He's your Father. Come and keep coming, and he's going to provide. He's going to lend an ear. He's going to respond.

10 · Applies the promise of answered prayer to specific life domains—communion, marriage, children, work—asserting that God acts in response to prayer in ways He wouldn't have otherwise because He delights to be asked

So if I start, start my day praying, God, I want to commune with Jesus today. If I start out calling upon God for the sake of my marriage, 'Lord, sustain my marriage today. Lord, help my marriage today.' If I start the day praying for my children, praying for my wife, praying for help at work, anything that we bring to Him, Jesus promises God will stir affections for Christ. He will be at work in your marriage. He'll be at work in your kids. He'll be with you and working in your job. He will be present and he will be active, either answering your requests or exceeding them. And here's the clincher: doing that in ways he wouldn't have done if you hadn't prayed, because he likes to be asked.

11 · Expounds the third dimension of childlike prayer: praying without pretense—unself-consciously, like children playing, not performing for others

Children, childlike prayer, a sense of helplessness. It's full of trust. Final thing, it's without pretense. It's without pretense. One of the best things about little children is watching them play, isn't it? Watching their imaginations go. Hannah asked me the other day, 'What age do we stop imagining out loud?' We're saying this because we just took a video of Sadie, our daughter, our 3-year-old, standing in front of the sink and she's like pretending to do the dishes, sort of doing her thing, and she's just sort of singing to herself. Out of tune, doesn't know the words, she's singing the same phrase over and over. We film it because it's cute, and she's oblivious to the fact that we're standing 4 feet away filming it. She's just without pretense. Case is in the living room with his Legos, and he's playing Star Wars. He's never even seen Star Wars. Somehow he knows that this is a fun thing to play. He's playing with his Legos, and it's like, 'Pew pew pew pew pew! Oh no!' He's talking out loud, and the characters are conversing back and forth, oblivious that we're in the room watching him, thinking, So cool. There's no pretense. We know the value of that, that phrase, dance like nobody's watching. We say that phrase because as adults, we dance like people are watching. The dads at the daddy-daughter dance in a couple weeks are going to dance like the other dads are watching. Their little girls won't. Well, sometimes I think we need to learn to pray like nobody's listening. Like no human's listening. We need to learn to be unencumbered, not concerned with how we're perceived. The disciples are like this. In a lot of ways with Jesus, they act like children. They go out and they perform miracles, right? And there's this sense like they come back and they're like, Jesus! The demons obey when we say stuff in your name! We're healing people in your name! There's like this giddiness in the text. They're like little kids. It's so cool! I went down the slide all by myself, Daddy! They say stuff and it's like there's no filter. That's like the definition of Peter, right? He's like a kid. It's like it pops into his head and— poof! He says it. They know what it's like to interact with Jesus and they feel safe with him. They feel safe talking with him. They feel safe letting their guard down and letting their heart just flow out. In A Praying Life, Paul Miller, the author, compares prayer to a family meal. It's like a family meal. You push the dishes aside and you just linger over dessert and coffee and you just talk. The words, the words flow. When you're sitting at the table, you're not thinking about the conversation like, what's the correct introductory phrase as I address my father right now? Oh, Father, the one who produced me, can I go to a friend's house tomorrow? I will do so with gratitude and thanksgiving, Father. I didn't say it quite right. Oh, gracious and generous Father. We don't think that way when we're sitting at a table. We talk. We converse. We love each other. We're in relationship. And guess what? Sometimes the conversation gets distracted and it kind of goes on rabbit trails. Do you ever get frustrated in prayer because it's like, focus! I can only get like 2 minutes of focus and then it's like, I'm drift— yeah. That's what happens in conversations too. You have coffee with a buddy, what happens? You're talking about the topic and then it goes off into a tangent and then it wanders back to the topic and goes off into another tangent and wanders back. You don't leave that conversation thinking, 'I stink at friendship! I was having coffee with my buddy! Oh, I'm such a worthless friend!' No, you go away thinking, 'I enjoyed relationship and fellowship with him.' Prayer is supposed to be like that. Part of the art of praying is doing as Calvin instructed, to see God as our loving Father kindly disposed to us. A no to our prayer never means a withholding of affection. It means we're children and he's wise, giving us what we need, oftentimes more than what we want. Coming to our Father as a child doesn't mean our prayers are simplistic. They can be, but sometimes childlike prayers are very thoughtful. They're very weighty. Coming like a child addresses the demeanor in which you come. When you pray in private, converse with your Father.

12 · Establishes Jesus as the supreme model of childlike prayer—the eternal Son who never outgrew dependence on the Father

I think Jesus models this for us. I think we see both. When He calls us to be childlike, He's saying imitate Me. He shows us childlikeness. He never, not a single time— this is the Son of God, right? This is the eternal Word. He's not 30 years old when He starts His ministry. He's infinity plus 30. Do the math. You know what you see in the Gospels? He never views Himself as mature beyond the point of needing the Father's help. John 5:19, Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing.' He's like a child. Daddy's got the hammer, son's got the hammer. Kids do that, right? For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. Translation: I don't do anything on my own. I only do what I see Daddy doing. That's what Jesus does. Devoted childlike prayer is a return to how we were created to be. Maturity is about growing more dependent on God, not less. It's about being more needy for Jesus, more happy in our conversations with our Father. I'm all grown up, so I talk to my dad less. Not Jesus. This is a great image. Great image from Galatians 4:6. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. To do what? Crying, 'Abba, Father.' Because you are sons of the living God, God has sent the Spirit of Jesus into your hearts for what purpose? So that you would pray like children.

13 · Clarifies that childlike prayer doesn't preclude theological prayer or powerful prayer—it describes the demeanor of approach

Prayer, Luther says, is not overcoming God's reluctance but laying hold of His willingness. That's helpful. Childlike prayer doesn't mean you don't pray theologically. It doesn't mean you don't pray with power and with unction. There's times for that. We see Jesus, I mean, 'This is how you shall pray.' 'Father, who art in heaven.' I mean, it's an intentional theological prayer. It's teaching them, right? But we also see Jesus just going off by Himself to pray. There's nothing in the text to suggest that that's anything but Jesus going to converse with His Father. I don't think He walks off in those times and has really carefully, intentionally thought out, practiced prayers. I think He goes and He talks and He communes and He relates to the One He spent eternity loving and relating to. Devoted prayer means praying like a child.

14 · Introduces the third major point: devoted prayer means praying continually and corporately

It means praying continually and corporately. Third point: devoted prayer means we pray continually and corporately. Now listen to these passages I'm going to string together. 1 Thessalonians 5:16: Rejoice always. Teeny little verse, you know it. Verse 17: Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. This is the will of God for you in union with Jesus, that you would pray without ceasing. Colossians 4:2: Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. Part of being devoted in prayer is being intentional in how you pray and what you pray for. It's having lists. People strategically you're praying for. But you continue steadfastly in it. Ephesians 6:18, 'Praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.' You think He wants us to pray? Praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer. You pray at all times with all prayer. So you're praying and you're praying. It's like a prayer sandwich. This refrain, be devoted to prayer, continue in prayer, don't cease in prayer, it gets repeated again and again and again in the New Testament. Why? Because it's what God's people are called to do. It's what we need to do. And when we're not diligent in it, we do great harm to ourselves.

15 · Expounds why continual prayer is necessary: we are in spiritual warfare, and the enemy wants to cut us off from prayer through busyness and distraction

I think there's a simple reason why we see this emphasized over and over and over again. You don't have to look any further than the context of Ephesians 6:18. What's Ephesians 6 about? The armor of God. This sense that you're in a battle, this is a war. Prayer, consistent, devoted prayer is a matter of being prepared for battle. There's a real enemy and he wants to defeat us. He wants to thwart us. He wants to lull us asleep. He wants to lull us into prayerlessness. Because he wants to cut us off from the supply lines. It's a good strategy. If he can't tempt us to sin, he will overwhelm us with busyness, overwhelm us with a thousand pursuits that push prayer to the margins. This is— Piper's like the king of the pithy quote, right? This is a good one. One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the last day that prayerlessness was not from a lack of time. Whoa, that one hits you in the gut. Pinterest, you know, throw ESPN in the mix. Some of you, it's like the Wikipedia hyperlinks are just like addicting. Link, link, link. Or you like do the Control+Tab thing and it's like now you've got like 20 Wikipedia links open because you're just, it's information must be consumed 3 hours later. I'm not sure how much I've retained, but that information was excellent. There's a sense where we have time in our days that we carve out for the things we find important. The call to prayer is not a call to think about it. It's not a call to commit to it at a future time. It's a call to do it. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wisely said, follow every prompt to pray. You feel the stirring? Stop what you're doing and pray. The Spirit is pricking you.

16 · Reframes the command to 'pray without ceasing' as a corporate command to the church, not an individual burden

And we should pray corporately. Remember, it's pray consistently and corporately. It's the third point. Pray corporately. You ever feel overwhelmed by that call in 1 Thessalonians? Pray without ceasing. I jokingly tell people, like, well, we should maybe stop and pray. And I'll say, I pray without ceasing. Hahaha. But we all say it because there's like that sense of pray without ceasing. How do you do that? Are there like holy people that walk around and it's like part of their brain is just always devoted to continual prayers? No, there aren't. It's a call. Who's it given to? The church at Thessalonica. You, church at Thessalonica, pray without ceasing. Not Billy Bob. You. Your job. This person is going to serve in children's ministry. They're going to help with worship. They're going to be a greeter. You. Your job. This is a big one. Pray without ceasing. You might get tired, but you can't go to sleep. You've got to pray without ceasing. No. To the church. Pray without ceasing. Oh! Now I get it. God's not commanding something we can't do. He's looking at His church and saying, My church should be a place where there's unceasing prayer. The saints are constantly picking up for each other. And if an outsider is to observe, the context of the community is there's just always prayers popping up. If we had those little bubble things, right? And somebody could observe our community throughout the week and the months, we should be a place where there's never not somebody in our midst who's got a little bubble that's propping up in prayer to God. Because this church is a place where prayer doesn't cease. There's a corporate sense to that. Someone's always picking up the mantle, interceding for the body. Jim Hamilton, theologian, says it this way: A biblical theology of corporate prayer teaches us God's people will become what they are, united in Christ, as we learn to speak to the Lord together. Speaking together, after all, trains the desires of our hearts to be united in faith, united in hope, united in love. Corporate prayer in the church requires the church to agree, to be without division, to be of the same mind and judgment. It's one way the church stands firm in one spirit and with one mind strives side by side for the faith.

17 · Applies the call to corporate prayer by naming specific opportunities: the church's weekly prayer meeting and praying during Sunday worship

So what does corporate prayer look like? Well, I think part of it is the corporate prayer meeting. I'm so happy we have someone like Paul Potash so consistently committed to leading the corporate prayer meeting. And I get it, like there's schedules, there's things that are busy, there's weeks that are hard, but there's not a time that I go that I don't walk away thinking, 'That was good. It was good for my soul.' Come to the corporate prayer meeting. There's childcare provided if you've got little ones. A lot of folks that are there, it's one spouse and not the other because one of the spouses is watching the kids. They help each other out. And we're a pretty humble bunch. People fall asleep, we don't care. People drift, we don't care. We're just there to pray, to pray together corporately. Here's another way you do this. When do we gather most explicitly in the corporate sense? Right now, right? How many of you, when we're singing songs, sometimes stop and just pray? We should. I learned this from John Bloom and it was really helpful. I would watch him. It's sometimes helpful. You just, you watch godly people worship. And you learn. The disciples, they watched Jesus worship and they learned. The early church, I think they watched Peter and the disciples because these guys have been with Jesus. Timothy watches Paul. I watched John Bloom and he would sing and there was not a Sunday that went by that at some point during the worship set he's got his Bible and he's just like— we're singing the songs and he's not singing anymore. He just has his Bible in his hand and he's reading it. He put his hand up, he's reading God's word. And then he'd stop. And it was pretty obvious he didn't have the song memorized. His eyes are closed and he's just praying. In the midst of worship, he allows the Spirit to stir him and he turns to passages that celebrate the truth he's singing. I'm singing and I want to be reminded of the truth of God's Word and then I pray. That's part of what corporate prayer looks like. It's to have a stirring and to come forward and to tap me on the shoulder and say, I think God's stirring me to pray for the church about this. And that fits really well with the next song. I think the Spirit's in that. Let's pause and let's pray. Let's pray corporately. Let's raise our hearts together before the King of Kings. Prayer should be a corporate grace.

18 · Introduces the fourth major point: devoted prayer means praying for the kingdom

Final point: devoted prayer looks like praying for the Kingdom. Acts 4:31, 'And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken. They were filled with the Spirit and continued to speak the Word of God with boldness.' When they had prayed, they're filled with the Spirit, the whole place shakes, there's so much Spirit, and they go out and they share with boldness. There's all these points in the book of Acts where we see God's people praying, and time after time, so many times, the context of what they're praying for, they're praying for boldness to share. They're praying for people who are going to witness, who are standing before judges, before authorities, and testifying to the Gospel. They're setting their hands and they're praying for Paul and Barnabas to send them out in mission. They're praying for their cities. The Gospel advances in Acts. Why? It advances because one of the themes of Acts: the Word of God is unstoppable. It's just this force. If you just follow the references to God's Word in Acts, it's just like it meets resistance, boom, resistance falls. Yes, that's why the Gospel advances. The Gospel advances in Acts because God is sovereign. He has hearts in these cities. And He's drawing them to the incredible brilliance of Jesus. Yes, the Gospel advances because God is claiming people. And the gospel advances in Acts because God's people are praying for it to advance. Jesus has told them, go out— Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth— make disciples, proclaim my name. Well, he promises he's going to do it. Let's just know he promised us he's going to do it. Let's pray that he'll be with us as he does, as we do it. In Acts, God's people pray for the kingdom.

19 · Applies the call to pray for the kingdom by expounding the Lord's Prayer—praying for God's glory, His kingdom's advance, and hearts to be captured for Christ in Kansas City and beyond

When we pray for the kingdom, we're praying that God would be glorified. The Lord's Prayer: Hallowed be your name. It's not just an Old English word. Holy, glorious, renowned, magnified, famous be your name. Let Your name, Lord, be regarded with awe. That's how Jesus taught us to pray. Hallowed be Your name. Right? Your will be done. Your kingdom come. Pray for the kingdom. Pray that it would arrive in fullness. Pray that it would advance. Pray that God would move with all of His sovereign power to bring kingdom realities to bear. Here in Kansas City, throughout the United States, to the very ends of the earth. Call upon God to wrestle hearts out of darkness so they would behold Jesus and repent and believe. Gospel advances and acts because the people of God are devoted to prayer. It advances because God has heard and responded to the cry of His people. There is no indication anywhere in Scripture that it's any different today. Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Glorify the name of Jesus, Father. Capture hearts for your renown in this city, in Lenexa, in Johnson County, in Kansas City.

20 · Concludes the sermon by immediately embodying its teaching: calling the congregation to break into small groups and pray together for communion with Christ and the advance of His kingdom

So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna pray, and not just me pray. We're gonna split off right now and we're just gonna gather in groups of 4, 5, 6, whatever it might be. And we're going to pray. We're going to pray specifically for our communion with Christ as a body and for his kingdom, for the fame and renown of his name. And then I'll close us and the worship team will lead us in a last song. So wherever you're at, turn around in your chairs, find 4 or 5 people, gather together, and let's pray. Lift up our voices to God.