Summary
Coming soon!
Transcript
Good morning. Man, I'm so excited to be here with you this morning. Hey, real quick, before we get into today's message, I wanted to just highlight one thing. First of all, some of you guys saw this, some of you guys already participated with the SNAP benefits that are looking to expire, technically they expired today. And the number of people that had affected, we as a church sent out some messaging about that we're collecting canned food items. And I'm super blessed to see there's already a huge pile of canned food items out there that we're gonna look to partnering with a couple of different local charities here in our area food pantries to be able to help support the increased need as of this morning. They saw an increase of need. The first time people come to food banks of 37% and that number is expected to continue to rise. And so we're collecting canned goods as a church this week. And so that's already happened. If you've missed that and you wanna participate in that, you can bring some stuff to the office this week. But I also wanted to let you know that we're gonna be collecting an offering at the end of this service for those of you who would rather give from a financial perspective. And the thing to keep in mind and the reason that we're doing that, one part of these funds will be designated to go and supporting some of these local food pantries and to be able to help with their process and their infrastructure and their supplies. But also part of those funds will be kept specifically and restricted for members of our church who are in need.
Because here's the thing, the issue and the need is, the scale is massive.
And the number of people who depend on this resource for their groceries is large. And I don't know how many in our church find themselves in that place, but I know and I can guarantee that there are some, if not many who are in our church who find themselves in that place. And I can't go and we as a community can't go and fix the problem in our entire state or our city and we definitely can't fix it in our entire country. But here's the thing that we can do as a church is that we can make sure that there's no family in our church who goes without during this season. And that's important because that's what family does in hard times and in things. And if you are one of the people who's here, you and your family who depend on SNAP, I know one of the things that is an issue is that there's this idea, sometimes there's guilt and sometimes there's shame and sometimes those things that are associated with having that need. I want to tell you that that does not exist here in this place.
The same spirit that rose Jesus from the grave, the same one who offers forgiveness of sins, the same one who reaches out to those who are far away, the same one who says, "I can give you your daily bread for today," is the one who is here in this context with us to be able to wrap around our arms and say, "In this season, we are family and we wanna do whatever it takes to support you and your family to make sure that in this season, you have food." Because that's a pretty low bar of what we get to walk through together. And so if you're here and you have that need,
reach out to the church, you can get info, you can call us, you can get info at the info booth. The board has voted to bypass most of our standard processes of how we deal with benevolence and the procedures so that we can quickly be able to get resources in the hands of people who need it. Like, this is not a thing that we need you to prove anything, this is not a thing that you need to be like, "Oh, well, like this is a thing where you just say, "Hey, I need help." And we say, "How can we help?" Period. Because we love you. And because you're part of this church family. And that maybe is one person in this room, or it maybe doesn't, I don't know the answer to that question. And it doesn't change the heart that we are here to take care of each other in this season because that is what community is a part. And as much as we'd love to be able to fix the problem globally, we'd be able to fix the problem. We can't do that, but we can fix the problem here in our community. And that's why the Bible says the next, that there was none who went without among them. Because we're able to take care of each other together. And so at the end of the service, right after we finish, we'll pass the buckets and you can give online to the new generosity fund that we've created. You can mark the generosity tab on the thing and everything that goes, we'll restrict those funds and we'll hold onto it for as long as that process takes. And I'm hopeful that it's not a super long drawn out process, but you know what? It is, we're committed and we're here. And because that's the thing that the church gets to be in this process. And so, again, if you find yourself and you have questions, you can call up to the church, we'll try to make the process as simple as possible and be able to love you and be able to share with you. And I hope you're able to take us up on that of you. And if you feel like, oh man, I don't know if I can, just do it.
There's no one here who hasn't gone through a time of need. There's no one here who hasn't needed help.
Everyone goes through seasons. I've needed help.
There's been times where I've needed money. There's been times where I need a prayer. There's been times where I couldn't get off a bed and I needed someone to come on my lawn. And guess what?
People from the church stepped up. I had someone come and clean my house one time because I was like bedridden and my wife was trying to take care of these kids. And someone came and cleaned my house. And that's embarrassing because my house was dirty.
And I loved to blame the kids, but my bathroom was the worst. So I can't blame the kids. And I love to blame VB, but it's not true. So guess what?
Sometimes we get to just walk in this place and say, hey, I need help.
And that's something that we get to do. And we're here and we love you. And if that's you, I hope you come and see us and we'll figure it out.
Do this with me. Stand with me to your feet. I wanna read today's scripture.
It's found in 2 Corinthians 4, verse six. (Soft Music)
It says, "For God who said,
"let the light shine out of darkness,
"made his light shine in our hearts
"to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory,
"displayed in the face of Christ."
Father God, today,
in this moment,
help us see your face.
Help us see the love in your eyes.
Help us to experience the transformational power that comes through, seeing you face to face.
It's in Jesus' holy name we pray, Amen.
Amen, you may be seated. You may be seated.
We're continuing our series this morning on prayer.
If you've missed any of them, you can always go back and check them out. But we've been kind of walking through this progression of prayer. And it's not that this is how it is, but it's just sometimes this is the journey that people go on and you never stop doing any of these. In fact, and often they become just more and more frequently parts of your prayer journey. But the first week we kind of talked about what it looks like talking to God in this idea of looking at more liturgical or pre-written prayers, or reading scripture, or praying scripture, or something that's been written before in like a prayer book or something like that, that this idea that that can be a really great starting spot or a great way to pray when you don't know what to pray. And we'll probably be talking about that a little bit more next week. And then the second week we talked about talking with God and what it looks like to me to make petition or intercession or thanksgiving and how we pray to God in our own words and have this conversation in which we express our heart to Him. And then last week we took a moment to kind of change gears a little bit and say what does it mean when we actually stop and instead of talking to God, we begin to listen to Him and believe that we actually serve a God who will communicate and speak to us and will lead us and guide us and have conversations with us that it's not a one-way process but that it's a two-way street that we get to walk down and that we can actually hear the voice of God. And even if that makes us seem crazy at times, that we trust and we believe that He speaks to us. And then today we're gonna be talking about something that the traditional word is a little different and maybe you've heard it, maybe you haven't and that's okay, but it's the idea of contemplative prayer. And what does that mean? And we're gonna kind of think about it through and talk about it and illuminate it because I think it's something that's very powerful.
Last week I started off the sermon
with that story about Mother Teresa, how she went on that news show and they asked her, what do you say? What do you pray whenever you pray? And she says, I don't say anything, I listen.
I just listen. But it actually goes on because the person who was doing the interview, I think it was Dan Rather, he basically was taken aback by this answer that she doesn't pray, she just listens. And so she says, well, what does He say to you when you pray? And she thought for a second and she says, He doesn't say anything, He listens.
Now at first glance you may think, that's the craziest kind of thing I've ever heard in my life. What do you mean He listens and you listens? That's called quiet.
It is.
And here's the thing about relationships.
Many of you have been in relationships, you're in a relationship. Some of you have been in relationships for a really long time.
You're what we like to call old.
But you can still remember, when you were first in a relationship, you remember, you just wanted to do things. Do you remember when you wanted to do things?
Like you were excited, like you wanted to go out to dinner, you wanted to go out right at the bike, you was just like, oh, we gotta do this, you wanted to go out, it's like, oh, I can't wait to see you, I can't wait, we gotta do it, and maybe when you were dating before you could see each other, like you would just come up with reasons to see each other. Like we gotta go on this thing, we gotta go on a bike, you don't even like going on walks, but you're like, I'll go on a walk with you baby, anywhere.
I just wanna do things. And listen, that's great, that's beautiful. And you know what, even when you're old, I'd encourage you, still do things.
Right, that's really good to still do things. But something happens over time in your relationship, and this is not just romantic relationships, this is friendships as well, but where it becomes less and less about doing things, and it becomes more and more about being together.
That something powerful happens when you just can be in the presence of someone that you love.
That you don't have to be doing something, that you don't have to have an itinerary set, that you don't have to show up to dinner with a stack full of note cards or questions to get to know the person. You know them, and you're known, and being with them becomes a moment to be recharged, and to be refilled, and to be rekindled.
And that just the presence, just the time to be able to sit together and to look at each other and be in this presence is something that totally transforms you.
And some of you are young, the opposite of old, and you think, I don't know if I'll ever be that way.
With time you can be.
Where you can spend 30 minutes of silence with the person that you love, and leave knowing, being assured of how loved you are.
And it's the greatest part of your day.
Sometimes young people look at old people when they're at restaurants and at dinner, and they think, they just sat there staring at each other, the whole meal, and they didn't say a word, how boring.
I don't even think they love each other.
And maybe at times that's true. I either can't judge the hearts of people,
but there's a point in time where simply gazing
into the person that you love the most, it's the most transformative, restorative, healing moment of your day. And so sometimes words only get in the way.
And looking, and gazing, and longing is something.
And Mother Teresa in this moment of saying, I don't say anything, and he doesn't say anything,
is this long tradition of an idea that comes out of scripture of what we would call contemplative prayer. And maybe you've never heard of contemplative prayer, or maybe when you think about it, you think of it like some kind of stuffy, ultra-religious, like I don't know what's happening, idea of prayer, but I wanna unpack this idea, because the best definition of contemplation
is the idea of looking, of looking. The Greek word for contemplation actually means to gaze or direct the inner gaze of your heart.
There's this great definition of contemplative prayer that I wanna say, and then you kind of just let this roll around in the back of your mind as you go, is this. Contemplative prayer is when in your mind and in your heart, you take the time to look at God who's looking at you in love.
You take a moment to stop and you say, I am going to look at God
and know that he's looking back at me.
And how he looks at me is the way that someone who's in love with someone looks at them.
And when you realize that that is all this moment is,
it can literally be the greatest transformative moment of prayer in your life.
And you won't have to say a word.
You won't have to do a thing.
You simply can see and be overwhelmed by what you're seeing. So I wanna look at this a little bit and unpack it. Listen to this, 2 Corinthians chapter three verse 18. And it says, "And we all, who with unveiled faces,
"nothing in between us, contemplate,
"or we direct our gaze to the Lord's glory, "are being transformed into his image "with ever increasing glory."
"Which comes from the Lord, who is spirit."
This idea of contemplation or another word for it is called like beholding prayer. This idea of just sitting and beholding and allowing the goodness of God to wash over you is this idea where we can just take this time to be in awe of who he is.
Not the idea of who he is, but the very person of who God is. To see the goodness and the love and the beauty that comes from it. And here's the thing, in this contemplation or in this beholding prayer, there's a couple different things that happen.
One of them, it's a time, it's a season, it's a place where yielding can occur.
Because in all of our other types of prayer, we're asking God, we're asking God, "Can you provide for me? "Can you heal? "Can you restore? "Can you renew? "Can you guide me? "Can you lead me? "Can you do this thing? "Can you take this away or can you fill this up?" We're asking God, and those things are great and powerful and super important and they should continue going on.
But at some point, there comes a place where just like Jesus, we can stop and we can say, "But ultimately, God, I trust you.
"I trust that you have what's best for me and mine, "not my will, but your will be done,
"and I yield to you."
And the second half, like the other side of that coin, is in yielding to God, you are resting in His love and His goodness for you.
And in this moment of just being and silence and quiet,
you are finding rest. You know, Orthodox Jews, even in Jesus' day, you were allowed to pray on the Sabbath, but you weren't allowed to ask God for things on the Sabbath, because intercession was work,
but resting in God was Sabbath.
That there was something that happened in the place of just being able to say, "God, I rest in you. "I rest in you." This idea of contemplative prayer is like carrying a mini portable Sabbath with you everywhere that you go. That at any moment of the day, in any stressful situation, that at any time, you can take a minute and stop and you can rest and say, "God, my world is literally in chaos right now,
"but I just want to breathe in your rest this moment."
I know that you've experienced this if you, whether you are married or you have a good relationship with a friend or a sibling or a parent, that sometimes when things are really hard and you're overwhelmed and you're struggling, you just need to take just a minute to see that loved one
and it changes everything or to talk to them on the phone.
Just that moment can just reset you.
This idea of resting in God
can transform our very hearts and our very minds just in a moment.
That's why David talks about how better as one day in your course than in the thousands elsewhere, one moment in the presence of God, one moment where you can just still your circumstances around you and behold the God who is looking at you in love is transformative.
I think those things are really important, this idea of yielding and resting and when we get to walk in that, but I think there's even something that happens in this idea of still contemplative prayer or beholding prayer.
That's even bigger and we're going to get a little nerdy. I know some of you love it when I get nerdy,
but here's the thing.
There's this great idea that comes both from Bible and wouldn't you know it, some of the most modern neurosciences like backing up this idea and I want to kind of unpack this idea and let you see what happens.
We're all familiar with like the emotion or the idea of joy, right? That we have joy. Like you either have joy or you don't. If you've watched Inside Out, that's the great character of joy. It's all you need to know. No, I'm just kidding.
But here's the thing.
Joy is this feeling that you've felt and we know the definition, we talk about it, but what neuroscience is telling us today is like that joy is something that your brain tracks and that you experience this idea and it lights up certain parts of your brain. And this great working definition from a guy named Dr. Alan Shore, I don't think he's a believer, but he's just a really big thinker in this as he says this, he says, "Joy is what you feel when someone's eyes light up at seeing you. The sparkle in their eyes that says, I'm glad to be with you."
When you walk into a room, when you walk into someone and someone sees you and you can know, you know what it's like. Your brain is like wired to look to faces, to see joy and to say, "Wow, they are excited that I'm here."
That's a really incredible feeling.
Now, if you've ever experienced the opposite,
