Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Brian: Today is a very special day here at Hope because we have a day of prayer. We started at eight o'clock this morning. We have prayer leaders during our service hour. I guess you and I are the prayer leaders during the service hour. Next Sunday is Sanctity of Life Sunday. I just wanted to just bring it up just for a moment because if the right to live is taken away from somebody, it doesn't matter all the other rights that are available to us. The right to life is such an important gift from God. I still remember when my dad passed away. He was in our home in hospice and I was sitting right by him and I could see his pulse in his neck, and I could just see it just start to slow down. His life was ebbing out of him; it was slowly leaving him. There wasn't one thing that any doctor in the world could do. There wasn't anything I could do about it. At that moment, again, I recognized just the preciousness of life and how valuable it is and how we need to cherish it and honor it in all people.
Today we want to pray for maybe a heightened awareness of the value and the sacredness and the sanctity that God has given to us in life. We talked about this last week, and especially your word for the year.
Jacque: Abundance.
Brian: Abundance, right. And he came to give us life
Jacque: And life more abundantly.
Brian: Yes. I don't want to have a half-life. You get into all this nuclear fission and all that sort of stuff, and they talk about half lives and this, and whatever. I didn't want a half-life I want a whole life.
Jacque: When we think about life, that's so good, Brian. It's physical life, and then it's living life to the fullest. Jesus died so we could. That's right.
Brian: That's right. Last week we started to introduce a little bit about a term that we use called spiritual disciplines. I'm not sure that the word spiritual discipline or the word spiritual disciplines are very attractive words in our culture today, but I have a little bit different spin on that this morning. I want to talk to you today about apprenticing with Jesus apprenticing with Jesus. I've been encouraging all of us here over the last few years to do a deeper dive into what I call the red letters. The red letters, of course, remember when the red letter edition of the New Testament came out and all the words of Jesus were, were written in red. I just thought, well, that's really interesting. I can see what he said. Even though I'm red, green color blind, I could still notice a difference between the black and the red. I would just dive into those words.
The red letters are the teachings and words of Jesus. Most of what we know about Christ, about the Lord Jesus comes from the gospels. Most of what we know about him comes from the gospels. The gospels are really essentially biographies. They are biographies, not just of the people who wrote them, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but they are really biographies of Jesus, biographies of many of the main characters, especially the disciples and so forth. Most of the content of the gospels is actually in stories. That's what most of the content is in. Often when we read a biography, when I've read biographies, I've been like, who would I like to read a biography about? Well, I'll read about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, and people like that; Alfred Brendel, who was a great pianist and so forth, Van Cliburn and people like this. I've read biographies because I want to learn not just information about these people, but I want to learn from them about what they did in their lives that helped them become successful, or in some cases, I also watched documentaries and I've read some books on Adolf Hitler. I've read some of those things with the idea of what not to do in my life, how not to become like that.
Anyways, in reading a biography, we don't look at just what the person said, or even what that person may have taught, but we really look to see, how did they live? How did this person live? We look at people who lived and we model the details and habits of their lives. We hopefully will be able to incorporate those patterns into our lives. We emulate their routines; we emulate their values so that the results of their lives will become evident in our lives. I was thinking about my piano professor that I studied with, Dr. Dunkin McNabb. He became the chairman of the piano department at the University of Minnesota. I was very fortunate to be able to study with him. I'm still actually studying with him. It may not sound like it, but I still am taking lessons. I was thinking about—
When I take a lesson, many times, my lessons are at least two or three hours long, but I'm not playing for, for much of that time. What he is doing is because he studied with Rosina Lhevinne at Juilliard. He was a student at Juilliard with Van Cliburn. He and Van were very good friends. He studied with Aaron Copeland, Imogene Cooper. I'm sure these names are very important to all of your people.
Jacque: I was going to say we don't know all of these people.
Brian: Victor Babin, I'm going on record so you people can go and look this up. What happened is all of these people, Aaron Copeland— hopefully, people have heard of Aaron Copeland. He studied with Aaron Copeland. All these people have inputted into his life. I've been able to spend hundreds of hours sitting in Duncan's home and just talking about all of these different people, their approach to music, their approach to playing the piano.
Jacque: So through Duncan, you've been with them.
Brian: I've told this story before, but his teacher was Rosina Lhevinne, who studied with a man in Russia, who that man studied with Beethoven. In some respects, there is a lineage to me of even the teachings of Beethoven. I'm not so much wanting to discover information about what they did in their life, as much as their approach to piano playing and their approach to music. In the same way, learning more and more spending time with Jesus does the same thing in us. Maybe a good term to use instead of using the words spiritual disciplines is maybe the term, the practices of Jesus or the habits of Jesus. What were the habits of Jesus? By the way, these habits are not an ending of themselves. When we make the habits and end in of themselves, we become legalistic.
Today, we have a day of prayer, and Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer. If our only goal is to pray, that becomes legalistic, but if in praying, we understand we are connecting with the presence of God. We are making a personal encounter with the savior, and we, in that connection can have life abundantly, life to the full. So these habits and practices are the way that we create time and space to access God. We were talking about that just the couple that we were ministering to yesterday. In that discussion, we were talking about, God is with us all the time. God has never not with us. It's almost like God is in the room, but if you don't encounter him, if you don't engage with him, if you don't identify with him, if you don't make room for him in that room, then in essence, it's almost as though he wasn't there. It's almost as though he wasn't there.
These practices that we are doing, especially today, we are going to talk a little bit about prayer, is that we create time and space to access God himself at the very deepest level of our being in our spirits, in our hearts, and in our minds. We are able to connect with God in that way. When Jesus said to John, Andrew and the guys that were fishing, he said, "Come and follow me." He said to the disciples, "Come and follow me." What he was really saying— A far better way to actually translate that verse, follow me is translate it this way: come and apprentice under me, come in apprentice under me. And if we can begin to think of being with Jesus in that way, I think it changes our whole perspective on some, on how we approach walking with God. Maybe another way that Jesus could have said this is, "Apprentice under me and copy the details of my life." Copy the details of my life. Take the template of my day-to-day life as your own. What's a template? Do you know what a template?
Jacque: A temple, oh, I am sure you have a better answer.
Brian: No, you tell me what your— When you think of the word template—
Jacque: A description of how he does it, a plan.
Brian: Yeah, and you can overlay it. You overlay it and you can like draw it and what have you. What goes into my mind was watching years ago, I don't know many women do this anymore, but sewing clothes. They would buy these patterns or templates and they would buy the material and you would spread it out. It was kind of really, really thin paper. You would pin it to the—and then you cut. That's a template in a sense.
Jacque: You are bringing up bad memories of eighth grade Home-etc.
Brian: Sorry about that.
Jacque: I get your point though. It's a good one.
Brian: Well, I had bad memories in eighth grade shop too, with templates. This is what Jesus is saying: take the template of my day to day life as your own. Jesus was saying, follow me. So if they were following him, that made him the, what? That made him the leader. It's really interesting about how Jesus led Jesus’ leadership wasn't about coercion and his leadership really wasn't about control, but rather it was about example and invitation. He invited them to come and participate with him. It's interesting how Luke and writing the book of acts, he is talks about the things that Jesus did and taught, not just taught, but did and taught.
Jesus was a doer and he modeled what it was like to be in a passionate relationship with his heavenly father. Basically, Jesus said this: if you are tired of the way you've been doing it, and you want rest for your souls, then come and copy the details of my life. If you are tired of the weariness of your life, then come and copy the details of my life, because that's my yoke. I want you to read that portion of scripture found in, in Matthew chapter 11.
Jacque: Verses 28-30. You chose the Message Bible. It's so good. Are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me; get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me, watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
Brian: Don't you like that expression, the unforced rhythms of grace. That's something we need to learn. We learn the unforced rhythms of God's grace in our lives.
Jacque: I can breathe a little easier just hearing that sentence. He goes on to say, “I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.”
Brian: Has anybody ever worn ill-fitting outfit? I didn't say leave the house with an ill-fitting outfit, but just put one on and go, these shoes are terrible or these pants or whatever. God doesn't put those kinds of things on us.
Jacque: Heaviness.
Brian: Yes.
Jacque: So I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.
Brian: Now how many wouldn't want to live freely and lightly? Isn't this a wonderful message that we have to give to the world? We have an opportunity. I have something for you that is going to blow your mind. The eyebrows are so heavy; it looks like they are five pound bricks on people. Their countenance is just down and anxiety and heaviness and worrisome. We have a gift for these people. It's a way to learn to live freely and lightly. It's in following Jesus.
Jacque: I like the line, "Are you burned out on religion?" because that's what puts that heaviness on us.
Brian: Often it does, yes. "Are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you burned out on religion? If you are, come to me," that's what Jesus said. It's interesting that most people would think that when you are talking about religion, we are talking about Jesus, but we are talking the exact opposite when we talk about Jesus.
Jacque: We are talking about us having to do it and us having to be perfect, us having to make our way, and us having to please God.
Brian: Absolutely. I love the word redemption or to redeem because it means basically like a do-over, a start over, a fresh start. I love what he says here, "Get away with me and you will recover your life." There are a lot of people who have had a lot of sins committed against them, and maybe as a result of that, they themselves have fallen into a pattern of sin in their life. Sin, of course, is destructive; it brings death. It brings all sorts of catastrophe into our lives. That's why God wants us to live righteous lives, yet there is a lot of people today, I believe, without hope. There are a lot of people today without thinking that they have much, if any, of a future, yet Jesus says, "Get away with me and you'll recover your life."
Jacque: And it doesn't take a long time.
Brian: No, in just a moment, just a moment with the Lord. Even in our pauses, we take a one minute or three minute pause a few times during the day. We can be kind of anxious or dealing with a problem frustrated, and we'll just say, let's do a pause. We'll sit down and we'll do a three-minute pause. It's incredible what God can do in three minutes if we just give him our focus.
Jacque: Even the one minute.
Brian: The one minute, that's right. It's so incredible what can be recovered in our lives? He says, “I'll show you how to take a real rest, so walk with me, and also work with me.” In other words, live in these principles; follow his apprenticing, et cetera, et cetera. Watch how I do it. Watch I do it. That's why I've been so focused the last number of years on the words in red, because that's how he is done it, these stories that he tells.
One of the practices of Jesus of course, was prayer. Prayer was an incredible lifeline of Jesus to his father in heaven. He was very intentional about it. We've talked quite a bit about being intentional in the last few months and so forth, and that nothing, really very few things are ever accomplished by accident. There are very few things that are accomplished by accident. This is to me just as a side note. Joel would be much better at teaching on this and I would be, but this is one of my banes about the whole idea of time plus chance plus matter, all this happened, evolution. In the sense of just an accident, that all this order came out of an accident in chaos. It's completely contrary to everything that is reasonable and everything that we see in our world today.
Very few things happen by accident. They happen because we are intentional about it. I want to be intentional about connecting with the ways of Jesus to be apprenticed by him and Jesus consistently postured his heart towards God throughout his day. He postured his heart towards God throughout his day. He didn't just do like just a devotion in the morning and then did his own thing the rest of the day. He may have had devotions or whatever, how he started his day, but it was a way to posture himself and prepare himself for the whole day with the Lord. It became a rhythm of living for him. I truly believe that Jesus lived a life of thanks-giving and surrender, thanks-giving and surrenders.
Jacque: He said, "I will only speak the words my father tells me to speak." Wow! He had to be in constant contact to know that.
Brian: It's so important to remind ourselves of who God is at times, isn't it? Jesus was constantly doing this. When he taught his disciples, how to pray, "Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name." Just his name is hallowed. He goes on to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, "not my will, but yours." Not my list of needs or not my list of wants, but father, what do you want for me? What is your will? We talked about this a little bit in our worship this morning, being grateful, being thankful, being grateful, especially in our prayers, triggers our remembrance, doesn't it? When we remember we can be more grateful or thankful. Prayers out of a grateful heart—Give thanks, we used to some years ago. Give thanks, you probably remember the words better than me, with a grateful heart.
Jacque: Give thanks to the holy one.
Brian: Yeah, give thanks to the holy one.
Jacque: Give thanks because he has given Jesus Christ, his son.
Brian: Again, we are remembering these things. I really believe that remembering cultivates faith in us. When I think back on the 23 plus years that we've been here at Hope Community, and I said a week or two ago that there was some incredible supernatural things that God did, but there have been also some very normal things that have happened throughout the last 23 years, but when I reflect back on our history here and all the different things that God has done and how he has provided and how he has come through and how he has been here for us and led us all these years, you know what it does? It gives me hope for what tomorrow. It gives me hope for the future. So when we reflect back on our lives, it gives us hope for tomorrow because we remember, we remember.
Jacque: I have to remember that song we used to sing: He didn't bring us this far to leave us. Yep. He didn't teach us to swim to let us drown. He didn't build his home in us to move away. He didn't bring us up to let us down. We just have to remember where we've come from and he will continue.
Brian: I'll just be honest with you, even in my own heart, even when I remember all the things that God have done, there is a little part of me that often will say, well, I hope it doesn't end today. I hope it doesn't end. I hope this isn't it. And then of course, I know that that's just the enemy trying to plant those little seeds of doubt to rob me of peace, to rob me of joy, but when I really remember, it cultivates faith in me. Remember the scripture that says, "To forget not all of his benefits" To forget not all of his benefits, how do we forget not? Isn't there a flower called forget me not? Maybe we should plant more, forget me nots, and just have them all over. It reminds us.
I wear this little bracelet; I wear it all the time. This is my version of a rosary, I guess I would call it. I'm not Catholic, but it's a prayer reminder because I pray— I wear this primarily for praying for Jessica, our daughter in law, who is in cancer treatments. I pray for her every day, but then there are a few other people that I've added because of this. I look at this and it's a reminder for me to pray for these specific people, because otherwise I'm dense. I just forget things. I need the string on my finger. Jacque, the other day was writing something on her hand. I said, "What are you doing?" She said, "I'm writing down something I have to get at the store so I don't forget."
Jacque: I write people's names on here too.
Brian: God says, he inscribed our names on the Palm of his hand; not that I think he'll forget about us. We have this tendency to forget his benefits, so we have to do things that will be intentional to help remind us about how to not forget all of his benefits. In prayer, oftentimes there is a lot of asking on our part, but there has to be equally as much yielding on our parts to God when we pray as well.
Jacque: Listening.
Brian: Yeah, asking, yielding and listening, I think are in delicate balance together. I believe the scriptures; Jesus encourages us to ask. Along with asking, we have to also yield, because I think we have to understand the frailty of our own minds, the prejudice in our own hearts, and by prejudice, I don't mean in an evil way, but the bias maybe is a better way to think of it (the lack of objectivity at times that we have). This means letting actually go of control and allowing him to answer in his time and in his way. We've all been frustrated, I'm sure, with God that the answers to our prayers have taken so long to come. Just imagine Israel, for those righteous people in Israel who were praying for the Messiah to come, especially between Malacai and Matthew 400 years. What about the people in the Israelites in slavery in Egypt and the prayers that they prayed and the struggle to remain and have faith. They were there for 430 years. Not all of those years were slavery, but probably a good 70% of them, maybe more, were in slavery. There are times where we just have to be very patient in our waiting and allowing him to answer in his time.
There is an interesting couple of verses that one of them I quoted already today. It's found and Isaiah 26, verse 3. You don't have to put it up Rosina because I didn't give it to you. It says, "Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." I find myself when I'm agitated, when I'm full of fear, it's because I've taken my mind off of Christ and put my mind on what I'm concerned about: what are they going to do? What's going to happen here rather than keeping my mind on Christ. The Psalmist also says, and I thought about this verse today because we are in a day of prayer, but to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We are to do that, praying for the peace of Jerusalem.
It doesn't really say that we are to pray for a certain political party to be in power in Jerusalem. It just says, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Boy, I think at this time in our history, we need to pray for the peace of our country. We need to just really pray for the peace of our country. So I want to leave with you this morning— I've been fascinated with the life of John Bunyan. He wrote Pilgrim's Progress and I've been doing a little reading on some of his life. He has got a number of quotes, quotations or quotes, not quotation, quotes about a prayer. I just want to go over just a few of them with you this morning as we maybe can take some of these things to heart as we pray in one of these apprenticing ways of Jesus. The first one he said is this: the best prayers have often more groans than words. Isn't that good? What does that mean? It means our hearts had been so touched by something, so moved, yet we maybe don't even know how to put into the right words, what to say.
Jacque: And the beautiful thing is God understands our groans. He understands our sighs, our cry.
Brian: And then of course, we have the wonderful gift of speaking in tongues, praying in the spirit so that Holy Spirit will actually be praying in a sense through us. Here is another one: In prayer, it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Isn't that good?
Jacque: Just going through the motions.
Brian: Yeah. It's better to have a heart and not even know how to put that heart into words than have all the right words, but no heart behind. What is this getting back to? It's really getting to relationship, isn't it with the Lord? I like this one: the spirit of prayer— I kind of think what he means by the spirit of prayer is when we have this just draw, this sense that I just have to pray about this. It's almost like an external weight that God puts on us rather than an internal, just discipline on our part. He says the spirit of prayer is more precious than treasures of gold and silver. He really puts into perspective the value of what can accomplish in prayer. I'm so excited to just see any eternity, what today is going to mean for our world and for our church and for our lives after we've spent 12 hours as a church. Other people, by the way, if you are watching live streaming, invite you to come, you can go to our website. You can find how to be a part of this today. We welcome you to be a part of this per time as well. I believe that there is going to be treasures in heaven that will just blossom because of the prayers today.
Here is another one: prayer connects to the heart of God and it is the means by which the soul, even though the soul may be empty is filled with God. Is your soul ever empty? If it feels empty, just let's go and spend time in his presence. That's how we can get fill it up.
Jacque: It's still is that way that when I feel that call to come and pray, I do just hear a whisper in my heart and God saying to me, just come and let me love you. Just come sit with me.
Brian: Yeah. Let me lavish. That word lavish.
Jacque: Abundantly.
Brian: Yes. Here is another one. Pray often for prayer is the shield to the soul. I like that. Prayer is a shield to the soul. It's also a sacrifice to God, but it's also a scourge for Satan. It's like a bunch of things all in one, like one size fits all.
Jacque: You can multitask easily in prayer.
Brian: You can multitask easily in prayer. That's right. There is just a part of me that likes to see the bad guys lose. There is just a part of me that likes to see the bad guys lose.
Jacque: You want to see the righteousness win.
Brian: Yeah. And you know what, Satan is a bad guy and prayer is a scourge to him. Next one, prayer will make a man to cease from sin or sin will entice him to cease from prayer. I really agree with that. I think the more we really spend in the presence of God, the more we become like God, and the more we become, like God, the less we will struggle with sin in our lives. It's just kind of a natural thing. Pray and read, and read and pray for a little from God is better than a great deal from men. We get a lot more when we pray. That's a good one.
Here is another one I really like: you can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed. You can do more than pray after you've prayed, but you can't do more than pray before you've prayed. In other words, this is Bunyan's way of saying prayer is a place to start with things. This is where we begin. And then I liked this last one: in all of your prayers, forget not to thank the Lord for his mercies. In all of your prayers, let's forget not to thank the Lord for his mercy.
Today, as we pray for our land, as we pray before our church, as we pray for people who are suffering with the pandemic, as we pray for different needs and the different per leaders are going to be teaching on different things some of it will be for businesses, others will be for manifestation of the spirit, racial reconciliation, sanctity of life this morning here.
Jacque: Marriage.
Brian: Yep, marriage.
Jacque: family.
Brian: Family. There are so many different things that we can pray for.
Jacque: You can find that list on our website or the app.
Brian: As we pray for these things, let's just pray with all of our hearts. Let's not worry about the words we use. Let our hearts just kind of grow towards the Lord, in a sense. Let's realize that as well, we do this as we become intentional in our per life, as we become intense and walking this way, we are implementing the ways that Jesus became one with the father. One of the things that we do in our pauses regularly is I pray that father help me be one with you as Jesus was one with you, because that's what Jesus prayed: Father, I pray that they will be one as we are one. I just have a lot of faith.
I'll be honest with you that there was a good portion of my life that I never felt like that was possible, that I could ever really be one with God. I think that had to do more with my own perception of my own destituteness, in a sense. Then I began to think, did Jesus ever pray a prayer without faith? Did Jesus ever pray a prayer that didn't get answered? And so for me, as I began to think of that, and I looked at his prayer and his prayer was "Father, I pray that they will be one with you as I am one with you," I thought I can have that. Yes, I can have that. God offers me that. It's not that I can do that, but God offers me that, that I can actually be one with God. It comes by our really recognizing he is in the room and I'm going to focus on his presence.
Jacque: I just want to say too, that I spent a lot of my young life under a lot of religion and legalism and I would think I don't have enough time to pray, like I have to give a certain amount of time.
Brian: Two hours or whatever.
Jacque: Yeah, like at least an hour to read my Bible and pray. Just a moment with God is fruitful. Of course, all the time we can spend is wonderful, but don't let that stop you from just pausing and connecting.
Brian: And so again, I don't want to beat a dead horse to death here, but the pauses that we've done has helped me to realize that in 60 seconds, I can make a connection with God. I can make a connection with God that actually makes all the difference in my day.
Jacque: And he deposits into us. It's life-changing moments, life-changing moments.
Brian: Yes. It's like a recalibration, a reset button. It's just that quick reset button, but it happens because we are intentional, which stopped everything. We stopped everything for 60 seconds or 180 seconds, whatever it would be. We just stop and we do that and God just comes. It's like, God says, "Ooh, I can't wait. I can't wait to rush in," and comes in.
Jacque: We just stop and make room for him. He doesn't disappoint.
Brian: Let's take a second here. Let me pray for you. Father, I just thank you that you sent your son, Jesus, and you offer him as an apprentice to teach us that we can apprentice with him. I prayed today, that we would look at the letters in red; we would see how he lived. We would connect with this biography of his life in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and all the other things that the Apostle Paul and others in the New Testament wrote and said about them, and how Lord these all can help us understand how to have this oneness with you, father, how we can come into a place of true unity and oneness with you.
Today, I pray for our hearts to grow and our appetites for learning how to pray, spending just even moments of prayer with you, where you will breathe your breath of life into us, this life so abundantly, this life that is so precious, such a gift. We pray this in Jesus' name and for your sake. Amen.
Let's lift our hands again. Now may the Lord bless you, and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace. May the Lord grant you today, an audience of one. May you sense his near Innes, and may you sense the freedom and peace that comes from being in his presence. This, we pray, in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Please join us throughout the day today in our day of prayer, and for those of you who are watching online, you are just as much a part of this as anybody else. We value your time with us today. God bless you. Have a wonderful day.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 1-10-21. If you would like to watch the full service, click one of the links below.