SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Fort St.
SPEAKER_02: John Alliance Sermon Podcast.
SPEAKER_02: I'm Nick Burry, the youth pastor here at the church.
SPEAKER_02: We're so glad you've joined us today.
SPEAKER_02: Our desire as a church is to become a community of people who practice the way of Jesus together, and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us.
SPEAKER_02: Each week we gather as a community to worship, learn from God's Word, and to be encouraged in our walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_02: In this podcast, you'll hear the latest message from our Sunday service.
SPEAKER_02: Whether you're listening from right here in Fort St.
SPEAKER_02: John or from afar, our prayer is that God will speak to your heart and strengthen your faith.
SPEAKER_02: Let's lean it together as we hear today's sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: Today we are going to be doing the scripture reading from Mark chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be verses 35 to 39.
SPEAKER_00: And I have Oliver here to do the reading for us.
SPEAKER_00: So let's start.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus prays in a solitary place.
SPEAKER_01: Right away in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and left his house.
SPEAKER_01: He went off to a solitary place where he prayed.
SPEAKER_01: They said, Everyone is looking for you.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus replied, Let us go somewhere else to the nearby villages so I can bring you there.
SPEAKER_01: Also that is why I have fun.
SPEAKER_01: So he traveled through throughout Galilee, preaching the synagogues and driving over the room.
SPEAKER_03: Just gonna move this on Alan here to confuse him.
SPEAKER_03: My name is Darren.
SPEAKER_03: I'm part of the preaching team here at Fort St.
SPEAKER_03: John Alliance.
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure most of you know that by now.
SPEAKER_03: But we're supposed to say it.
SPEAKER_03: If you've been attending Fort St.
SPEAKER_03: John Alliance for any length of time, you've probably come to understand that we as a a church body, and for that matter as a denomination, hold missions and international work in high regard.
SPEAKER_03: In the past, we've partnered with people in Niger and West Africa.
SPEAKER_03: Last five years, we've had a seamlessly partnership with uh Ben and Rachel in the Middle East, helping them with their relief and development work.
SPEAKER_03: And uh on a side note, I am very excited just to say that they will be here with us at Family Camp.
SPEAKER_03: So that is just a great opportunity to come to Family Camp to meet them, to get to know them, to learn a little more about what they do, and just to show our love and commitment to them.
SPEAKER_03: Their kids are loaded with energy and they're just wonderful people.
SPEAKER_03: So please come out and spend some time there.
SPEAKER_03: And besides that, family camp is a really great time.
SPEAKER_03: And that is saying something for me because I am somewhat introverted.
SPEAKER_03: And if you say, Darren, let's go spend a weekend with a lot of people, that is about as unattractive as that can get.
SPEAKER_03: But I've never gone to family camp yet where I did not enjoy myself and did not have a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_03: So please come out, set that uh that weekend aside.
SPEAKER_03: Even if you can't make it for the whole weekend, come down, enjoy the fellowship, and just enjoy being together.
SPEAKER_03: Along with our work uh with our seamlessly partner, we also have a long-standing relationship with the uh Alliance Church of Mexico.
SPEAKER_03: It's a relationship that's been developing for well over 20 years.
SPEAKER_03: And there's a good chance today that if you're here, you're sitting by someone who's gone, or you are one of those people who have gone on a mission strip down there.
SPEAKER_03: One of the places that we sometimes go there is uh an area called Rio Chico, which is a rural municipality in uh the southern uh Sierra Madre.
SPEAKER_03: And there in Rio Chico is a ranch which is used as a base for uh the relief and development work done in that area.
SPEAKER_03: And if you go there, you might get a chance to visit a nearby heritage site called Cuenta Casa or 40 homes.
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of neat, it's about a thousand meters up in cliffs, and there's 40 homes that three different people groups over a thousand years used as a base.
SPEAKER_03: And uh it really is pretty neat to go see.
SPEAKER_03: It's a bit of a hike up for those that have been there, they know that, but it is well worth seeing.
SPEAKER_03: One time we went, and it was kind of the off-season.
SPEAKER_03: There wasn't a lot of tourists, in fact, there was none.
SPEAKER_03: It was only our team that went.
SPEAKER_03: It was a cloudier day.
SPEAKER_03: And what's interesting is we were given a guide, and we got a more in-depth tour than what uh is usually given.
SPEAKER_03: This guy took us away from the main homes and he took us to the back and to the sides, and he showed us stuff that wasn't actually open to the general public as a rule.
SPEAKER_03: See a picture up there, there's we got to see a spring, a kind of a well that the the people would use if they were being attacked from below or couldn't get down, they had water to drink, and you can see Josh drinking out of it, we all got to drink out of it, it was kind of cool.
SPEAKER_03: And then another thing we saw at the edge of a cliff was a little wall that jutted out, and we didn't know what this little wall was.
SPEAKER_03: And our guide's English wasn't the best, so he went over to the wall, he got down on his knees, and he folded his hands, and he showed us that this was a place where those people groups prayed to their gods.
SPEAKER_03: That moment stuck with me.
SPEAKER_03: The wall was a place where they prayed.
SPEAKER_03: You know, on other trips I've been on, one trip took me to the edge of the Sahara Desert, and I saw and I heard people bowing towards Mecca and praying.
SPEAKER_03: In the Middle East, with our seamless link partner, I witnessed pieces of cloth with prayers spoken into them.
SPEAKER_03: They were knotted, and then they were hung in an ancient temple with the hopes that someone would come by, undo the knot, and release the prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Every day, billions of people pray.
SPEAKER_03: There seems to be a natural human longing to pray.
SPEAKER_03: It's worth pausing for a moment to think about this.
SPEAKER_03: Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote, prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.
SPEAKER_03: Maybe.
SPEAKER_03: Canadian psychologist David Benner describes prayer as the soul's native language, observing that our natural posture is an attentiveness to the divine.
SPEAKER_03: Our natural posture is an attentive openness to the divine.
SPEAKER_03: Now that's interesting.
SPEAKER_03: From the dawn of time, we see the evidence of all cultures and civilizations engaged in one way or another in prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Peter Gregg, in his book, How to Pray, points out that there are cave paintings dating back more than 35,000 years in Moros and Indonesia and in Chovei, France.
SPEAKER_03: And it's believed that they functioned as spiritual invocations.
SPEAKER_03: In modern-day Turkey and the hilltop of Gobletake, there are remains of a temple 6,000 years older than Stonehenge, which may itself have been a place of prayer some 3,000 years before Christ.
SPEAKER_03: From cave paintings to ancient temples and shrines, from ancient Egypt and Greece to modern times, prayer is the gaping need.
SPEAKER_03: Sorry, prayer is the gaping need of every human soul.
SPEAKER_03: Peter Gregg points out, it's no exaggeration to say that to be human is to pray.
SPEAKER_03: To be human is to pray.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus was fully human.
SPEAKER_03: Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.
SPEAKER_03: Let's bow our heads.
SPEAKER_03: Heavenly Father, I pray for renewed expectancy that your living word speaks truth into all of us today and every day.
SPEAKER_03: Open our minds and hearts to your spirit, teach us, change us, and shape us into your image.
SPEAKER_03: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: In his book, Missions, How the Local Church Goes Global, Andy Johnson says this the work of missions is urgent, but it's not frantic.
SPEAKER_03: And that's good.
SPEAKER_03: That's a good statement, but I think we can change that.
SPEAKER_03: And we can say the work of the church is urgent, but not frantic.
SPEAKER_03: And the same is true of our Christian life and of the health and growth of ourselves and our souls.
SPEAKER_03: It's urgent, but it's not frantic.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus was not idle, nor was he frenzied.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus' days were full.
SPEAKER_03: When I read through the Gospels, it seems to me that he was busy.
SPEAKER_03: In his short life, he lived to the full.
SPEAKER_03: And yet, when you read through the Gospels, he never seems to be in a hurry.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus had a habit.
SPEAKER_03: Some call it a pattern or a rhythm, a habit of retreating from society and then entering back into society to do the work of ministry.
SPEAKER_03: You know, I mentioned before that Jesus was fully God and yet fully human.
SPEAKER_03: As God himself in human flesh, Jesus prioritized time away with his Father.
SPEAKER_03: He chose to give his first and best moments to seeking the Father's face.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus made space in the demands and pressures of his human life to sit quietly with the Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_03: Blaise Pascal says, all humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quiet in a room alone.
SPEAKER_03: That's a sweeping claim.
SPEAKER_03: But in today's world of constant scrolling and a relentless stream of distractions and diversions, I think it's true.
SPEAKER_03: We are unable to sit quiet.
SPEAKER_03: If 400 years ago Pascal recognized humans' inability to sit still, how farther off or how harder is it for us?
SPEAKER_03: The competition for mine and yours' attention is ruthless.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus himself modeled for us the very kind of habits and rhythms of life we need in any age.
SPEAKER_03: When we look at our passage in all four Gospels for that matter, we find a posture that can be imitated and applied by any follower of Jesus in any culture, anywhere in the world, at any time in history.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus made a habit of withdrawing from the world and then re-entering later to do good.
SPEAKER_03: To quote David Mathis, the healthy Christian life is neither solely solitary nor constantly communal.
SPEAKER_03: We learn to withdraw like Jesus to a solitary place to commune with God.
SPEAKER_03: Then we return to daily tasks to try to meet the needs of others.
SPEAKER_03: We carve out a season for spiritual respite, and in some momentarily sacred place to feed our souls, to enjoy God there in the stillness.
SPEAKER_03: Then refilled, we enter back to be light and bred to a hungry, harassed, and helpless world.
SPEAKER_03: Christ got away from people.
SPEAKER_03: He regularly escaped the noise and frenzy of society to be alone with his father, where he could give him his full intention and his undivided heart.
SPEAKER_03: You know, in the verses prior to our passage, in Mark 1.28, it records that Jesus' fame had spread everywhere the day before, and the whole city was gathered at the door of the house he was staying.
SPEAKER_03: And that's when we find that Jesus was up before the sun and slipped away from the town to restore his soul in secret communion with his father.
SPEAKER_03: Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went to a solitary place where he prayed.
SPEAKER_03: You know, when I watch the news and check current events and just talk to people around me, I see how the whole world seems chaotic and on fire at times.
SPEAKER_03: The harvest fields are full.
SPEAKER_03: Just as they were in Jesus' time.
SPEAKER_03: There seems to be so much to do.
SPEAKER_03: Yet when I read this, I see how I how much I need the presence of mind and a heart to discern and prioritize prayer, just as Jesus did.
SPEAKER_03: This habit of retreat and re-entry was not just isolated to this one instant in Christ's human's life.
SPEAKER_03: Luke 4.42 tells us that Jesus departed and went to a desolate place, not just once, but regularly.
SPEAKER_03: Luke 5.16 said, He withwithdraw to desolate places and pray.
SPEAKER_03: Even after the death of John the Baptist, his own cousin, Jesus withdrew in a boat to be by himself.
SPEAKER_03: The crowd still pursued him, and he didn't despise them.
SPEAKER_03: He puts his desire to retreat on hold, and he has compassion on them, and he heals their sick.
SPEAKER_03: Then after feeding them, he withdraws again.
SPEAKER_03: Matthew 14, 23 says, after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on a mountain by himself to pray.
SPEAKER_03: Christ withdrew to commune with his father.
SPEAKER_03: He got away from the distractions and demands of daily life to focus on and hear and pray to his father.
SPEAKER_03: He went away by himself.
SPEAKER_03: His disciples would see him leave to pray and then return.
SPEAKER_03: But Jesus did something else.
SPEAKER_03: He also drew others into his life of prayer.
SPEAKER_03: The disciples had seen him model prayer at his baptism.
SPEAKER_03: We find that in Luke chapter 3.
SPEAKER_03: He modeled it as he laid his hands on the children, Matthew 9.
SPEAKER_03: And he modeled it when he drove out demons in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9 as well.
SPEAKER_03: And what I find really interesting is that sometimes when Jesus went off to pray by himself, he brought his disciples with him.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus brought his followers into communion with his Father.
SPEAKER_03: There are verses in the New Testament that show even when he prayed alone, his disciples might be nearby.
SPEAKER_03: Luke 9, 18 says, once when he was praying in private, and his disciples were with him.
SPEAKER_03: In fact, it is recorded that one day when Jesus was praying in a certain place, the disciples gave him one of the greatest petitions ever requested.
SPEAKER_03: Lord, teach us to pray.
SPEAKER_03: And of course he did.
SPEAKER_03: He gave what we now call the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_03: Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us.
SPEAKER_03: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_03: For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, both now and forever.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: He gave them the greatest prayer in world history.
SPEAKER_03: Think about that for a second.
SPEAKER_03: From that first lesson in prayer, that simple prayer, these men would go on to have extraordinary prayer lives.
SPEAKER_03: They would intercede until buildings shook.
SPEAKER_03: They would spring Peter from high security jail by the power of prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Their very shadows and handkerchiefs would sometimes heal the sick.
SPEAKER_03: They would receive the kinds of revelations that changed history.
SPEAKER_03: And most remarkably of all, they would one day find the grace within themselves to pray for their torturers at the very point of death.
SPEAKER_03: All the apostles were martyred, except for John.
SPEAKER_03: He was banished.
SPEAKER_03: Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ taught his disciples to do the same as he did, to bring this dynamic of retreat and return, communion and compassion into their own lives.
SPEAKER_03: I think this point gets really driven home when we read about the story of when Jesus sent out the twelve.
SPEAKER_03: After the twelve were came back, it says the apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.
SPEAKER_03: Then, because so many people were coming and going, they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.
SPEAKER_03: So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.
SPEAKER_03: And in the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus teaches all his hearers, including us today, to give and fast discreetly, but also to find a private place to seek out our Father's face.
SPEAKER_03: When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.
SPEAKER_03: And your Father who sees you, sees in secret, will reward you.
SPEAKER_03: Matthew 6, 6.
SPEAKER_03: The reward is not material stuff later, but the joy of communion with God there, then, in that moment, in your secret place.
SPEAKER_03: So where's your secret place?
SPEAKER_03: Do you have a wilderness?
SPEAKER_03: An isolated place?
SPEAKER_03: A desolate place?
SPEAKER_03: You may have noticed that when I walked up here that I limp, I have a bad knee.
SPEAKER_03: Kneeling in prayer is not a viable option for me.
SPEAKER_03: That rocking chair is in my living room at home.
SPEAKER_03: In the last 20 years, I spent more time in prayer sitting in that chair.
SPEAKER_03: I'm an early riser.
SPEAKER_03: I get up quite early in the morning.
SPEAKER_03: I sit in that chair, I put my feet on the piano bench, which is right beside it, and I drink a coffee and I pray.
SPEAKER_03: Have you set aside a place and a time where you commune with the living God?
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's a daily walk.
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's a local coffee shop.
SPEAKER_03: For some, it's a commute to work.
SPEAKER_03: There's a bunch of young mothers here today say, Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_03: It's called locking myself in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_03: But hey, it works.
SPEAKER_03: You know, even when you don't really want to pray, a place of prayer can often make it easier.
SPEAKER_03: Merely by showing up, you make a declaration of intent.
SPEAKER_03: You say, in effect, Lord, I don't want to be here, but I'm here.
SPEAKER_03: I may not always want to pray initially, but you know, most often these are the times that God meets me powerfully.
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes God just wants you to show up.
SPEAKER_03: Making the effort to become consciously present to the God who is constantly present to us.
SPEAKER_03: Prayer is relational.
SPEAKER_03: A real relationship with God means walking with him daily, like Adam and Eve in the garden.
SPEAKER_03: It means talking with him intimately, like Moses, with whom the Lord would speak face to face as a friend.
SPEAKER_03: And it means listening attentively to his voice.
SPEAKER_03: Because as Jesus said, my sheep listen to my voice.
SPEAKER_03: I know them.
SPEAKER_03: And they follow me.
SPEAKER_03: Some years ago I went to Notre Dame and Paris to that great cathedral.
SPEAKER_03: While we were there, I witnessed people lighting candles in prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Theologian George A.
SPEAKER_03: Butterk says, prayer is more than a lighted candle.
SPEAKER_03: It's the contagion of health, it is the pulse of life.
SPEAKER_03: It is needed not only for an effective Christian ministry, but simply for healthy Christian lives.
SPEAKER_03: To quote Peter Gregg once again, he says Jesus prayed and he prayed and he prayed.
SPEAKER_03: The greatest person ever to live was a man of prayer.
SPEAKER_03: He retreated, he spent time with his father, then he preached and healed and drove out demons.
SPEAKER_03: He invited his disciples to do the same.
SPEAKER_03: And he's inviting us as well.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus said to his disciples, come away with me and rest.
SPEAKER_03: As the worship team comes forward, let's just bow our heads in prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Lord, make us a people of prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Help us live with conviction.
SPEAKER_03: Help us not to compromise our faith or our time to commune with you.
SPEAKER_03: Let each one of us feel your presence, be filled with your spirit and your word, that we may go out into our daily lives and win others to you by how we live.
SPEAKER_03: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.