Sermon (October 2) "Transformed Living: Drawing Water"

          Last week, we started a church-wide focus on what it means for each one of us to experience transformed living. 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 transformation.

          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 have 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 I should pray is to help me 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 our sins to God 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 sinned. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

          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” (v. 14). You see, prayer is not about telling God how good we are. God already knows us.  He knows all of the good things as well as the bad. It’s not that we have to wallow in our shortcomings, but it helps when we’re honest to help us receive God’s forgiveness. When we ask for God’s forgiveness, that’s where we can experience great joy in our living.

          When I sin, 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 later on.

          Some people choose to express their sins.  Now, that can be a good thing if you have a close Christian friend or a group of people with whom you can trust.  The problem with expressing your sins freely is that it might not help you or the people you are telling.

          And so, the best way of dealing with sin is to confess it to God. We need to ask for God’s forgiveness. That’s one reason we should 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. In today’s world, we tend to reverse that. We take a bath daily, but we only pray maybe weekly. Prayer is something we are to practice every day. 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 our sins.  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 take our sins, though they be like crimson and make them as white as snow. In other words, God knows how to deal with sin. So, if you want to draw clean water, begin confessionally.

          Here’s the second thought about prayer.   Not only do we pray confessionally, but I think we need to learn to pray conversationally. God wants to be our friend. Jesus is alive.  Jesus is real. He’s the best friend that we have. You see what kind of friend he is by reading the bible.

          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 their companion was Jesus.

          Here is something that is really important to remember about drawing from the water of life. When we’re committed and that commitment is genuine, we will suddenly begin to discover through conversational prayer that God is our best friend.

          Jesus is the best friend we have, and prayer is simply conversing with him. 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 water our spirit.

          Third: we need to learn 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 quite 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 treat our family

          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 these 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 it all into compartments.  Well, that’s not the biblical understanding of what it means to follow God.  True commitment is about having such a relationship with Christ that it cuts across all compartments of life to become the foundation of all of those areas.

          Come to think of it, maybe the best illustration of a life of genuine, biblical commitment is not an old roll-top desk with compartments 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 commitment lies. That’s also true stewardship of all areas of our lives. Prayer touches every aspect of life.

          Let me switch focus for just a moment and talk about prayer requests. It’s good to have people pray for you and your needs. Sometimes we even get together into prayer groups, and that’s good. Yet we have to be careful that prayer groups do not become gossip groups. Sometimes a prayer request is given, and somebody goes out and tells somebody else, and then all of a sudden, the prayer need gets exaggerated. There’s a cartoon that depicts a church member saying, “I gave a prayer request concerning my outpatient surgery last week; and before I left the room, somebody had both of my legs amputated and I was about to die.” Unfortunately, sometimes that’s what happens. So, you know, when we pray, let’s be accurate, discrete, and consistent—consistent with what is true and right and what God desires for us.

          Now a fourth thing: when we pray, we are 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.

          In the Old Testament, the Prophet, Elijah called the prophets of Baal up to Mount Carmel and said, “Let’s decide whose god is really God.” Remember the contest they had? Elijah and the prophets of Baal were each to sacrifice a bull and put it on an altar on the mountain, and the god who set fire to the sacrifice would really be God. So the prophets of Baal brought in the bull and put it on their altar. They cried out to their god, and their god didn’t answer. Elijah said, “Well, maybe he’s taking a nap or maybe he’s eating lunch or maybe . . .” The prophets of Baal became frustrated and cut themselves, trying to get Baal to answer their prayers and bring fire to the altar, burning up their sacrifice.

          A true image of prayer for me is picturing Elijah when he rebuilt the Lord’s altar of stone and put the bull upon it. He wet it down with lots of water, confident that what he was asking was going to be answered by God. He didn’t pray timidly; he prayed with confidence. And when he prayed, God responded. The fire from God came immediately and burnt up the bull, the wet wood, the stones, and even the dust.

          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. That’s what God desires most. I think what God wants to raise up in today’s churches are people who pray confidently, asking for big things and expecting to receive them. 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 believers was praying for his release. While they were praying at the home of Mary, John Mark’s mother, 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 is 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.

          I hope that when we pray, we believe enough to write it down, because God is always faithful. So, then, how should we pray? We are to pray confidently.

          One final point about prayer: we need to pray compliantly in accordance with God’s will. Prayer is not about bending God’s will to meet my will. Prayer is about bending my will to meet God’s will.

          In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before he died, Jesus prayed earnestly, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not what I want, but what you want.” Jesus was totally committed to the will of God.

          Prayer is not saying to God, “I want you to do this, at this time, and in this way.” Prayer is saying, “God, I want your will.” But how do you know his will? There are a couple of ways. Prayer is what begins to conform our will to God’s will. When we pray in relationship to God and as he begins to awaken us to new spiritual awareness, we begin to learn what God’s will is. We also learn more about his character. You can also know his will from what his promises are in the Bible.

          If you throw out a rope to a rowboat a few feet away from the pier, the people in the boat don’t pull the pier out to the boat. They pull the boat to the pier. 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, learning how to pray. We need to pray confessionally and conversationally. We need to pray consistently, confidently, and compliantly so that God’s will might be done.

          Throughout this week, pray to God knowing that this is how we experience a transformed life.

*This sermon is based on the resource, Treasures of the Transformed Life, Abingdon Press, 2006.

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