Sunday January 31 "Knowing Christ Through Prayer"

Psalm 77... a memory of a time of deep prayer. Matthew 11:25-30... Jesus prays spontaneously, teaches earnestly, and invites genuinely.

These two texts were the focus of this week's theme of knowing Christ through prayer.

We had the Ocean Springs Mardi Gras parade last Saturday. Thousands of people yelling to folks they don't really know, "Throw me something mister!"

That's the way we often treat prayer. Sometimes those prayers are answered. We catch the beads. We are grateful. We get ready for the next float to come by. Sometimes our prayers are not answered. No beads are thrown to us. We may get frustrated. We get ready for the next float to come by.

And so it goes. Prayer remains a mystery. Sometimes God answers it. Sometimes he doesn’t.

But we must understand a basic and fundamental truth. The purpose of prayer is not found in the results that gets but rather in the process of the prayer itself.

If we focus on prayer as the means to a result we are hoping for then we have missed the point of prayer all together. And such prayer can actually hinder our faith in God rather than deepen it. True prayer is the difference between yelling “throw me something mister” at a Mardi Gras parade and sharing what’s on your heart with a dear friend. The first may involve being heard, but the second involves being known. Prayer is the place where we come to know Christ more fully than anywhere else.

Jesus desire was to be known. And that is why he said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and burden is light.”

We come to Christ in our prayers. In our prayers we bring our hardships and burdens, our failures and shortcomings, our hope and our despair and we say “take this.” But our rest from these things comes not from leaving them there and waiting for a result, but rather hearing Christ say to us, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” Christ’s desire is not simply to answer our prayers but to be yoked with us step for step while he carries our burden. That’s what prayer is: the process of walking with Christ as he carries the weight of our lives.

We discussed 2 keys to resisting "Throw me something mister!" prayers:

1. Honesty

C. S. Lewis wrote, "In prayer we must lay before him what is in us, not what ought to be in us."

2. Listening

What distracts us from prayer? Perhaps the things that come flooding into our minds when we try to pray are not distractions to our prayer but the burdens we actually need to allow Jesus to carry with us.

Christ came that we might know him. Prayer is that place where he makes himself known.
And there in is the power of prayer. Not in its being answered but in its being heard.
Prayer is the place God meets his people.
Prayer is the place where Jesus takes our burdens and invites us to walk with him.
Prayer is the means of knowing Christ for who he is.
Prayer is where he leads us to knowing him more fully.

Pastor Scott

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