Jesus at the Center of Prayer
Proximity • Message 1
Bryan Jones
October 15, 2023
A. Introduction
If you remember, I mentioned that I had been asked several times what the strategy of Brookwood was going to be, what were staff plans, direction, what values do we care about… essentially my answer was our strategy is one thing… Jesus at the center… Our hope isn’t in staff, or vision, or strategy, plans, worship, missions, or discipleship…. Our hope is built on one thing… and His name is Jesus.
Think about it, entire corporations and empires have come and gone. Places that people assumed would be around forever… so why do we have hope that the church won’t go away… because Jesus Himself said He would build the church and the gates of hell won’t stand… He has been and will always be the center of Brookwood church…. So, we are spending a year looking at what it means to have Jesus at the center…
So today we are kicking off a 7-week series… Jesus at the Center of Prayer…
Now why prayer…
I find it interesting that Jesus’ disciples never asked Jesus to teach them to preach, they never asked Him how to lead people, or disciple people, or share their faith. Somehow, they felt confident in that, it seems… But they did ask Him how to pray. The disciples saw such a correlation between the way Jesus prayed and the power He had. So, they basically say to Him … teach us how to pray like You.
Now no matter how uncomfortable or comfortable you are with prayer, we’ve all had some exposure to prayer… Think about it…
We pray before we eat… Food filled with lard, butter, sugar, or fat, bless and nourish this unto our bodies… The blessing will be if you don’t get diabetes.
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray, the Lord, my soul to take. What do you say after that? Good night. Sweet dreams. Don’t die.
A lot of people in this room believe in prayer. You probably even do it, but there is a part of you that feels like you don’t really know how. Feels like nothing is happening. Or you don’t feel like you are seeing the changes your heart aches for…
So really, the goal of this series is to help increase your batting average when it comes to prayer… To give you some confidence that when you step up to the plate, you aren’t just striking out or going through the rhythms…
Prayer has divided seas, rolled up flowing rivers, made flinty rocks gush into fountains, quenched flames of fire, muzzled lions, disarmed vipers and poison, marshaled the stars against the wicked, stopped the course of the moon, arrested the rapid sun in his great race, burst open iron gates, recalled souls from eternity, conquered the strongest devils, commanded legions of angels down from heaven. Prayer had bridled and changed the raging passions of man, routed and destroyed vast armies of proud, daring, blustering atheists. Prayer has brought one man from the bottom of the sea and carried another in a chariot of fire to heaven. What has prayer not done? … Brother, do you pray? Jeremiah Lanphier
One of the top things I’ve heard from people is they don’t really know how to pray… or where to begin… I think this series is going to be transformative for you…
And if you struggle with prayer, or you are just wanting to grow in prayer I just want to encourage you that you aren’t alone…
So, Jesus is going to give us some ingredients for prayer…and the first thing Jesus teaches… It’s about proximity to the nearness of God… in fact, His first word is Father…
Matthew 6:9 (NLT)
“… Our Father in heaven,may Your name be kept holy.”
This teaches us a few things about
God the Father…
1. Cares more than you know.
Now, if you have grown up in the church, or really, if you haven’t, most people are familiar with the term God as our Father… however when Jesus first said this to the disciples this would have been revolutionary…
Because it had never been done… gods in Greek and Roman beliefs were powerful, but none were personal. They also believed gods were fickle and easily angered, so you had to be careful to not get on their bad side… In the Old Testament, in Hebrew culture, the term Father is mentioned 15 times, and each time it was God as the Father of Israel or the nation…. Never a personal Father…
The German theologian Joachim (Yo-ack him) Jeremias, a New Testament scholar, did a study in which he searched through the Old Testament writings and existent rabbinic writings from ancient Jewish sources. He could not find a single example ever of a Jewish writer or author addressing God directly as Father in prayer until the tenth century AD.
Think about this… the first rabbi to ever call God our Father was Jesus of Nazareth.
In fact, in the first four books of the New Testament, God is referred to as Father 165 times… isn’t that amazing….
There was a great story of a Roman emperor who had just had a great military victory. In those days, they would do a triumphal entry, where the victorious general and emperor would come in on their war horses, and they would have the spoils of wars and their opponents would be bound in chains… They would also have soldiers guarding the procession so people couldn’t get in… The story goes that when the emperor was making his way through the streets, and when his son and mother, who sat at a distance, saw him, the son ran towards his father. The boy was stopped by a Roman soldier who said, you can’t go any further… do you know who’s out there? That’s the emperor. And it was said, the little boy laughed and said, that might be your emperor but that’s my dad.
In fact, every time Jesus spoke about God or prayed, the only name He used was the Father… Except for on one occasion… it was on the cross where Jesus said “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me.” (Matthew 27:46) This was for two reasons… one, He’s taken on the sin of the world, and He was being separated in His relationship with God as the Father… and because Jesus is quoting Psalm 22.
This is the starting point of prayer, thinking about God as a Father. That He is personal… We don’t have to perform for Him…
No matter what your relationship with your earthly father is… God is your perfect heavenly Father… He is a good Father… and prayer is our way of talking to Him…
Richard Foster said, In the same way that a child cannot draw a bad picture, so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer.
He cares more than you know… but also…
God the Father is
2. Closer than you think.
Now, notice this phrase…
Matthew 6:9 (NLT)
“… Our Father in heaven…”
In Hebrew culture, they actually had a belief in different realms of Heaven. In fact, it was common in that way to think of the Heavens in three ways…
Air. (blue sky)
Matthew 6:26 (NIV)
"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"
The word for air in this verse is the same word that is translated as heaven in the Lord’s Prayer…
Universe. (starry sky/sun/moon/stars)
Psalm 8:3 (NIV)
When I consider Your heavens,the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place,
Notice the heavens refers to the sun/moon/galaxy.
Highest of Heavens. (place God dwells)
2 Corinthians 12:2 (NLT)
I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows.
Let me show you something I find so rich… Now when Jesus is teaching the disciples to pray the term here is plural, (Heavens) so yes, He’s the God of the highest of heavens… but He’s also the God of the air…… think about that… Our Father who is in the highest heavens… but He’s also in the sky, the air I breathe… take a deep breath… God is so close He’s in the very air I breathe… He’s a father who’s close… not just a distant far-off God…
For years when I read this, I thought of God who’s somewhere out there which is true, but He’s also the God in my lungs, the God who’s in the air I breathe… He’s proximity is close…
Psalm 139:7-10 (NIV)
Where can I go from Your Spirit?Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast.
God the Father…
3. Corrects those He loves.
Now let me say this, if someone is a good father… that also means they correct their children when they get off course…
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. Mark Twain
Sometimes we think we know better than God… but God does correct and discipline those He loves!
Now let me say… Words create worlds… the words we use are very important and I want you to make sure you understand something…
Punishment – This is about revenge, it’s about making us pay for our mistakes… Let me be very clear God is not punishing you
Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)
… the punishment that brought us peace was on Him…
Discipline - God will discipline those He loves. It’s a future-oriented love. It’s about formation. But it’s not the knife of a thief, it’s the knife of a surgeon… He sees some area that’s gotten off course… Remember what the Bible says… it’s the kindness of God that leads us to repentance… this is so important… He’s not some cosmic cop or angry father… He’s a close dad, who’s going, son and daughter I have more for you, this isn’t it… but it’s important to note that other people’s sin isn’t God a part of God’s discipline… (abusive father or a spouse who left)
Consequences - natural results for bad decisions… if you do sloppy work and lose your job that isn’t God punishing you… Or if you had an affair and you broke the trust of your spouse, that’s consequences…
Let me say again, God corrects those He loves… but He never punishes…
I want to invite you each week to start praying the Lord’s Prayer… what I want you to do is each week sort of build up your prayer life… this week, I want you each morning to pray and think about the Proximity of God. Think about Him being close. Remind yourself each morning that He’s in the very air you breathe… Remind yourself in the difficult times that God is with you… Pray and speak to God as Father…
Prayer is our most formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least skilled, the most averse to its use.
This is not a praying age; it is an age of great activity, of great movements, but one in which the tendency is very strong to stress the seen and the material and to neglect and discount the unseen and the spiritual. E.M. Bounds
Imagine what it would be like if our church spent the next two months in the gym developing our prayer muscles. God will use that!
If you don’t have a group, join a group.
Group Locator – brookwoodchurch.org/groups. You can sort by day of the week, men, women, co-ed, etc.
Wednesday Night Large Group of Small Groups – 6:30 pm in Pod C.
If you do have a group, take this content (hold up devotional) and dive into it together. [Daily Devotional and Group Guide slide] We created group videos and a guide. All the content is available on the Brookwood app and online. The group guide is also available at the back of the devotional.