Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 4:15a. He taught that we pray to experience the nearness of Jesus who understands our weaknesses Lector: Noelle Quillo
Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 4:15a. He taught that we pray to experience the nearness of Jesus who understands our weaknesses
Lector: Noelle Quillo
This morning I hope to answer one question: why pray?
Last week, we saw some reasons why we can pray. Do you recall?
Jesus is a great high priest: he’s made purification for our sins. You’re forgiven!
Jesus as a great high priest entered heaven. He carries your prayers there!
Jesus is the son of God. You can pray because you are forgiven and the Son carries your prayers to heaven.
You can pray, but should you? Stephen encouraged us to hold on, and said we do so through praying…why, though? How does this work?
Those are the questions: why pray? and how do I pray?
Two sermons on why pray, two sermons on how to pray, which will carry us through a praying christmas.
First, this high priest is ours. See that small little word?
This High Priest of OURS understands our weaknesses (emphasis added)
-Hebrews 4:15a
This great high priest, purifier of sins, mediator in the throne room of God, is ours.
Advent helps us understand what it means that he is ours:
For a child is born TO US, a son is given TO US (emphasis added).
-Isaiah 9:6
This great high priest stoops low, he is given to us as a gift for us.
He is ours. He is near. Look how he comes near:
This High Priest of ours UNDERSTANDS our weaknesses (emphasis added)
-Hebrews 4:15a
This word is where we get the English sympathize from.
It means to empathize, to sympathize, often to suffer alongside of.
What does that look like?
When God came near, he came as one filled with sympathy.
He learned about our suffering not by watching and listening…
but by suffering alongside us.
He came near with a message of hope, healing, and wholeness.
Not criticism and condemnation!
He is our high priest, come to purify us, suffer alongside us.
He was telling us this before he could even speak…remember how our great high priest came near! Not with royal robes or trumpet blasts…remember:
And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available to them.
-Luke 2:6-7
He came as a child. A vulnerable baby, born of a woman to a marginalized family
He would grow up as a poor refugee in a foreign country. That’s how he came near.
Not in pure white linen covered in jewels and surrounded by incense.
Our great high priest comes to us as a baby, because we started as babies!
Because we are not afraid of babies. To show us his heart, his desire…and ultimately
Because he came to understand us! Specifically:
This High Priest of ours understands our WEAKNESSES (emphasis added)
-Hebrews 4:15a
What kind of God is this? Comes near as a baby to understand our weakness
And this gets to the heart of our question. Why pray? Weaknesses.
Three perspectives/meanings of this rich word.
You are weak, I am weak, we are weak.
Why pray? To experience the nearness of one who understands what it's like to be us.
He doesn’t simply understand it like one who has read a book.
He understands our weakness as one who has himself endured it.
He understands the illness of death, because he absorbed it on the cross.
He understands personal limitations, because he grew tired and hungry and thirsty and even afraid.
He understands that fear, even to the point of sweating blood as he prayed to his father
History has been carried along by the tears of Jesus, one who understands and cares and comes near.
So we pray to discover the wonder that we are not alone.
We are understood, seen, known, and loved.
Really think about this now: when you have faced a real tragedy, real suffering…what kind of people do you find comfort in?
Do you not go in search of someone who has gone through the same?
Have you not felt the peace that comes in the presence of someone who knows some of what it feels like to be going through what you’re going through?
You want a comforting presence more than answers, I promise you…because it is the presence of love that heals our weaknesses and makes us strong.
Last Christmas I was really struggling. Church life had been hard, everything felt hard.
I met with one of my mentors, a man in his 70s. Told him everything going on, all my questions, my fatigue, my hurt…all of it. Took me 45 minutes to just get it all out.
He stood up, started weeping, held me…not hugged me, he held me, and whispered in my ear “I’m so, so sorry.”
And I. Felt. Better. I felt renewed, refreshed. Seen, known, loved, safe…healed.
Healed enough to keep going. That conversation was like prayer for me, and that’s some of the essence of why we pray—to experience the nearness of one who is already there, who understands us, who is eager to give us help and grace and mercy.
That’s why we pray. Now…this isn’t easy, so I want to close by telling you a few things Jesus had to say about prayer.
Jesus said God is like one of your really good friends.
You wake up hungry in the middle of the night…so you go to your BFFs house.
Knock and knock. “I’M ASLEEP” he shouts. But he’s your BFF.
So you knock and knock and knock. You keep knocking until he finally gives you bread so he can go back to sleep. Jesus said that’s what praying is like.
Another time, Jesus said praying is like bringing a case to a corrupt judge.
The judge won’t listen because you’re poor and no one really cares what happens.
But…you keep asking and asking and asking. It’s like you’re wrestling the judge and won’t let go until he hears the case.
Eventually, he rules fairly on the case so you’ll leave him alone.
Jesus said that’s what prayer is like.
And listen. That friend of yours and that judge don’t understand you.
They don’t suffer alongside you.
Bu….BUT!! they still gave you what you needed because of your persistence.
And neither your best friend nor that corrupt judge, aggravated as they are, would give their kid hot sauce when they asked for honey.
Do you know that? Do you understand?
“Dad, could I have honey for my biscuit?” Haha give her hot sauce! No.
Not even the corrupt judge would do that to his kid.
He wouldn’t give his daughter a porcupine when she asked for a puppy.
If you weak, sinful people know how to give something good to your kids…how much more will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him?
Jesus said that’s what prayer is like, too.
So…why pray?
Because you are weak and because your Father loves you.
Sometimes it will feel like you are knocking and knocking and knocking.
Sometimes it will feel like you are begging and wrestling and begging.
And, sometimes, like you are being held by your father who is eager to love you.
History has been carried by the tears of Christ…and all will one day be made right through the blood of Christ..which is why we so anticipate his second coming.
This is why we pray and why we’ll continue praying, to experience the nearness of the one who has come and is yet to come again. And so, together, let’s join our voices now, and pray the way Jesus taught us…
Lord’s Prayer.