« Jesus’ Authority, Then and Now | Main | On Fishing in the Shallows »
March 09, 2003
Jesus’ Source of Endurance
Jesus’ Source of Endurance
Psalm 11 / I Kings 19: 9b-18
Luke 4: 42-44
March 9th, 2003
Luke tells us that after a remarkably difficult time in His hometown and then a better reception in Capernaum, Jesus departed and went into a deserted place. We think we know what Jesus did there. He prayed alone. Elsewhere in the Gospels we read that Jesus got up a great while before day and went out alone to pray. It was from times like this that Jesus drew His strength to endure. Even though Jesus was God made flesh, He didn’t leave to chance the nourishment of His life. Many of us would confess, we need strength to endure. We need regularity in nurturing our faith as we need regularity in nourishing our bodies. These days we need more inward nurture than food.
Jesus continued a well rehearsed pattern of life before God. Jesus prayed the Psalms. We hear Him praying Psalm 22 as He hung from the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me.” It is a psalm that ends with triumph, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord.” The Gospels don’t tell us so, but I wonder if Jesus prayed that whole psalm from the cross, and not just its opening lines.
Every Wednesday morning I begin our time of prayer together with the words of Psalm 51, “Open thou our lips,” and from round the circle I hear the reply, “And our mouths shall show forth Thy praise.” I continue with the words of the 5th Psalm, “In the morning you will hear our voice, O Lord, in the morning we will direct our prayer to you and eagerly watch.”
Psalm 51 suggests that the first words on the tongue in the morning will be words of praise to God. Every morning for 4,000 years, devout Jews and their forebears began the day, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” The 5th Psalm echoes this theme. “In the morning we direct our prayer to You, O God.” Elsewhere in the psalms the same theme pops up. In Psalm 88: 13, the Temple musicians pray: “I cry out to you, O Lord, in the morning my prayer comes before you.”
I began worship today praying Psalm 63 that I put to memory many years ago.
When Jesus went alone to pray in the morning, He carried on a devotional exercise all his devout forbears had practiced. To begin the day with God draws on the nurture God offers. Don’t write yourself off because you are a night owl. We all need to begin our day with God.
A beloved pastor told his congregation more than sixty years ago: “For a long generation a revolt has been in progress against old, familiar techniques of Christian living, such as private prayer, public worship, directed meditation, and family devotions.” I believe an honest pastor would echo this remark in our day.
I wonder if in a time of international crisis such as this, when war is on everyone’s mind, if we may not see a return to the means of grace God has used from ancient times to nourish His people. Might we demonstrate here that God is able to turn evil to our good, and you find this truth demonstrated in your own life?
September 11th, 2001 was a Tuesday. That evening many people looked for a place to go to church, a place to remember God, a place of refuge. I got a lot of phone calls that day, “Are you having a service this evening?” For a day many people turned to God.
I thought that surely we would have a large turnout for morning prayers on the day after the twin towers of the World Trade Center crashed under the impact of those jet liners. But Wednesday, September 12th, was one of our smaller turnouts. 7: 00 AM is pretty early after all.
My impression is that whereas we have not lost the great ideas of our faith, we have lost the power of the Gospel, largely because we have forsaken the means of Grace God has provided for us. Our creeds, our good theology, and our confessions are well protected. Our problem is not a shortage of people who believe in Jesus, but a shortage of people who live well nourished in heart.
We need continual nourishment. Unless we are accustomed to seeking regular nourishment from God, in times of distress we may discover our coping powers are gone.
Last Wednesday many Christians throughout the Western world went to church and part of their worship involved having a spot of ashes placed on their foreheads. Placing ashes on the brow is a spiritual exercise, a humble act, a deed to help the soul. It is good to have times such as this, even though it has not been the practice of this church. Ashes are a sign of humility before God, and humility before God is a good thing. But it is not a seasonal need we have.
What you need, and what I need, is regularity of nourishment. I wish I could unfold for you what Jesus prayed in that morning season of prayer. I can’t. The Gospels mention something of what Jesus said on a couple occasions when He prayed. John 17 tells us that Jesus prayed very earnestly that we who follow Him might be one, even as He was One with the Father. Why did Jesus pray this? Might it be that our oneness, our togetherness is one of the means of Grace God offers that is most effective in keeping us nourished of soul? We cherish our independence, but we need unity.
We noted a few weeks ago in Wednesday morning prayers, as we read Deuteronomy 14: 22 and following, that one of the principal reasons God commanded His people to tithe was to get His people to come together to eat together. The purpose of tithing is not to make the church rich, but to bring God’s people together. They brought a tenth of their crops and ate together and fed widows, orphans and priests. When God’s people eat together, it helps to keep strong our sense of togetherness. We find it is so here. Our pot-luck dinners are fond affairs. You mingle with people you didn’t know before, talking, listening, sharing your best cooking. We see no frozen dinners or fast food at our pot-luck dinners. God ordained for ancient Israel that eating together would be a source of spiritual nourishment. It moved God’s people toward actual unity, rather than toward a theory of unity. We ought to eat together often because this is a means of God’s nourishment. Pot-luck dinners are a means of grace.
Then, I notice that Jesus was regularly in the synagogue on the Sabbath Day. Why? Moses never said a thing about synagogue worship. God just said in the Ten Commandments the Sabbath was for rest. But Jesus accepted the regular practice of synagogue worship because the Jews needed to come together for worship, particularly after they were scattered as a people after the exile.
You and I need to be regularly in worship. You and I need to regularly hear the Scriptures preached, to join our hearts with others in gathered prayer. We need to sing the great hymns that have nourished our forbears, that teach us the great principles of faith as we sing. Generations of our forbears learned much of the wisdom of the Bible and remembered it from singing the great hymns.
At public worship one of the pastor’s duties is to teach the congregation how to pray. The reason I pray extemporaneously, not reading my prayers, is to share with you my heart. I let you see into my heart to know how I pray. It is one of my duties to you when leading worship to show you how I pray when I lead in prayer. You say “Amen” to my prayer, making it our prayer. Jesus’ disciples asked Him, “Lord teach us to pray.” As Jesus’ under-shepherd for your sake, I share with you my prayer at least partially to help you who wonder how to pray. Prayer is a means of God’s nourishment.
If you are not often with fellow Christians and don’t have regular habits of public worship, I suspect you’ll also confess that you don’t feel regularly nourished in your soul.
Jesus didn’t just go to the synagogue on the Sabbath only because He needed to hear the Scriptures read and taught. He was a resource to others when they came to the synagogue. How often it was when He was at the synagogue that he found people needing healing. The reason why Jesus so often collided with those who thought He shouldn’t heal on the Sabbath Day was that He was with needy people in the synagogue on the Sabbath Day.
You and I are not Jesus, but when we are together with others here on the Lord’s Day, we have the opportunity of being God’s channel of blessing to others. You may be a source of God’s blessing to someone else, if you will be regularly with them in worship on the Lord’s Day. Here we find need and the supply of need coming together, with you in your need, and you as the supply of someone elses’ need found in one place. This is part of God’s plan for our nourishment.
Pray alone. Be often in fellowship with others at the dinner table. Worship regularly on the Lord’s Day. Be here as a resource for others as well as to find your own supply.
A fifth means of grace God offers us derives from another function of the synagogue in Jesus’ day. One of the oldest names for the synagogue was bet-ha-midrash, house of study. Jesus would sit down with others in the synagogue to study the Bible. This meant reading it aloud, and then listening to explanations of it from a teacher, and discussing it. From this practice in the local synagogue a whole new body of sacred literature developed, midrashim, commentaries that derived from devout people talking about the pertinence of the Bible. It was a life-long practice that nourished God’s people. It implemented the truth we teach our children, “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee. Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
I notice here a general exodus from our building after morning worship. We are forfeiting one of the means of grace that God offers us.
We have not thought through our practice of relegating Sunday School to children. It is a practice that has developed out of neglect. The children’s Sunday School is a beginning point, not the end point of finding nurture in Scripture. A pattern has developed throughout the church of neglect of the Scriptures. In seminary every candidate for the Presbyterian ministry has to start to learn Hebrew and Greek in order to have the background to teach the Bible in the churches. But nearly all pastors have no intention of going past the kindergarten level in Hebrew and Greek. It is a pattern of neglect we have passed along to our churches. A means of nourishment Jesus used, and that you and I need to use, is to re-cultivate the study of Scripture together on the Lord’s Day. You all need to be in Sunday School. I know for a fact that right now we have excellent adult as well as children’s and young people’s classes being offered. I urge you to take advantage of these. It will help to feed your soul.
I wonder if we very deliberately tried to cultivate habits of private prayer in the morning as Jesus did, and of cultivating our oneness, by eating often together, of cultivating our oneness by coming to pray together, and of never missing worship together on the Lord’s Day—so that we can be together under the sound of Scripture, singing, praying, and studying together-and being here a source of help to others in need, if we might find a more robust sense of God’s nurture.
If Jesus needed to nourish His soul, though He was God made flesh, you and I need it too. Where did Jesus find his source of endurance? In praying alone in the morning. In eating often with others. In the synagogue where He heard the Scriptures, heard them explained, explained them Himself, and where He found others who needed Him—and who prayed with Him. All this is available for us. I hope you will use the means of grace God offers you, and that you will find strength in your time of need.
Let us pray: O Lord, we thank you that you have not left us desolate, but that you offer us strength to help in time of need. We thank you for the riches of grace offered us in Jesus, in whose name we pray, Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at March 9, 2003 09:30 AM