Jesus Secret Lifestyle II: Quiet Time

SNL Message for March 7:  Matt Thomas

The message is available in audio on the SNL website and here as a word document.notes sermon Matt 6v5-13 Quiet Time 20100306

Overview

Everybody knows that prayer is the meant to be something we take seriously. We have all felt guilty about our failure to pray regularly. In this message Pastor Matt offers some really practical tips to help us move from ambition and guilt to an actual quality time relationship with God.

Reading: Matthew 6:5-13

 Exploring the Reading

In this reading, Jesus instructs the disciples about how one should pray. Jesus tells them not to worry about praying in public, that if we worry about people seeing us pray or hearing us then we are getting it all wrong.  Matt explored this problem suggesting that part of it is our desire to wear a mask to disguise who we are. But this disguise is also sometimes for God which is really crazy because we can never fool God anyway. God sees who we are, sees what is in secret and this is what actually allows us to address God. It is this all seeing nature of God that actually allows us to get to the Lord’s Prayer and address him as ‘Our Father…”

 Personal Reflection Time

 Jesus uses the Lord’s Prayer to ‘teach the disciples to pray.’ A very useful activity is to slowly work through the Lord’s Prayer, line by line. Matt remarked that prayer is both listening and speaking and with that in mind take the trouble to slow the Lord ’s Prayer down and see what it says. There are a couple of options:

 You might like to simply say the lines slowly as your prayer and then listen to what God might say to you through these lines. For example, you could reflect simply on the idea contained in the line ‘Your kingdom come.’  

• As you get to particular parts of the prayer (forgive us our sins, save us from the time of trial, forgive others) you might want to actually make a written list that will work as a guide for your prayer
• Once you have worked through the Lord’s prayer, take the time to pray through your list or say the Lord’s Prayer again and insert the personal aspects into the relevant line  

Group or Pair Activity

 As a group or in pairs you could share the prayer techniques that have worked for you. Pastor Matt said that there were many different ways that are very legitimate ways of praying. He uses responsive prayer forms and he listed other options such as devotional guides, the Psalms, music as background.

• Reflect on times of your life in which your prayer life has been solid and together. What enabled this regular quality time. Conversely, what has, at times, disabled your prayer life?  As a group or pair try to name some strategies that might allow you to push through the more difficult phases.

 Using the Bible

 Matt spent some time on using the Bible as the aid to prayer. This is because the Bible will be God’s key way of speaking to us. Hence, Matt advised us to use our own lives as the lens through which we read a passage; that “this is to me and about me.” He also made it clear that we need to listen for both the law and the gospel. We will tend naturally to one over the other; so one tendency is to see the Bible as a way of correcting, rebuking while the other tendency is to see the truth that God loves us, redeems us through Jesus and wants a relationship with us. Sometimes through the scripture, God is saying simply (but powerfully) “I love you and I am here.”  

 Matt’s Tips for Improved Prayer  

• Don’t over shoot – 5 minutes of prayer daily will lead to 10 in time
• Better to reflect for a long time over a short passage than read for a long time without reflection
• Try for the same amount of time at the same time in the same place. This helps to develop a prayer habit and eventually the time and place will develop a kind holiness of its own which will make the approach into prayer much easier.

 Conclusion/recommendation

 Identify a time and a place and an approach for you that, if followed, will lead to a richer prayer life and hence a more intimate and transforming relationship with God. Write down the time, place and approach. You do not need to share the details of this with your group unless you want to incorporate specific accountability on this issue. You might want to share your arrangement with one other person in the group and during the week you could agree to text or email each other to simply encourage the other to keep the date.

• Please remember that everybody will struggle with this at some point. Our job is to encourage.

 Note: If you would like to explore this issue further, I have a number of interesting and helpful resources.

Devotion: Prayer – What is it and how do you do it?

Rationale:

Learning to pray and incorporating it into our lives is probably the most powerful thing we can do to grow as Christians. It takes time and commitment to learn to pray.

Objectives: Group Members are to

1. feel encouraged to pray 
2. develop a habit of prayer and persisting in prayer
3. develop an understanding of what prayer is – developing a relationship and connection with God/Jesus/Holy Spirit/the sacred  
4. distinguish between healthy and unhealthy attitudes to prayer

Utilising Habits of Mind:

• persisting
• responding with wonderment and awe

Activity 1

• If somebody asked you to spend time in prayer, how would you feel? 
• What things would you pray about? Your list could consist of the following:
• People whom you are worried about,  people who you have some difficulty with, something that you have done wrong and wish that you could undo, an issue that is much on your mind. Do try to include some things that you are thankful for

Activity 2

You can do this part on your own or with some other person or even two other people

• Reflect on your prayer list (if in a group you should share some (not all) of your prayer list. If sharing, choose a some things for which you like assistance in prayer)
• try to organise an order for your list. It is useful to think about (1) things you are thankful for (2) people whom you are worried about (3) things/events you are wanting/needing/hoping for
• Once this is done, you can simply begin. You don’t need to speak any differently than you usually do, just try to use language that is respectful.
• Work your way through your list. If in a group or pair, give each person time to pray, but be sensitive to the fact that some people do not like to pray out loud and that is fine.
• Try to spend some time in silence.  This gives us an opportunity to gain a sense of what God might be saying or revealing to us.

Once you have finished praying, reflect on how you feel. Quite often people feel better, unburdened through the act of praying. If we can form a habit of praying in this way, we find that we will feel less worried, and more able to deal with life’s surprises.  This is because as the writer CS Lewis once wrote, prayer might not change God, it certainly changes us. Persist in prayer

Extension Activity

You might want to look at Luke 22: 39-46 for Jesus prayer in Gethsemane and/or in John 17 for Jesus’ prayer for his disciples.