A Time to Listen: Prayer, Surrender, Communion

He said, this bread and this cup that had become so familiar to you, this bread and this cup are going to have new meaning tonight. And you and you may not understand it tonight, but later when you see my body broken and hanging on a cross, when you see my bloody body wrapped in a cloth and laid in a tomb, you remember these words and you remember the sacrifice that I was willing to make to bring you back to your heavenly father, to allow reunification to be possible, for you to experience communion with your heavenly father. [00:51:41] (48 seconds)  #CommunionRemembrance

And if you remember any of your Sunday school, you might remember there was a man named Job in the bible and he went through some excruciating difficult trials And Job had questions for God and Job's friends had questions for God and Job's wife had questions for God and when Job asked God questions, the response that he got was actually not a direct answer to his questions, it was better than that. [00:16:40] (28 seconds)  #GodsSurprisingAnswer

I'll never forget going with my friend Craig to worship with other Christians. There were eight of us gathered in a circle in a small apartment. We'd arrive two by two and we'd spaced our arrivals so we wouldn't attract attention. In low voices, we read the bible, prayed together, and sang. We sang in different languages, but the same songs reflecting on God's great love for us. [00:06:53] (23 seconds)  #UndergroundWorship

And so he is a good father and he wants to give us good gifts. But as we come before him and we ask, we also yield recognizing that God's idea of better really is better. So we ask and we yield. It's not God give me, it's God shape me. That's the prayer. [00:48:33] (22 seconds)  #FatherGivesGoodGifts

Matthew felt it was important to record that so that for all of church history, we have been repeating this tradition. And hopefully not just out of repetition, but to remind ourselves because we are forgetful people of how much God loves you and the price that he was willing to pay to bring you home, to ransom you. [00:53:22] (27 seconds)  #RememberHisSacrifice

The a and the y, I put together because they they kind of go together, ask and yield. And I put them together because God is not just a vending machine that we come and we ask him for things, although maybe that's how a lot of our prayers sound. But it's asking and it's also yielding our life and our will to him. Right? Not my will, but thine be done. [00:48:07] (27 seconds)  #AskAndYield

And so this morning I just want to invite you to figuratively or literally to just open your hands and to release what God has placed on your heart already. Just in the few minutes that I've been speaking there's something that you've thought of that you're carrying that's heavy and this is a chance to just release this and to bring it before God. [00:18:39] (22 seconds)  #ReleaseToGod

The r in pray is for repent. When we recognize how holy God is, we recognize how broken we are in his presence. And so guilt, you've heard me say this before, guilt drives us to repentance. Guilt is not a bad thing. Guilt is I have done something and I need to say, I'm sorry. [00:45:33] (29 seconds)  #RepentanceMatters