A PRAYING LIFE – DINNER WITH A FRIEND
Thursday, November 19, 2009
“The truth is, I haven’t any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life. If my prayer life is so low that if it were a gas burner on a stove, one click and it would go out. That’s C. S. Lewis talking about prayer.
(swell)
C.S. Lewis -- was an Oxford Don, a brilliant academic, a converted atheist, and one of the greatest Christian apologist who ever lived. But for all that, Lewis had trouble praying – just like a lot of us. He’s almost shockingly honest about this. He wrote, “Prayer is irksome. An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome. When it’s over this casts a feeling of relief and holiday over the rest of the day. We are reluctant to begin. We are delighted to finish. While we are at prayer, any trifle is enough to distract us.”
( Charles . . . I have Janet in the studio)
J. I love that C.S. Lewis quote – because it’s so honest. Prayer can seem like that – irksome, a duty. It’s like Charlotte picking up her toys. Kate called and told us this cute story when she was about 3. (pretty pony comb, tears streaming down her face, Kate says, “Charlotte, come on, get a move on) “Momma, I just can’t want to.”
A lot of times we think of praying that way – something we have to do -- we do it but we can’t want to and sometimes we don’t.

C. But Jesus knows how to fix that. He knows how to get us to want to pray.
J. For me, one of the problems is having the wrong picture in my mind of what prayer is like. Here’s my picture – me, on the sofa, alone, early in the morning, trying to concentrate, trying not to fall asleep.
C. What we need is another picture -- we need another image in our mind when we think of prayer and that’s what Jesus give us in Revelation 3:20.
Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
J. Isn’t that beautiful -- that’s the picture Jesus wants us to have of prayer, it’s like having dinner with a friend.
C. Yes, and Jesus is talking to Christians, (elaborate) but they’re Christians who are living a non-praying life – that ‘s what the sht door represents – a non-praying life – and Jesus says: open the door and I’ll come and eat with you. Prayer is like having dinner with your best friend. It’s not a monologue – it’s a two-way conversation.
J. That picture of prayer draws my heart to pray -- I can want to pray – I’m drawn to get up in the morning and sit down and meet with Jesus.
C. leads into the song.


(song)
Paul (prayer is hard – the kimmy story – prayer is like having dinner with a friend)
Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
Jesus is talking to believers. He’s talking to believers in the Laodocea
That shut door is a picture of a non-praying life – where we’re not praying because we don’t sense any need in our life. We feel like we can do our life on our own. Or we think we have to do life on our own because there’s nobody there to help us.
In the case of the Laodoceans they didn’t think they needed anything. Jesus tells them what that. He tells them, this is what you’re thinking, you say to yourself:
‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’
That’s how they see themselves but Jesus sees them as very needy – he says, in reality you are “wretched, pitiful, poor blind and naked”.
We’re very needy if we’re not praying and if we’re not praying it’s often because we don’t realize how needy we are.
Paul Miller in his book “A Praying Life” says, “If you aren’t praying, then it means you’re quietly confident that time, money and talent are all you need in life. You’ll always be a little too tired, a little too busy to pray.”
The shut door is a picture of a life where we’re not praying because we don’t think we need anything.
We need to feel our need. If we don’t then it’s going to be a duty and we’ll eventually stop praying. We’ll always have something better to do. At first we may tell ourselves, “I’ll pray tomorrow” but eventually we just get on with life. We start doing life on our own. And that may go okay for a while but we’ll end up like the Laodeceans – with a lukewarm love for Jesus. I think one of the first thing Jesus does to get us praying is to let us feel our need. Life stops working. We realize we need help. When that happens it’s the voice of the Lord.
Jesus says, “if any one hears my voice and opens the door I will come in”. When life gets hard, I think we need to hear that as the voice of the Lord. He’s letting us feel the reality that we need him – that without him we’re wretched pitiful poor blind and naked.
The only trouble is, if we haven’t been praying for a while it’s hard to start praying again. We feel so cut off from him. We keep trying to pray but it feels like we’re just talking to ourselves. I think we just need to stop and get real. “Lord I need you I don’t know where to find you.”
And right in this verse is the answer the Lord gives us: “Here I am, I stand at the door and knock.” Jesus is right there – that’s what the picture of Jesus knocking at the door is saying, “I’m right here”. Very close. It shows us that he loves us and he wants to come in. He wants us to tell him all our needs so he can give me what I need.
And what we need most of all is Jesus. We need to be with him. Jesus saying, “If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and dine with you and you with me.”
Jesus is giving us a beautiful picture of what prayer is like. Prayer is like sitting down together over a meal enjoying each other’s company. Having fellowship with the Lord.

Jesus at the door knocking because He wants to be with us. He enjoys our company. Think of how the gospels describe him – he loves to be with people, he loves to go to dinner parties.
Mark 2:15-17 “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The Jesus we meet with in prayer is the same Jesus we read about in the Gospels. He’s hasn’t mutated into some strange, remote, unknowable person.

He is the same Jesus who loves people, who said, “let the little children come to me” who loves dinner parties, who wants company on the mountaintop and in the garden of Gethsemane, who longs to eat the Passover meal with his disciples,

We get to have intimate, fellowship with that Jesus. Recently a woman had the winning bid on ebay -- $63,500 to have dinner with Sarah Palin. Jesus paid his life to have dinner with us. And we don’t have to pay anything to have dinner with him.

He wants to have a conversation with us like friends at a meal, where we’re real, real about our sin. We can tell him what we’re really thinking. We can be ourselves, we don’t have to pretend to be someone we’re not. We can ask for everything we need and he’ll give it to us. We can ask him questions and listen to his answers. We can talk to him about anything! But above all, we can just sit back and enjoy the tremendous joy and privilege of sitting down at the table with the living Lord Jesus.