We are enough. We are brothers. We are grateful.
We are accepted by God and each other.
That acceptance is what sustains us.
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PAUSE:
- What stood out to you about acceptance
or the stories we read yesterday?
- What phrase did you come up with
at morning practice to help
you remember your acceptance?
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Check-In
What is it that keeps you going through your days? What person or activity is the light at the end of the long, dark times for you?
For long times in my life, I've had different things that sustained me. For much of my high school and college years, my girlfriend (turned-fiancee-and-then-wife) sustained me. Thinking of her made the days worthwhile and the difficulties worth facing. I could get through school because when we finished we'd be married and everything would be perfect. That hope kept me alive.
Until that hope was proved to be to hollow. I saw a glimpse of that when Courtney broke up with me for just a week in college. But even as we got married, I began to see that leaning on her was too much. She couldn't keep me going all the time. She had bad days. She had some difficulties of her own, and sometimes those were enough for her to hold. She loved me, but that love wasn't going to be enough to sustain me.
So I turned to my gaming. Now, don't think Fortnite here. Instead, think super geeky soccer coaching video games. Like, where you don't even control the players on the field but instead just control the practice plans, coaching staff, and tactics for the games. So in depth, so realistic, so much a chance at success (in a make believe world where the players were literally represented by dots :-) But eventually, even winning in that game became boring. That couldn't keep me going.
So, I turn to lots of things for sustenance - being well liked by my students, getting poems published, success on the tennis court, and more.
And all that I relied on - family, marriage and even eventually kids - none of that could keep me going when I faced existential crises. Big questions that revolve around God, life, and my place in the world. No wife or Worldwide Soccer Manager title can really answer the questions about why life and pain even exist. To answer those, I need something deeper to sustain me.
I can see what many of my students are sustained by. Some are kept going by Netflix. I have some students in my classes who are sustained by Marvel, knowing the exact number of days before the next movie comes out and praying for it every day in Bible class. Some hang on to every word of a group chat. Many are carried on each day by their sports performances. But like the things that I found, they are one day of boredom or hard question away from realizing these things can't hold their weight, so to speak.
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PAUSE:
- What do you use to sustain you?
- How have you noticed that it doesn't really work?
- How have you noticed that it does work to keep you going?
- Do you have faith that it will keep you going in the long run?
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What can we learn from Jesus?
So, last night we looked at how God accepted and affirmed Jesus. Where did Jesus go for his sustenance? What kept Jesus going?
Jesus experienced many hard or dramatic things in his life. Things that would drain many of us of our energy, or make it hard to keep going. Here's a list of some of those things.
- Being rejected and run out of his hometown
- Healing people of sickness then being overrun with crowds
- Calling a special group of followers
- Walking on water to his still fearful and doubt filled disciples
- Feeling frustrated as his disciples recognizes that he is Messiah, but not really understanding what that meant
- Having a miraculous meeting with Moses and Elijah on a mountaintop
- Being asked continuously tricky questions of faith
- Learning that one of his best friends, Lazarus, had died
- Knowing that one of his best friends, Peter, would deny even knowing him
- Realizing that his own death was coming
- Experiencing the pain of his own death
How was Jesus sustained through all that?
Well, specifically for each of the events above, Jesus prayed directly before or directly after them. Some of the particularly painful events - like the rejection of those in his hometown or his death on the cross - he spent many days and prayers preparing for. Before he went into his hometown to begin his ministry, he had spent 40 days in the wilderness. Before and during the crucifixion, we have a record of 6 different prayers in that time that are recorded. If you count the last supper, which was on the night that Jesus was arrested, then we have a record of 9 prayers during that period of his life. No doubt there were countless more that were not recorded.
In fact, Luke 5:16 tells us this about Jesus and prayer:
"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed."
No doubt, these times of prayer were important for Jesus. No doubt, they prepared him for the dramatic events of his life on earth, whether those events ended up being amazingly good (raising Lazarus from the dead!) or amazingly disappointing (all his friends running away from him at the crucifixion). There is something about these times of withdrawing and returning to God that gave Jesus his sustenance.
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PAUSE:
- How often do you make time for prayer?
- What things do you often pray about?
- Do your times of prayer fill you up, keep you going?
- What do you think Jesus prayed about?
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How does prayer sustain us?
1) Prayer reminds us who God is.
Not all of Jesus' prayers are recorded. But the ones that are typically involve some type of praise of God and some comment about who God is to Jesus.
- Luke 11: "Our Father, in heaven, hallowed (set apart, different, greater than us) be your name."
- John 12: "Father, glorify your name."
- Matthew 6: "Father... Your will be done."
- John 11: "Father... you always hear me."
Praying about who God is reminds us of God's tendencies. God is different than us. God is much more powerful, much more attentive, much more present, much more patient, much more merciful... the list can go on and on. And perhaps you've experienced one of those qualities of God. Perhaps you have experienced God's redemption, where in your life a bad situation came up and God turned that terrible situation into something good or beautiful. Perhaps you've been in a situation where you were at your lowest point, and you experienced the joy of Emmanuel, "God with us," as God came and sat right there with you (in the soccer goal :-)
Remembering who God is gives us hope.
And notice who Jesus always describes God as in his prayers: Father. Remember, this was not the normal way that Jewish people addressed God. They would use Adonai (Yahweh), as an official name for God. Why did Jesus use "Father"?
Because it reminded him, and all of us, about who God is. Remember at Jesus baptism, he was shown acceptance with the words - "You are my son, whom I love." So, God is Jesus' father. And every time that Jesus remembers that God is his father, he remembers that he is loved and that God is pleased and that he is accepted. Which leads right into the next point...
2) Prayer reminds us who we are.
We are utterly and completely accepted by our loving God. God is crazy in support of us. Jesus was told at his baptism - "You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." How many times did that echo through his prayers? How many times did Jesus breathe deeply and let that phrase wash over him?
As humans, we constantly screw up. In tennis, like 98% of the points end with somebody making an error. And I think life is a lot like tennis. In like 98% of our interactions with others, the interaction ends with one of us having made a mistake :-) But what really begins to kill us is when we carry those awkward interactions and fears with us, instead of hearing the voice of God telling us who we really are.
We are God's sons, who he loves; with us God is well pleased.
Like we said yesterday, you might not have done everything right, but because of who God is, everything is going to be alright. Or, maybe someone has really hurt you, and you don't feel okay. But because of who God is, everything can end up okay.
Wrapping Up
In total, prayer is the time when we are reminded of our acceptance and the great God that accepts us. That acceptance is what sustains us.
God's acceptance never waivers. So no matter where we end up, no matter what changes in our lives, no matter how bored, scared, hurt or successful we find ourselves, God's acceptance is a rock solid foundation to build on.
As a tennis team, we want to all have that foundation. And then we want to add some scaffolding and start a solid building by offering our acceptance to each other. We want our acceptance of own another to be that next layer that we can all count on... not just during the season, or at practice, but all through life. But it all starts with a foundation of acceptance. That keeps us going.
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PAUSE:
- What situations have you seen God (or a great good) at work in your life?
- What word would best describeGod to you? Jesus used the image of "Father." Is there an image that fits better for you? Healer, Friend, Great Comfort? Something else?
- What message have you heard that you could repeat to yourself during prayer about being accepted? Write it down or make a note in your phone.
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