APR 14 2014 | Praying For Your Elephant Passion Week S1E2 | Day 2

Sea Change Church · Praying For Your Elephant Passion Week S1E2 · "Day 2" · Adam Stadtmiller · April 14, 2014
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

So if there's one thing about Jesus' prayer life that really fascinates me, something that's really stood out, it would be this. It would be that Jesus prayed. I mean, when you're God, why do you need to pray? Welcome to day two of the Praying for Your Elephant Passion Week prayer podcast for the people. I think I'm going to try to add an extra P every single day because that's just fun.

But it's great to have you today. It's great to be back on the second day. I really did jump into some prayer yesterday, trying to prepare the way in my heart for Jesus to just make himself so real. and triumphant as he enters into my prayer life once again and enters into this community prayer life. Had a whole bunch of us join us on our new podcast page.

We're using a new podcast. I think it's called Pod Center or something like that. You'll see it when you click over. You're probably on it right now. But it gives a lot of different schematics and results. And last time I checked, about 140 people yesterday tuned in for the opening day. So that's super encouraging. Back to the first one we did last July, I was about 8.

So it's been great. It's good to be here with you today. We're going to jump right in it because I know that's why you are here. You're here to pray. We're going to be talking about Jesus' high priestly prayer. And this is found in John 17. It's after he rides into Jerusalem. And we don't know where he prayed the prayer, although we're thinking maybe in the Garden of Gethsemane or how it was recorded.

But we do have this prayer. It is recorded. And Jesus has a lot of different elements and sections and things that he's praying for. I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, the thing that I find most intriguing about Jesus' prayer life is that he had a prayer life. I think he had a prayer life for a few reasons. But I think the primary one was to model for us the importance of it.

If Jesus needed to pray, obviously we need to pray. And prayer can be so difficult, so hard. Sometimes it's so discouraging. If you want to discourage someone who's a believer, you just ask them, hey, how's your prayer life going? And this podcast is to help give regular encouragement to just reboot. If the program, the screen freezes up, you just kind of reboot with this podcast.

We do it together. I want to let you know about the Praying for the Elephant Facebook pages. There's a group page that you can go and post a ton of prayers on. And then there's also the like page. If you're not on either one of those, I want to encourage you to be a part of both. I didn't plan to have two, but once I started them, it seems foolish to get rid of them.

So if you could go hit like, that would be amazing on the one. Or if you haven't, if you want to be part of our prayer groups, there's about 300 or 400 people a part of that. Go to the fellowship page or the group page, you'll find that. But hey, getting right into prayer. We want to look at this prayer by Jesus and what it's all about. So I'm going to read out of John 17 and then we're going to break a little bit of it apart and try to apply it to your prayer life.

And then followed by a prayer challenge today to spend a half hour. I'm encouraging you to spend a half hour with God every day in prayer during this week. Just a half hour praying and we'll talk more about that in a moment. But right now, let's get to John 17. Reading verses 1 through 5, starting with there, and then we'll read the rest of it.

You can go read it on your own, so I won't have to spend too much podcast time doing it. But you can read it on your own and then we'll break it up. So starting with verse 1. After Jesus said this, he looked towards heaven and prayed, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.

Now this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on the earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. Just want to look at a couple things here. One, I think it's really interesting that it says, After Jesus said this, he looked towards heaven and prayed.

Really interesting that he's looking towards heaven. You're imagining him looking up. Maybe you've seen those pictures of Jesus with the praying hands and he's looking up towards heaven. I think, obviously, God is everywhere and heaven isn't above us. Because if you're in Australia, you're looking down. You know what I mean? But I think he's doing this as a symbol to show that heaven is somewhere that's not here.

And when we pray, we're communicating with a place that is beyond us. We're going to the throne of God. And it talks about this in the book of Revelations. In Revelations 5.8, it says there's this bowl in heaven that is a place where the prayers of the saints circle and burn like incense before God. And so we see this in John 17 where Jesus, he's looking to a place beyond us.

And so we have to realize that prayer is otherworldly. Whenever you pray, whether it's praying for the light to change at a stop sign, that would be a miracle if you're at a stop sign. But if you're at a stop light and the light changes, even a little prayer like that is otherworldly. And so to realize the ethereal nature or the cosmic is another way to say it, nature, the spiritually cosmic nature of prayer is really important.

And Jesus models this here by showing that we are stepping over, so to speak. And prayer does that. But what prayer does is it reaches into heaven and the things that we're prayed for, and it grabs them and it pulls them to earth as God responds to our prayers. It's an ebb and flow and it's a back and forth. When we respond or when we pray, God responds to us.

And in that way, we reach into heaven, but then heaven touches earth as a result of our prayers. The more things you pray for, the more things you are going to see be touched in your life and in this world as God responds to your prayers. And this is one of the reasons we want to have constant and voluminous prayer. And I would say open the tap as far as you can when it comes to prayer.

It gets every drop out of the spigot, so to speak. And so, you know, as you're creating your list of prayers, and if you've been here before, you know how we do this. We create categories, family, work, ministry, on and on. And then we put maybe, say, ten categories. And then you put ten prayer requests under each category. We'll talk more and more about how to increase the effectiveness of those by adding scripture and things like that.

But it's basically ten categories to start with ten prayers. And the challenge of a hundred game-changing prayers, maybe not even so much game-changing, but a hundred prayers. And that's always the challenge of every time we do this. And if you have a list, maybe this is your third or fourth time doing it, or the fourth time we've done this together, you're not up to a hundred yet.

Just add a few. Look, I'm going to be here for a while. So I want to, you know, and I want to encourage you, just add a few every single day. But Jesus here, we see, is showing the otherworldliness of prayer. The next thing we see here is one of the key components of prayer and of asking prayer. And remember, praying for your elephant is loosely based on a few scriptures that talk about asking for anything in Jesus' name.

There's multiple of those in the New Testament. But the one that's most relevant for praying for your elephant, and that rhymed, is John 15, 7, and 8. And in Praying for Your Elephant, the book I wrote that's coming out in October, I talk about the three-fold mission of asking prayer. And prayer is actually missional. You know, I can't get into the entire portion today.

But if you look at John 15, 7, it says that asking prayer has a three-part mission. In 15, 7, it says, if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, or whatever you're willing to ask for is actually in the Greek, and it will be done for you. If you go to verse 8, then you're going to see the three-fold mission of asking prayer.

This is to my Father's glory, one, that you bear much fruit, that's two, and that shows and proves to the world that you are his disciples. And so Jesus is touching on this. It's something he's already said before, that when we pray, the key thing that we are going for is God's glory. And as you pray, I would be, as you're creating your list of prayers, asking yourself, how is God glorified in this?

Jesus, in my marriage, or this thing for my child, or for my kid's kindergarten, or whatever it is that you're asking for, continuing to have an eye on the, I would say, the target of God's glory. God, how are you getting glory for this? It's like whether you're praying for a house, or a trip, or that someone would be healed of a disease, or the end of world hunger, whatever it is, God, how are you going to be most glorified?

And this is so important to Jesus, that his Father would be glorified. And as we look back to John 15, 7, it's the first component of asking prayer. People have a tendency to say, well, asking prayer, we can get selfish. Yeah, we can definitely get selfish, but I don't think we should edit our prayers to a small little poultry list, because we're afraid we're going to out-ask, or that we're only seeking to glorify ourselves.

Because every time we ask, the next thing was, God, how would you be glorified in this? And so, as you pray today, as you make up that list, and let's say you only get 10 things on your list today that you're praying for, and you're new to this, or if you have a list of 100 things already, that you've been part of this journey for a while, begin to ask yourself and tag at the end of this list, God, in this prayer I'm asking that my child would get in to this kindergarten class, or this private school, or whatever it is, how would you be glorified?

And God, would you be glorified? So that's a great thing to tag on at the end of your prayer, of sentences. You know, Jesus, I pray that, you know, something like, I pray that my wife would continue to have amazing friends, that you would give her three really close friends. And Jesus, would you be glorified in that? Would you be glorified in how she lives her faith?

Would you be glorified in how they are missional together for your kingdom? Whatever it is. But it's constantly taking this message of the elephant that can so easily be about us, and turning it back to God. So the prescription for your prayer time today is a half hour with God, and working on your list, working on the things that you want to pray about, you want to see changed in your life.

Writing it down, categorizing it, and then as you pray through it, maybe spend 15 minutes just creating the list. It's still prayer. If you're thinking about prayer and the things you want to pray for, we'll count it as prayer. You don't have to be on your face or, you know, burning the incense, although those things are cool, but you can just be working on your prayer list, and it's still going to be a form of prayer.

And then spend 15 minutes just interceding over that list. We're going to look tomorrow at how Jesus intercedes for others, and for evangelism, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So, hey, it's great to have been here on the second day. We've got about six more days to go, and then we've got that 40-day challenge where we're going to be encouraging you to pray out loud for five minutes with another person for 40 days as we head towards Pentecost.

Hey, I've gone way too long. I love you. It's great having you here at the Elephant. It's awesome to be back. Go to the Praying for Your Elephant Facebook page, and I better close with prayer. Lord Jesus, thank you for this group. God, just build upon the elephant. Let's see so many prayer requests answered, but we want to see you glorified in this, God.

It's all about you. It's all about your glory. So we pray a blessing over all those who listen to this podcast and all those who pray. We pray, God. We pray for 10,000 requests for the people that would be bold enough to ask for anything in your name for this particular week of praying. Lord God, we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.