If most of us are being honest, we likely consider prayer to be a weak point in our spiritual lives. We find it hard to make time to pray; we find it unproductive in a world obsessed with hurry and productivity; we feel guilty for not praying often enough, and yet when we finally set aside the time to do so, we find ourselves distracted or confused, not sure how to proceed. Rather than serving as a life-giving connection to a redemptive, loving, and restorative God in the midst of a broken world, prayer becomes a chore or a bore or a guilt-riddled religious game. We often find ourselves, as Jesus’ earliest disciples did, wondering how we can begin to pray. Join us as Midtown as we wade into the challenging waters of prayer, exploring the way that the Psalms teach us authentic, genuine prayer, and how their model can provide us structures for how we begin to relate to and know God more fully in our own lives today.
All people--religious or otherwise--adore something above all else. Our adorations shape, and often distort, who we are. Watch as Pastor Clint explores this idea, and teaches how Psalm 95 teaches us how to adore the right thing in the right ways.
Sermon Resources:
1. The Mirror of Erised - from "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling"
2. “The so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to all be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation.” -David Foster Wallace, "This Is Water"
3. “Your deepest desire is the one manifested by your daily life and habits. This is because our action—our doing—bubbles up from our loves, which, as we’ve observed, are habits we’ve acquired through the practices we’re immersed in. That means the formation of my loves and desires can be happening “under the hood” of consciousness. I might be learning to love something that I’m not even aware of and that nonetheless governs my life in unconscious ways.” -James K.A. Smith, "You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit"
4. "Sacred Pathways," by Gary Thomas - Naturalist, Sensate, Traditionalist, Ascetic, Activist, Caregiver, Enthusiast, Contemplative, Intellectual
5. “The world is not divided between people who worship and people who don’t. The world is divided into people who worship things that will distort their life, and people who worship the only object worthy of the adoration of our soul.” -Tim Keller, Sermon on 7/7/2002
6. “We learn about the goodness of God not by contemplating the goodness of God but by watching a butterfly. So here is my counsel: begin by paying attention to the little creatures that creep upon the earth. Watch the birds and the squirrels and the ducks. Go to a brook and splash some water on your burning face. In that instant don’t seek to solve all the problems of pollution and the ecosystem; just feel the water…When we do these kinds of things with some degree of regularity, we, in time, begin to experience pleasures rather than scrutinize them…As this happens, thanksgiving and praise and adoration will flow naturally in their proper time. ‘To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore.” -Richard Foster, "Prayer: Finding The Heart’s True Home"
7. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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