Praying like Jesus

Mark 1:35 - "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he got up, went out, and made his way to a deserted place; and there he was praying."

Luke 5:16 - "Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed."

Luke 6:12 - "During those days he went out to the mountain to pray and spent all night in prayer to God."

Luke 9:18 - "While he was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, 'Who do the crowds say that I am?'"

Luke 11:1 - "He was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.'"

Matthew 14:23 - "After dismissing the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. Well into the night, he was there alone."

Matthew 26:36-39 - "Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he told the disciples, 'Sit here while I go over there and pray.' Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. He said to them, 'I am deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.' Going a little farther, he fell facedown and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.'"

Mark 6:46 - "After he said good-bye to them, he went away to the mountain to pray."

Hebrews 5:7 - "During his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence."

Today is the first of our “Hands” messages. As you know, when we laid out the plan for the year, we included a setion on how we will be approaching the preaching this year, and that we would structure these thigns around the concept of head, heart, hands and holy worship.

Head will be more doctrine focussed, heart will be me more - well heart focussed. LAst week we looked at heart- how to live with joy.

This week will be looking at our first Hands message. These hands themed messages will focus on various christian living aspects, Christian skills we all can do in growing in.

And today, I want to focus on the Christian skill of prayer. PRaying like JEsus did.

Now how these hands type sermons will work, is that we will look at what the Bible says about something, then talk about hte realities of life, then talk about the practical steps we can take to improve.

So let’s have a look at what the Bible says, not just about prayer, but specifically about how Jesus prayed.

And as we look we will see 4 things. *Make notes*

His prayer life was intentional

His prayer life was habitual

His prayer life was private but instructive

His prayer life was God-focussed

His prayer life was intentional

Mark 1:35 - "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he got up, went out, and made his way to a deserted place; and there he was praying."

Now if you are anything like me, i think it is probably true of you that sometimes our prayer lives can seem a bit ad hoc. That is it happens when it happens. I don’t think most of us are good at priorititing prayer as something worth doing. Maybe you are different, but growing up I did not really set aside time to pray. Prayer for me came with Bible reading. So at night, before I would go to bed, I would read the Bible, and then turn off my light, and then pray in bed. And then more often than I would care to admit I would fall asleep before finishing my prayer.

Maybe you have a similar experience.

But when we look at Jesus, we see what he did is that he made time for prayer. He prioritised it.

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he got up, went out, made his way to a deserted place, and there he was praying.

To put it in contemporary language.

He set an alarm. He got up early. Prayer was the first thing in his day.

Notice that he also quieted the world aroudn him.

He didn’t scroll through instagram and facebook first thing. He didn’t check his email. He got up, and took himself off into a private place, where the world’s busyness could not get to him. He went into the literal desert to pray.

This is intentional prayer. It is planned, and prioritised,

it is diarised, it is deliberate.

So why don’t we pray like this? I think it is partly because we forgot how relationships work. You know we know that prayer is us cultivating a relationship with God. IT is spending time with our Heavenly Father.

But because we think about this in terms of a relationship we think - well it’s odd to schedule in prayer time. I mean, if it’s meant to be a real relationship, shouldn’t it just happen?

But when we think about it, thats not how most of our relationships work. If I want to have a relationship with a friend, what do I do? I cultivate that relationship. We have to schedule times to catch up - sometimes this will be a regular weekly time where we meet to do the same thing each week. Sometimes it will be organising to spend a whole day together. But it has to be organised - it doesn’t just happen.

I have to pick up the phone and make it happen. But that doesn’t mean that the relationship is any less real, any less valuable, any less authentic. In fact it is exactly because we are intentional, that the relationship builds.

The same is true of God. Here Jesus shows us how he intentionally deliberately cultivated a prayer relationship with the father. He got up, while it was still dark, went to a place free from distraction (dessert) and there he was praying.

If you want to pray like Jesus, you need to be intentional about it.

And we will talk about how that happens in a bit.

His prayer life was habitual

Luke 5:16 - "Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed."

Luke 6:12 - "During those days he went out to the mountain to pray and spent all night in prayer to God."

Jesus had a habit of prayer - he often withdrew.During those days he went out.

IT was his habit to pray. Now here is the thing about good habits - they take time to develop. Building a habit is a deliberate act of the will and it takes somewhere between 7 and 9 weeks to truly develop.

But here is the thing about habits. You already have them. You already have a habit about how you will go to bed, how you will gget up int the morning. You have a habit about what happens after dinner, and what you do when the kids are in bed.

Think about it for a moment. In our house when the alarm goes off in the morning, it is my job to make coffee. While I make coffee the kids have their breakfast and get ready for school.

Then Sarah and I drink our coffee in bed, mostly while we listen to the 10 minute bible talk devotion.

This is our habit.

But because it is a habit it happens on autopilot. When the alarm goes off, i know how many steps it takes to get to the kitchen, and I know where the coffee is kept. I can do the whole thing almost with my eyes closed.

But because our habit involves the 10 minute bible talk, our habit means that we get 10 minutes of Bible every day. Now imagine the impact that will have over time. Sure each day is only 10 minutes, but over a life time it is 3500 minutes of Bible teaching we would not otherwise have had.

The autopilot habit has a great cummulative effect on our spirituality.

Our habits are forming us spiritually. Fyodor Dostoevski once wrote

The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits acquired during the first half.

—Fyodor Dostoevski

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Our habits form us.,

Jesus had a habit of going out to pray. IF we want to pray like Jesus, we need to cultuvate a habit of prayer.

What are the places in your life where you can “attach” prayer to?

places where one thing you are already doing will build a habit of prayer.

eg about night time blessing

eg about leaving the house

His prayer life was private but instructive

Luke 9:18 - "While he was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, 'Who do the crowds say that I am?'"

Luke 11:1 - "He was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.'"

Matthew 14:23 - "After dismissing the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. Well into the night, he was there alone."

That our relationship with God is a private thing between us and God.

We take matthew 6:5-6 very seriously.

Matthew 6:5–6 CSB

5 “Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

We dont want to be like thos pharisees, we dont want to be accused of standing on the corners of streets going - look how I am praying, look how pious I am, look at wonderful my prayers are. I mean you poor sinner, if only you could pray as powerfully as I could.

Jesus rightly condemns that kind of prayer. He is dead against it, and says pray in private.

ANd that was JEsus’ own practice too. His prayers were private - While he was praying in private… *Luke 9:18., Luke 11: he was praying in a certain place (i.e. not in the middle of the street, but some undisclosed location). Matthew 14 - he went up to the mountain by himself to pray.

And so his prayer life was private in that sense.

But notice that we can take that too far too.

In every case we have recorded that JEsus went somewhere to pray in private, someone was there to record what he did.

His private prayers were witnessed by those he was building up in the faith.

His prayers werent for show, they werent designed to make others look at him and him say - oh wow how holy he is, how pious.

But nor did Jesus hide his prayers from those who were being discipled by him.

You we often say things like my prayer life is private between me and God. I don’t want to pray in front of other people ebcause im not comforabtle with that, because I take Matthew 6:5-6 very sriously.

I don’t want to be on display liek that, i dont want to be a pharisee.

But when we shut others out of our prayer lives, we actually arent’t praying like Jesus.

Look at what happens. Luke 9: Jesus was praying in private, and then in teh context of his private prayer, he asks his disciples “who do people asay I am”?

His prayer life lead directly to the revelation of who he was.

Luke 11: when he had finished his disciples having seen his prayers, he says - Lord teach us to pray. We want to be like you - we ant to pray like you, please teach us.

His prayers were private, but they were instructive.

Your prayer life, in fact your faith life is meant to be witnessed.

It is true that we don’t want to live a “look at me life” we dont want to practice our prayers and our faith life in a way that wants people ot look at us. We dont want to be a pharisee, where the point is to make other people look at us.

But we do want to be like Jesus. Wehre others will see our faith life, our prayer life, and see not us, but Jesus the author and perfector of our faith.

Jesus’ prayer life was private, but it was instructive. If we are to pray like him, ours should be too.

His prayer life was kingdom-focused

This is just one example, there is another in John 17:20-25

John 17:20–25 CSB

20 “I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. 21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. 24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. 25 Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me.

In both Cases Jesus is focussed on his mission - he is focussed on what he came to do. To rescue sinners, to pay for our sin, to reconcile us to the father, through his sacrifice on the cross.

Jesus’ prayer here is kingdom focussed. It is about the people he is about to save, it is about having the strength to go through with the plan even as he knew it meant his own cucifixion. IT is about staying the course even though it was going to get extraordinariliy difficult.

And his prayer was of course answered. Jesus did go through with it. He submitted himself to God’s will, went to the cross, paid for our sins, and ultimately paid for our sins.

His prayer was mission focussed.

If we want to pray like Jesus did our prayers need to be mission focussed.

I fall into the trap to pray about the things I want all the time. When we pray at night, we pray to thank God for the day that we have had, for all the things we can be thankful for, we pray about the day to come and all that it involves. WE pray for our kids in the various things they need to do, and the current ways in which they are currently needed to be shaped.

These are all great things to pray about. We should pray wiht thanfulness about the day God has given us. WE should pray for things that are important. We should of course pray for our children.

But if we are going to pray liek Jesus, we are going to pray for kingdom stuff. We are going to be praying for the two people God is laying on our hearts to invite to church. We are going to be praying for the programs our church and every other church is putting on to reach people with the Gospel. We are going ot be praying that God will put us even in dangerous positions, that will require sacrifice on our behalf, both financially and physically, so that the gospel can spread.

This is what it means to pray like Jesus. His prayer in the garden of Gethsemane was a prayer of submission to God’s will - even when it hurt.

IF we want to pray like Jesus, our prayers hsould be misison focussed - even so as to bring us into submission to his will, even when that will cost us.

Jesus prayer life was kingdom focused.

It was intentional, habitual, private and instrctive, and kingdom focussed.

That is the Biblical portrait of Jesus’ prayers.

So how do we grow in this? What are some next steps for us to build into our lives to make this a reality in our lives?

Next steps

This may be helpful to some of you.

I want to introduce you to two things: Daily prayers of intention, and the daily examen. Both of these are a type of prayer that help us to be intentional - these prayers are bookends of each day - the daily prayers of intention are start of the day prayers. The prayer of examen is an end of the day prayer. They are intentionally put at the end of each day to help us live a more prayer filled life.

But these prayers are designed to be habitual - i dont think you should expect that because you do one of these prayers, that you will automatically feel super spiritual the next day. But what they do do is to give you a framework for forming a habit of talking to God.

These prayers are also kingdom focussed - the prayer in the morning , the prayer of intention is a prayer that you can use to say to God - I want to be who you made me to be, i want to serve you today. Help me stay attentive to my calling, let me walk with you as I go through my day.

The prayer of examen is a prayer that looks back on the day to answer the question - was I who God made me to be today? Where did I feel most alive, most as if I was living out my calling, where did i feel most dead, most like I wasn’t living out my calling.

And so these prayers are a really helpful starting place to help us to pray like Jesus did.

So let me walk you thought how they work:

Prayers of Intention

Prayer of Presenting Oneself as a Sacrifice (Rom. 12:1-2)

In receptivity to the Spirit, hear the Word of God (Heb. 4:12)

Prayer of Identity (Phil. 3:7-9)

Prayer of Honesty (Ps. 15:1-2, Ps. 139:23-24)

Prayer of Discernment (Eccles. 7:13-14, Phil 2:12-13)

1. Prayer of Presenting Oneself as a Sacrifice (Rom. 12:1-2)

Romans 12:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

“Lord, I am here, I present myself and my will to you as my act of worship. Here I am.”

2. In receptivity to the Spirit, hear the Word of God (Heb. 4:12)

Hebrews 4:12 CSB

12 For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

“Lord, I am listening. What words from Scripture or what wisdom has your Spirit been bringing to my attention lately, that I might respond to them?”

3. Prayer of Identity (Phil. 3:7-9)

Philippians 3:7–9 CSB

7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.

“God, whatever I do today, I want to do this in you. I don’t want to do this alone, in my own power or as a way to hide and cover. I don’t want to find my identity in anything but Christ. I am in Christ, I am the beloved, and that is my true identity.”

4. Prayer of Honesty (Ps. 15:1-2, Ps. 139:23-24)

Psalm 139:23–24 CSB

23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.

Psalm 15:1–2 CSB

1 Lord, who can dwell in your tent? Who can live on your holy mountain? 2 The one who lives blamelessly, practices righteousness, and acknowledges the truth in his heart—

“Lord, what is going in in my heart right now with You, with others, with my life, my situations? Search me, O God, and know my heart. Open my heart to you today in truth, lest I deceive myself.”

5. Prayer of Discernment (Eccles. 7:13-14

Ecclesiastes 7:13–14 CSB

13 Consider the work of God, for who can straighten out what he has made crooked? 14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that no one can discover anything that will come after him.

Philippians 2:12–13 CSB

12 Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

“Lord, what are you doing and what is it that you want me to become and do if I am to do your will?”

these prayers shape then how you go into your day…

but what about how you finish your day, well it makes sense to see how we went doesn’t it ?

that’s what the prayer of examen does.

Prayer of examen

There are five steps to the Examen as it appears in the Spiritual Exercises (n.43) of St Ignatius Loyola:

Give thanks

Spend a few moments in gratitude for the gifts and blessings of the day.

Ask for light

Ask God to enlighten you, showing where he has been at work and present in your day through events, people and places.

Examine the day

Review the moments of the day, noticing what has led to consolation and what has led to desolation and my reactions to these events, people and places (see below on consolation and desolation).

Seek forgiveness

Ask God's forgiveness for the times when you have acted, spoken or thought contrary to his grace and calling for you.

Resolve to change

Decide what in your behaviour or attitude you will try to improve tomorrow.

The Ignatian Concepts of Consolation & Desolation

St Ignatius' use of the concepts of consolation and desolation are

critical to understanding and practising the examen.

Consolation is when something is deeply and genuinely good for us,

good for our souls, leads us towards God and away from our selfish

preoccupations.

Desolation is when something is not good for us, when we are

wrapped up in ourselves, and careless of God's gifts and grace working

in us, when we substitute other things in place of God.

Note that Ignatius means spiritual consolation/desolation. While these

may be found in our thoughts and emotional responses, they are not

the same as our feelings of delight and despair.

St Ignatius gives us a quick rule of thumb to 'test' whether something

is truly consolation or truly desolation: by noticing the faith, hope and

love in us. Something that is truly consolation will show itself in an

increase in faith (ie. self-confidence in myself, in my family, in my

colleagues and pupils, in society in general and in God), an increase in

hope (ie. I am positive about things, always seeing the best, seizing the

little opportunities that come my way, having a reason to get out of

bed in the morning), and an increase in love (ie. the loving and

compassionate ways I treat those around me, especially those I find

difficult to love).

And so in these two ways, we can grow in prayer and take our next step to pray

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