Dr. Scott Dudley February 8, 2009 The Most Dangerous Prayer of All Sermon Series Dangerous Prayers Psalm 61:1-4; 119:33-37, 41; 139:23-24; Luke 1:38 This week I read a story about a mom who was tucking her six year old son into bed during a thunderstorm. The boy said, Mom, I m scared, would you please sleep with me? The mom said, I can t. I ve got to sleep with Daddy tonight. After a long pause, the boy finally said, Oh, all right, the big sissy. We have been talking about dangerous prayers that aren t for sissies. Today I want to talk about what sounds like the most dangerous prayer of all, which is, God, do whatever it takes to get me close to you. Do whatever it takes, Lord, sounds kind of scary, doesn t it? We re not sure what God would do, and we re kind of afraid. What might He make me do? Will He send me to be a missionary in Africa? I don t want to do that. Is He going to take away something I really like? I don t want that to happen. But I think, actually, this is the safest prayer we could possibly pray. What it says is, Lord, You know better than I do what is good for me, and I m trusting You with that. So, God, bring it on! The result of this prayer is always a greater closeness with God, a greater experience of God s love for us. And when we experience the Father s love in a deep and real way, we don t care what He asks us to do. We ll do it with joy, because nothing else matters. The Father s love pushes all those fears, all that pain, all that shame, pushes it right out of us. In the Psalm, David says, I long to dwell in Your tents forever. You can hear this deep longing for a close connection with God that is real, that isn t just theoretical, that goes deep into his soul. Do you ever have that longing for God to be more than just a theory? To be able to speak to Him like you talk to a friend, and experience His love for you in a way that drives out all your fears, drives out all your pain, drives out all your shame? Last week I told you about how God s love for me has become a lot more real to me in the last couple of weeks. The best way I can describe it is there s this flood in my chest of His warmth and His love. I can feel it physically. All I want to do is be with Him. I keep sneaking out of my office to go pray. Kind of distracting for a pastor to do that. When I feel His love inside of me, nothing else matters. Fear goes away, anger goes away, it all goes away. Everything around me fades, and I m focused on Him. This has not been usual for me. Yesterday I was praying, and I spent a really long time in prayer. I kept thinking to myself, Okay, I got to work on the sermon. Got to work on the sermon. But then I kept praying, kept hanging out with the Father. So if the sermon s a little unpolished, blame Him; because it was too cool to be in His company to stop. This has never been the case in my spiritual life. I ve prayed; but not like this. It s sort of like the old joke where the man in the pastor s church comes up to him on a Sunday and says, Pastor, that was a great sermon. The pastor wants to be modest, so he says, Well,
thank you. God gave it to me. The man said, It wasn t that good. This is sort of the opposite. If I neglected the sermon it s because it was so great to be in the Father s presence. The Bible says, Better is one day in your courts, O Lord, than a thousand elsewhere. And I have tasted some of those thousands of elsewheres, and they can t hold a candle to being in the Father s love. Many of you have been experiencing this kind of connection with God for decades, since before I was born. You guys know all my fears and insecurities, so if God can be doing this in me, you all are going to be a piece of cake for Him, because you are way ahead of me. And what would you do to have more of that kind of love that drives out fear and pain and anger and all the rest? What would you do? Would you be willing to pray, Lord, do what it takes to get me closer to You. What might He do if we pray that? The text we read gives us a couple of ideas. For starters, God probably would want to get rid of idols in our life. Psalm 119 says, Turn my eyes away from worthless things. There are a lot of things we turn to that we think are going to make us secure, money, looks, success, reputation, whatever, and they don t. The Biblical word for that is idolatry. If we pray, Do what it takes, God, to get me close to you, He may take away some of those idols, either directly, Himself; or through circumstances that He didn t cause but He can use anyway. For instance, would you say money has been an idol in America? Money is not bad, but if we turn to it for security instead of God then it s an idol. God can use this economic downturn to wean us away from that idol. It s not that God is punishing us, that s not it. But He can use this recession as an opportunity to get us closer to Him, and show us that our security is in Him, not in money. Now I know some of you have lost your job. Some of you are fearful of losing your job. I know what I m saying right now can sound kind of Pollyanna. I get that fear. We re running a non-profit here, which are decidedly vulnerable, although thanks God and you all, so far we are okay. But I get the fear. But I also know that over the years I ve met dozens of people, told you their stories, who were in deep financial distress, who have said it was one of the best things that ever happened to them. It wasn t easy, it was often scary, but they discovered that God had their back, and He provided, and that made them know that He was there for them, and that took away all their fear. You know, when David goes to kill the giant Goliath, he has this great verse. He says, Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? I just love that phrase, uncircumcised Philistine. It sounds like a bad thing, right? You don t want that. David stares it down. Folks, Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah. Lions are strong. So, to paraphrase David, what is this flat-footed, uncircumcised, no account, low-life, dirty rotten recession, that it should defy the armies of the living God? Yes, it may get tough. Yes, you may not know what the future holds. But you know Who holds the future, and He holds you, and He will not let you fall. He is the lion of the tribe of Judah, He is on your side, whom shall you fear? This recession is a chance for Him to show us that He is faithful, even when our economy is fickle. 2
That goes for all the other idols we look to for security, our looks, our reputation, success, you name it. Sometimes even certain religious practices, if we look to them rather than to God for our security. When I was in seminary I worked as an intern at a church. At this church, on their communion table, they had a bust of their former senior pastor, staring out at them. Can you imagine that? I love my predecessor Dick Leon, but would you want him staring out at you right now? No, not me. Neither would Dick. He d be mortified at the thought. After the new pastor had been there for five years, he moved the bust from the communion table to a smaller table nearby. That night all the elders went to his house and bullied him so much that he moved it back. The elders kept saying, It s just not church if the bust of Pastor Brown isn t staring at us. Okay, that s just creepy. That s an idol. They looked to it, not to God, for their security, and it kept them from experiencing the fullness of God. So for their own good, God tried to take it away, only they wouldn t let go. I told you this story a couple of years ago; I want to tell it again. When I first got the job here, but was still down at Menlo Park, I was kind of feeling afraid to come up here, plus everyone down there was mad at me for taking the job here. As I was kind of sharing this with one of my students, aka whining about it, he listened for awhile. Then he said, Hmmm. You have come to believe that you cannot be blessed outside of Menlo Park Church, and Menlo Park Church has come to believe that they cannot be blessed without you. The Biblical word for that is idolatry, which is why you must both part company, so that you will discover that God is your strength and nothing else. The Bible says, Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that might otherwise be theirs. When we pray, Do what it takes, God may remove idols that block us from experiencing Him, which may sound scary, but once you experience His overwhelming love, you don t care, you re not afraid anymore, and you will say, along with the Apostle Paul, I consider everything a loss, compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my lord. The second way God may answer this prayer is to remove barriers to Him in our hearts. Psalm 139 says, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any wicked way within me, and lead me in the everlasting way. By test here, the psalmist doesn t mean that God is going to give us a test that we have to pass. It means He is going to search out our soul and remove any wickedness that blocks us from Him. Certainly that could mean unconfessed sin that blocks us from experiencing God, but there are other things that can do that. Things like lies that we believe about God or ourselves. Lies like, God s out to get you, and keep you from having fun. Or, You re a mistake and you can t be loved. Or hurts and wounds from our past can block us from experiencing God. I know a woman who had a dad who was very abusive. She ended up in a very abusive church, that told her that if she didn t have certain kinds of spiritual gifts, and pray a certain way, and this and that, that she was spiritually inferior. All this made it very difficult for her to connect to God, because she saw God as this big meanie in the sky. Well then God led her to a new church, where the pastor was a very strong but also a very caring man, and that gave her a different image of God. God searched her heart and found a wicked way within her, but not of her own sin, of other people s sin against her, and He removed it, so that she could experience Him. 3
The third thing God might do if we pray this prayer is to give us an assignment that is so big that we have to rely on Him in order to do it, and that brings us closer to him. That s what He did with Mary. She says, May it be to me according to Thy word. She becomes the mother of Jesus, which forces her to hang onto God and get to know Him better to complete her assignment. Now, when I say a big assignment, I don t necessarily mean something huge like moving to Africa or something like that. It could be something as simple as forgiving someone who has wounded you, which would take relying on God. Or it may mean caring about someone in your office. Something that forces you to get closer to God. When we pray, Do what it takes, God may take away an idol, remove barriers in our heart, or give us an assignment that makes us rely on Him. But in all cases, the net result, where this prayer ends us up, is a deeper experience of the Father s love. Not as a reward for being good, but because He removed the barriers in our hearts. Now, everything I m saying here depends on that last point, because it sounds kind of scary. Oh, I don t know if I want Him in my heart, I don t know if I want him taking away idols. It sounds kind of scary if we don t believe that the Father s heart is good. If we think He s out to get us, this can be very scary. Somebody sent me a story about a family that had a very rambunctious young son and daughter. They asked the pastor to straighten the kids out, so he agreed to speak to them separately. The little girl went first. She went into the office, and the pastor looked at her and said, Where s God? She kind of sat there. So he asked her again, Where s God? She got up, left his office, ran home and said to her brother, Boy, are we in trouble. God s missing, and they re blaming us. God s not blaming you for anything, and He is not out to get you. He s out to love you into freedom and wholeness and joy, because His heart is good. The Psalmist says, May your unfailing love come to me, O Lord. In other words, earlier, he has basically prayed, Do what it takes, and the result is he knows that his Father s love is on the way. How you experience God s love will be unique to each of us. Yours may be a quiet revelation in your heart, in the stillness, it may be very quiet and subtle. It may be an intense emotional experience. It may be something you read or hear in a sermon. There s no one way. Churches who say there s only one way to experience God get in a whole lot of trouble. But however He shows you His love, He wants to show you. One of my former students worked on Wall Street for a couple of years, right out of college. This was a couple of years ago, back when working on Wall Street was a good thing. He went to church very faithfully, but he d grown a little distant from God, so in a variety of ways, for about a year, he started to pray, Lord, do what it takes to get me closer to you. One day he was driving down the freeway and he started to think about HIV-AIDS victims. He hadn t really ever thought about them before, but he d seen some reports on the news, and an acquaintance of his at church was a former drug-addict with HIV-AIDS. He was driving, and he suddenly felt this tingling, starting in his hands and feet, went to his whole body, kind of got hot, and he thought, Maybe this was the Holy Spirit. He started to cry. He cried so hard he had to pull over at a gas station for about a half hour. 4
Well, for weeks after that, his heart broke every time he thought about HIV-AIDS victims. He felt this enormous love from God and for those other people. He wanted to do something to help them out in the name of Jesus, but he didn t know how. He was a financial analyst, not a doctor. But it kept persisting. Finally he decided, really without too much prayer, that he d quit his job. Then nothing happened, except that he was unemployed. So he was a little hasty there. He was only 25 years old at this point, hadn t worked long enough to save up a bunch of money, but God worked with him anyway. He decided to go to Chile, to do some mission work, but also because he figured his savings would last longer there. While he was there he did some research for World Vision, a Christian relief organization. He just happened on this job. They liked what he did so much that a couple months later they offered him a job to come up here working to help research and coordinate a new initiative to help care for, you guessed it, HIV- AIDS victims. He told me his life has never been better, he has never felt God more, or loved God more. He s having an adventure. The God of the universe hand-picked him for an assignment, and he s never been more satisfied in his life. God reached down and broke his heart for the things that break God s heart. God provided everything he needed, when he needed it. And he s now using his research and leadership skills to tangibly love the people that God loves. Yeah, it s a pay cut from working on Wall Street, or at least it was when he took it, this year maybe not so much. But if you were to say to him, Wow, you stepped off the fast track to success, don t you miss it? He d look at you as if you were nuts. He d say, Not a bit. I am having the thrill of my life. He prayed, Do what it takes, God reached into his heart, took away a few idols, gave him an assignment that got him closer to his Father, and the result was freedom, and joy, and power. Now, I m not saying that you have to quit your job. That was his story. God wants to give you your story. So will you pray this week, Lord, do whatever it takes, and mean it? I mean it God, do whatever it takes. Remove any barrier, remove any sin, wounds, lies, idols, that block me from You. Give me an assignment that makes me rely on you. Lord, do what it takes. A step you may want to consider is going to that Soaking in God s Presence conference. It s going to focus on the Father s love, contemplative prayer, learning to hear from God. That s going to be the whole focus. This summer I was trying to get my four year old daughter to jump to me in the pool. I wanted her to jump because I knew that it would build her confidence, but the main reason is I know her, and I know she would think it was really fun if I could get her to do it. But she kept hesitating. Now, I could have told her how it s okay to jump with giving her a long lecture about air speed, and distance to impact, and mass ratios and things like that. Or maybe she could study the theory of jumping in one of her preschool classes. Or I could have maybe preached a sermon, and tell some stories how other kids have jumped into their dad s arms, lesser dads, with far less manly arms than mine. But really, the only way she s going to have the thrill of flying through the air and landing in her father s arms is how? She s got to jump, and discover that her father is trustworthy. 5
You see, whether you ever pray, Lord, do what it takes, or not, you need to know this: God has already done what it takes. He came Himself in the person of Jesus, absorbed our sin and shame and fear on the cross to free us from it, and that means that we can trust Him. So will you jump? This week, will you say, Father, do what it takes to get me closer to you, and really mean it? Because anything you may lose pales in significance when you experience the Father s powerful love for you that sets you free from fear, free from anger, free from hurt, and free from shame. When I say love, I am not talking a weak, sissy kind of love. I m not talking Hollywood love. I m not talking top 40 pop song, Oh baby, baby, I ve just got to have you kind of love. I m not talking Oprah. I m not talking Hallmark card cute as a puppy dog kind of love. No. I am talking about the love that powers the universe. I am talking about the love that even as I speak is right now igniting a trillion stars. I m talking about the love that loosed the cords of Orion and can bind the clusters of the Pleiades. I m talking about the love that drove back the Red Sea. I m talking about the love that beat back a giant. I m talking about the love that made the leper clean, the lame walk, and the blind man see. I am talking about the love that conquered death and sent it running back to hell where it belongs. And all of His powerful love bends towards you, because you are His son, you are His daughter; the Father is aflame with passionate love for you. And not just generally. Not just because He s God, and theologically He has to put up with you. No! You, with all your quirks. You, with all your talents, and likes and dislikes. You, with your personality, your individuality. He wants you to hear this today. You are not a mistake. His love for you is larger even than the universe itself, and He will do anything, He will get rid of every idol, cast down every fear, heal every wound or hurt or shame, contradict every lie the devil ever told you, because He is passionate about you. He will do anything. He already has done everything. In Jesus He walked across the raging sea, He scaled the hill of Calvary with a cross on His back, and He conquered the grave, just to be with you, and just to be with me, because you are His son, you are His daughter, and He will not stop, will not rest, will not quit until you are in His arms of love. So won t you jump? Jump away from your fears, jump away from your pain, jump away from your shame, jump away from the idols, jump away from the things that hold you down and tie you up and keep you back. Won t you jump, saying, Father, I trust you, do what it takes to get me close to You. And you will land in the arms of love that will make you strong, that will make you brave, that will make you bold, and it will change your world, and it will change the world around you, because the powerful love that drives the stars will be aflame for you, in you, and through you. And He will never let go of you. So will you trust Him, and jump, and say, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit, do what it takes. And you will never be the same. Prayer: So gracious, loving, all-powerful Father, who loves us more than we can imagine; Father, better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. So Father, do what it takes. Cast down every idol, tear down every wall, heal every wound and hurt and shame that blocks Your love from us. And when we have praised You forever and a day, it will still not have been long enough to be with You. Do this, and we will give You the glory, in the powerful name of Jesus, amen. 6