Last week, we started a church-wide focus on what it means for each one of us to come to the water and receive God’s abundant life. The main metaphor for the focus is water, so for today, we’re going to give some thought to the importance of drawing water in our faith.
Last Sunday, we looked at the importance of preparation. Once the pump is primed and the water starts to flow, we can begin drawing water—that which sustains and brings about renewal and new life.
One key method by which we draw water is through prayer. Prayer is what nourishes and refreshes us.
How do we learn to draw water? Not only draw it, but receive it? Here are some thoughts that I think are helpful, at least for me, in understanding prayer and the drawing of this water.
First, prayer is something that we are to do confessionally. We are invited to confess our sins to God. When we draw water, we don’t want to draw dirty water. That’s not going to help us. We need clean water.
Think about why it’s important for us to pray. One reason why prayer is so essential is that it helps me to confess my sins. For me, prayer always begins confessionally.
That might not sound like a fun way to begin prayer but it is so important if we want to live transformed lives. Confessing where we have not lived out who God has intended us to be doesn’t mean that we’re to go around feeling bad about ourselves.
It actually opens the door to freedom and the ability to receive God’s grace and new life. All of us have areas of our lives where we are broken and in need of God’s grace.
That’s why we have verses like this that say,“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
In the eighteenth chapter of Luke, Jesus told a parable about two men who went to the Temple to pray. One of them, a Pharisee, was rather arrogant and proud, and he told God about all of the good things he had done. The other man, a dishonest tax collector, stood off at a distance. He didn’t even feel comfortable kneeling to pray, but just hit his chest and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Jesus said this man went to his house justified, “for . . . he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Prayer is not about telling God how good we are. God already knows us. God knows all of the good things as well as the not so good things.
It’s not that we have to dwell on our shortcomings, but it helps when we’re honest so that we can be readily receive God’s forgiveness. When we ask for God’s forgiveness, that’s where we can experience great joy in our living.
When I say or do something that is not reflective of my best self, there are three approaches on how to move forward. I can repress it, I can express it, or I can confess it.
If I repress it, I just push it down deep into the recesses of my mind. It’s a lot like pushing a ball down in the water. The further down you push it, the higher it’s going to come out of the water when it finally gets released. Repressed things always find some expression at a later time.
Some people choose to express their sins. That can be a good thing if you have a close friend or a group of people with whom you can trust. The problem with sharing your shortcomings with just anyone is that it might not help you or the people you are telling.
And so, an emotionally healthy way for us to come to terms with our shortcomings is to confess them to God. We confess and receive God’s forgiveness. That’s one reason to pray: because it’s a way of purifying—of cleansing— to help us be the people God has called us to be. Prayer brings God into the picture to help us to be a people of transformation and new life.
The psalmist David said, “I confess my transgressions before the Lord.” It has been said that, years and years ago on the frontier, people used to do their praying daily and their bathing weekly. Prayer is something we are to practice daily and not just weekly. It’s a method of cleansing.
Think of the act of prayer as a little bit like a calculator. You can input certain figures, but when you hit the clear button, it cleans out everything in the calculator. Prayer is a time of cleansing, of confessing, by which God wants to wipe away all that would keep us from being who God has called us to be.
We are told that God will remove our sins as far as the east is from the west, as far as the deepest sea. God will remove our sins, though they be like crimson and make them as white as snow. In other words, God is more than able to help us overcome the brokenness in our lives. So, if you want to draw clean water, begin confessionally.
Here’s the second thought about prayer. Not only do we pray confessionally, but we’re also invited to pray conversationally. God loves us. Jesus is alive. Jesus is real. We can have a relationship with God that leads to new life.
I love when two of the disciples were going down to Emmaus. All of the sudden they were joined by a third person, and they didn’t know who he was. They were conversing together like friends. Then all of a sudden they discovered that their companion was Jesus.
Here is something that is helpful to remember about drawing from the water of life. When we’re committed and that commitment is genuine, we will most likely begin to discover through conversational prayer that God longs to be in relationship with us.
Prayer is how we cultivate our relationship with God. Think of prayer as having a conversation with God. Somebody once said the best way to learn how to pray is to just imagine that Jesus is sitting in a chair across from you. Talk to him, then let him talk to you. Prayer is a conversation that can really renew our spirit.
Third: we are invited to pray consistently. Prayer makes a difference in our lives. Prayer makes us different people. There’s a well-known saying that “prayer changes things.” I don’t think that’s really true. I think prayer changes people and then people change things.
So, what happens when we pray? One of the things that begins to happen is that our lives change. We become good stewards of all that God has given us, prioritizing all of our resources. And this relates to a lot of different areas of our lives including how we treat people, our neighbors, how we go about our work, our responsibilities in school, how we handle our finances, and how we care for those closest to us.
Picture in your mind one of those antique roll-top desks. You know, one of those that when you roll up the top, you can see all the various compartments? People put different things in the different compartments.
You could put your bills in one spot, and your notes in another one, or things you needed to do in yet another one. For a lot of people, life is compartmentalized. We tend to put our work here, our family here, maybe our church over here, our relationship to God here, and maybe our leisure time right here. We put them all into their specific compartments.
Instead of thinking about our relationship with God as just one of many little compartments in that roll-top desk, think of it as the desk itself. When God is the highest priority in our lives, it includes all of the compartments of life. It’s not just one of many categories.
Or maybe even a better image in thinking about our faith isn’t a roll-top desk at all but rather a flat desk with everything on top of it. It’s together and we’re consistent in everything that we do. God is that kind of desktop. All aspects of our lives—be it home, work, prayer, or church—all are strengthened, and all are focused on where our top priority is. That’s also true stewardship of all areas of our lives. Prayer touches every aspect of life.
Here’s a fourth are of prayer for us to consider: when we pray, we are invited to pray confidently. When we pray, we’re not just saying words, we’re praying to a God who hears our prayers. We’re praying to a God who is interested in what we think and what we have to say.
If you draw water from God, it’s going to be more than a trickle. It’s going to be overflowing in how God wants to answer our prayers. Sometimes the answers come all at once, and sometimes they come more as part of a process. But God does and will answer prayer.
In the book of Acts, there’s a beautiful example of answered prayer that probably reveals a lot about how we often approach prayer. Peter was in prison, so a group of people were praying for his release. While they were praying at the home of Mary, a knock was heard at the door. A servant went to the door and recognized Peter’s voice.
Although they had been praying for Peter’s release, they weren’t really expecting it, so the woman was a little bit shocked. Instead of opening the door, she hurried back to those praying. I can almost hear her running to the back and saying “Hey folks, you’ll never guess who’s at the front door.”
They prayed for Peter, and God had answered their prayer. Maybe we should pray more confidently since we have all of these examples of how God answers prayer.
A boy had been busy making a list of all the things that he wanted for Christmas. His father was observing this process when the boy put down a column called “things received” and listed something from his grandparents.
His dad pointed out “They haven’t given you a gift yet, have they?”
The boy replied, “No.”
The father asked, “How do you know they’re going to give that to you?”
The answer: “I know they’re going to give it to me because they said they would give it to me. I can go ahead and write it down.”
That boy was confident that his grandparents would do as they promised.
When we pray, we can write it down that God heard our prayer, because God is always faithful. So, then, how should we pray? We are to pray confidently.
One final point about prayer: we are invited to pray compliantly in accordance with God’s intentions for their to be healing, justice, and peace in our world. Prayer is not about bending God’s will to meet my will. Prayer is about bending my will to meet God’s will where God’s kingdom is made real on earth.
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are praying for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. This phrase in that prayer is reminding us to pray compliantly.
There are a couple of ways for us to pray compliantly.
Pray with an open mind. Praying means that we are open to what God wants and not necessarily to want we think is best.
If you throw out a rope to a rowboat a few feet away from the dock, the people in the boat don’t pull the dock out to the boat. They pull the boat to the dock. Prayer isn’t pulling God out to where we are. Prayer is pulling us to where God is and where he wants us to be.
What a joy in growing in our prayer lives. We are invited to pray confessionally and conversationally. We are invited to pray consistently, confidently, and compliantly and be open to how God will lead us through whatever we may be facing.
Throughout this week, I invite us to offer our prayers, knowing that prayer is what helps us to draw the water that leads to having abundant and fullness of life.
[This sermon is based on the resource, Treasures of the Transformed Life, Abingdon Press, 2006.]
Come to the Water: Drawing Water
Sermon Discussion Questions
Acts 12:1-7, 11-17 & Luke 18:9-14
September 27, 2020
We are in the 2nd part of a six-week series on “Come to the Water.” Water is a powerful image used in the Bible to refer to the abundant life that God has in mind for each one of us. One of the ways that we come to the water is by drawing on prayer. The sermon mentioned four aspects of prayer that can help deepened our prayer lives. After each of these aspects of prayer, share how you might incorporate these more into your prayer life.
Pray Confessionally (Confessing our sins to God to receive forgiveness.)
Pray Conversationally (Conversational prayer is through a personal relationship with God.)
Pray Consistently (Consistent praying is how we cultivate our relationship with God.)
Pray Confidently (Confidence prayers is based on God’s faithfulness and love for us.)
Pray Compliantly (Compliant prayers are based on God’s will not our will.)
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