Embracing Prayer and Stillness in Daily Discipleship

"Next, we try not to go a week without talking about our prayer first posture. It's something we desire to be known by in this church, and there's various ways to engage with that regarding getting requests in that the church can be praying about, the app, the website, text, email, phone call, all those things. Put a prayer card in the prayer first posture box." [00:25:46] (26 seconds)


"We would love to pray with you. And even this morning, those of you that are part of the prayer chain, if you're not part of the prayer chain, if you want, fill out one of those prayer cards with your email address, put it back there. We'll add you on there. But we got a message saying Jean Westby went into the hospital last night with some pretty significant heart issues." [00:26:11] (18 seconds)


"So her son Joe was sharing and asking that the church be praying for her. So we invite you to do that. She's going to be there for a little bit. We don't really know many details, but we ask you be praying for that, and we'll take a moment here and pray for that. And then finally, there's no slide for this, but unless you've been off in the woods somewhere, without signal, you've probably heard about all the crazy fires going on down in California and saying the most significant wildfire disaster that the nation has ever seen." [00:26:30] (34 seconds)


"Well, we've talked about how we are called to be peacemakers and how Jesus came for sinners through a family line of sinners and nothing we've done makes us too bad, too bad for Jesus. Nothing. We've talked about how Jesus didn't meet the expectations of John the Baptist and others when he came. And then how sometimes we project our expectations on God. And rather than just having a posture of faith and trust." [00:32:55] (35 seconds)


"Last week Ed said, and I wrote it down, the promise of Christmas is joy and peace that only comes when we accept God's promise of forgiveness in Jesus. God's promise to you. God's promise to us. So what's our response? What is our response to the gift of Jesus? What should our response be? What should our response be to the gift of Jesus?" [00:35:54] (28 seconds)


"Because we sit here, we sit here all stoic and calm, measured and proper, we express our thankfulness in even tones, we read scripture reverently, and Paul's having none of it. He's having none of it. This passage is often cited as evidence of Paul's overflowing joy regarding the gift of Jesus and his sacrifice for us and our ability to be reconciled with God." [00:41:06] (35 seconds)


"Have you ever had a child or a friend come up to you? And they're just so excited, they just spew words at you and they just don't stop, they just keep going? That's what Paul's doing here. This is Paul's praise for the past, present, and future blessing of Jesus. So I'm not going to try to read this passage as one sentence. I've seen pastors do that. I couldn't pull it off. It'd be too distracting." [00:41:52] (29 seconds)


"Paul's modeling an enthusiasm about his faith and Jesus which we should strive to replicate. A thankfulness, a sense of joy, of awe, of praise, of gratitude that God and Creator of the universe loved us so much that He sent His Son to give up His divine nature for this purpose of his life. To become human, to live as human, a perfect life, and then be falsely accused, arrested, tortured, executed to serve as a perfect sacrifice to reconcile us to God." [00:47:11] (63 seconds)


"Yet over and over in Scripture, it points us towards silence, towards stillness. Habakkuk 2 .20, But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent. Before him. Zephaniah 1 .7, Stand in silence in the presence of the sovereign. Psalm 46 .10, Be still, be still, and know I am God. There's more. But often most of us are afraid of silence." [00:54:16] (43 seconds)


"Have you considered that God is desiring for you, you to play a significant role in someone's life? Have you considered that God is desiring you to play a significant role in his kingdom? Have you considered that God is desiring you to take your next step in your journey with him? He has things he wants to say. He has things he wants to say to us." [00:57:13] (37 seconds)


"Let me remind you, God has a long history of using broken people to further his kingdom. Remember Ed's sermon? The people that were in Jesus' family? We are all broken. That's why Jesus came. That's what the gift and promise of Christmas is all about. Because we can't do it on our own, and we aren't supposed to. But we're too busy or callous to model Paul's praise and joy." [00:58:08] (39 seconds)


"Seriously, if we truly consider it, it should really blow our minds. If we're truly considering it. So I asked how much silence. stillness was in your life just a moment ago. The data suggests that Americans get about 40 minutes of downtime a day, but most of that is spent online, reading a book, watching something, listening to something, or that little bit of time before you go to sleep." [00:59:18] (35 seconds)