Jesus withdrew with His disciples and prayed

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Good morning again. Thank you worship team. Tremendous song. Very humbling to come and speak and preach after singing those words that God has dealt with us. How are we going with our integrated Bible study? How are we going with keeping up the discipline of doing something every day for 10 long weeks and then persevering through it all? You hanging in there? My prayer is that you are. I'm looking forward too. I was trying to think of an illustration that would help me to explain this, but I'm from the generation where we drank out of a tap at the side of the house. We came home when the street lights came on, you know, that old thing they have. And we're also the generation of the Billy Cart kids. Well, we got pram wheels or mower wheels, put them on some planks of wood to put a bolt through the middle and steered with this and then went down steep hills. I get a sense that this discipleship weekend and how this study we've been doing is bringing to a pinnacle where at the top of the hill. I'm looking forward to see what God does as we go down the other side. Because sometimes we can spend so much time, can't we, just getting things sort of doing it. We think, Lord, what's going to happen next? And we've been praying into that. I was really encouraged on Tuesday and we had our call to prayer. We had about 18 people come along at seven o'clock in the morning to pray. And it was great. We stayed for the hour. Some had to go. That's fine. But I was so encouraged by it because it wasn't that I was expecting it, it would be disappointing if no one showed up. That's fine. But the fact we have people coming together, then I knew those people at home were praying because they couldn't get there. And you know, those people who were praying later in the day because it was a bit too early for them, that's cool. And so I would encourage you to keep thinking about what is God going to do ahead for us. What's the next part for Kabbaltia Baptist Church? It's exciting, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, just reflecting on those words, Father, that we were sinners and you set us free. And Father, we don't want to rest on that. Father, we want to be empowered by your spirit, Lord. We want to see what you see. Father, we want to be in training with you. Father, we desire to be your disciples every day. As Edmund put it, Lord, we want to be whole disciples, every aspect of our lives. And Father's been going through this study, Father, you've just been highlighting different aspects of our life that we need to bring to attention to you, bring to your obedience. And Father, today, as we open your word and, Lord, go through this concept of withdrawing and praying as Heavenly Father is your son, Jesus, did with the disciples, Lord, take us in that journey as well. Lord, so special, Father, to have an intimate relationship with the God who saves. And Father, I pray that as we go through today, just challenge us, Lord, affirm in us the challenges, Father, show us and reveal to us, Lord, your will for our lives. Lord, we give you thanks and praise for that. And Lord, as always, I pray the words of the speaker, Lord, to be your words, not mine, in your name. Amen. Well, so this is number five in our group series so far. We've got the call by Jesus, disciples were taught by Jesus, rebuked by Jesus and sent by Jesus. And after last week's sermon, I would read a rock and roll and go and I was ready to be sent. So well done, Pastor Dave, that was great. And now, today, we have, look at Jesus, number five, is the withdrawing and praying with Jesus. We've got things to think out about as we go into this topic. The Greek word for withdraw is hypercureo, which means to retire or retreat. But Jesus retired and retreated several times through, particularly Luke, we're looking at Luke 5, 16, 9 and 10, that's where it's mentioned, predominantly. In the almost ambiguity of this verse, I found it was stunning that there was just a few words that Jesus withdrew to a soldiery place, Jesus withdrew to a quiet place. And the ambiguity of that, I want you to think about how those words, just those little parts of Scripture, how much power they have with the words around them. They can be overlooked sometimes in the pages, because they're drawn between miraculous events or things that happened in Jesus' life or to the disciples' lives. There was crowd, there was battle, all sorts of things happening and in the three years that Jesus taught his disciples, this is one thing he taught them to do, was withdraw and pray. He did it several times, a challenge for us in our day, because we are so busy, there's so much happening. And this week's study is about drawing an eye on those prominent little words. And now I'm being asked to understand that. I don't know what you're getting out of it so far, or what, as God has said to you since I've prayed, but I'm praying he's challenging you right now. We don't preach to Pat people on the back, we preach for change, that's what God's called us to do. And it changes our lives as we prepare. You ask Dylan, you ask Dave, you ask Reverend Dr Dave, you ask all these people who prepare Pastor Allen, prepare messages, you'll understand that it changes our hearts as well. And so let's go into that, shall we? Jesus found there's a necessity for a quiet place. There's a couple of quotes there that I'd just like to share with you. In contemporary society, our adversary majors in three things, noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in muchness and manyness, he will rest satisfied, from a book by Richard Foster called The Disciplines. You can imagine that if you think about those words, that Satan loves it when we're busy, loves it when we're in a hurry, loves it when we're in crowds, and loves it when we're in noisy. And as I said when I was being interviewed before, just being, encountering God by being quiet for a moment and listening to Him has a very profound effect on our lives, it has a very profound effect on my life. And God said, don't just be quiet, stop talking and listen to me, tough sometimes. Dr. Carl Jung, another Christian author said, hurry is not that of the devil, it is the devil. So when all that happened in the three years of Jesus' life, his busy as he was, and we reached through the Gossels, we see how busy he was and how many people he saved and how many people he healed and how many times he did things and interacted with people, how many times he was bushy and everything right up to the cross and the resurrection, the ascension, take time to withdraw and spend time with him. The illustration that I have, if I can just have that next slide please, thanks Steph, the illustration I have at the opening of my, the study I wrote was referring to this place, it's on the Strislecki Desert, the edge of the desert, 1300K away from Brisbane, right out on the South Australian border and just coming out from a place called the Dig Tree on Birkenwills. If you're a history buff you know that is where Birkenwills left a team, well he went up to the gulf, he left from Melbourne, travelled all the way up through the middle of Australia, left a team there and then he said, wait for us for a month and when we come back we'll go back together. They were attacked by the locals, they had drought, they had hot weather, they weren't very bright, they were British Englishmen from a hot coal country and they went in the wrong time of the year. But the sad part was that the guys dug down, left provisions for them and then left nine hours before Birkenwills got back after four weeks of being away and they couldn't find it and they perished. So you know, I think this is a cool place to go, what really astounded us is when we came out of that Dig Tree heading back towards into the east, this is the view we had, absolute nothingness and it got me thinking about what it means to stand and have absolute solitude and how that can impact us when we enter into that relationship with God and find a place of solitude, find a place just to shut the world out. And I've got a little video that I took from there about 16 seconds and I wonder if we can run that now, just to give you an idea of the scope of the landscape and why it has a profound effect on me. We got the sound turned off, if the sound was on, all you'd hear was the diesel gun da-da-da-da-da-da-da in the background. But the silence was deafening. When you turn the diesel off, when you stood there, there was nothing then and that's what the reference is to being silent and solitude with God and that's the encouragement for us as we go through this study is to find out what that means for us personally. Jesus drew with drew as a necessity. We read in Luke 5.16, but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. In John 11.54, that therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea, instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness to a village called Ephraim where he stayed with his disciples, Mark 5, 31 and 32, then because so many people were coming and going and they did not even have a chance to eat and he said to them, come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat or solitary place. Luke 9.18, once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked him, well, who do you say I am? And Luke 11.14, one day Jesus was praying in a certain place when he'd finished one of his disciples, said to him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples and he taught them what we call the Lord's prayer. In those cases there and many, many more, there is opportunity to ascertain that, yeah, gosh, he did withdraw a few times and he did have an intensity about it, an intentionality about it and requires of us, what do we learn from this as we go through? And we've got four things to share with you this morning. The first one is that Jesus withdrew to eliminate distractions. Jesus withdrew to eliminate distractions. It says in Luke 5.16, Jesus often withdrew to a lonely place and prayed. You think, well, here's this man, he's grown up in a Jewish understand, he's grown up in a household, he's been noisened by his heavenly father, he knows to go on his mission. You think that after all those 30 odd years as we sort of work it out that he's spent enough quiet time with God, yet here he is modelling to us today as we read through scriptures that he's pouring to eliminate distractions. We've got to be careful and that we don't make it a habit, but we actually make it a discipline which requires a process. It's not, as I said before, it's not a reaction to our environment, it's a response to God, it's a response to who he is in our life. The ten commandments, for example, aren't ten suggestions, they're ten commandments that you keep, not because they're rigorous laws, it's because you love God, want to honour him, so you observe the commandments. And so it becomes to understanding then that when we have a look at our, where we withdraw, that we don't do it as a habit, but we do it as a process, a discipline that we take on. And it's tough because there's a lot of things happening. Anyone with young kids will know that there's really a tough gig. Anyone who's been suffering with illness knows it's really a tough gig. God loves us and he wants us and that's what he inspires us to do, so don't think bad about yourself if you can't quite get there, but have that understanding that's what's required for us to grow in God and to become whole disciples. This allows for meditation upon his word in Psalm 77 verse 12, it says, I'll consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds. That's a real challenge. You know, you come to a time of prayer and you say, okay, righty, I've got all this list I want to bring to God and make sure I don't miss anyone out, I got to pray for all these things happening in the world and pray for this and pray for that. God's just praying, sitting quietly and listening and meditating on his word brings so much illumination to our lives, our spiritual walk, is listening to God. With distractions also helps us to understand there's a script response to the muchness and manyness of life stepping away, takes us into that predestined, that pre-understanding of, yeah, I'm intentionally doing this, I'm standing back from all the busyness to make this time. It's a bit of a tough challenge sometimes. It's a result of, as we pray God's prayer, his heart and his passion. So when the distractions are gone, we're actually praying what God lays in our heart. We're praying what his passions are, not our passions, not what we want. You heard that saying, not my will, but your will be done, it's written in Scripture. It's about the passion, asking God, what is his passion for me? His passion for those around me? If you're involved in ministry and mission, my challenge to you is to always pray, Lord, what's your passion for the mission? Not what I think I can do for it, what I think I can bring to it, Lord, what's your passion for the mission? We walk in accordance to his obedience. The second one is that we pray it in a private place, gives an opportunity for revelation. Once when Jesus was praying in private with his disciples, and his disciples were with him, sorry, and he asked them, who do the crowds say that I am? He says, Luke 9, 9, 18. This is where they start to talk about, well, here you are, the Messiah, you are a liar, you either go through a list, trying to work out, well, what's happened with those few words where Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him? So there's a spiritual awareness happening there, a spiritual awareness never encountered before. Jesus turns to his disciples and says, who the crowds say I am? You've been praying with me for ages now, discerning now, what does he say? I suppose the challenge I have today for you guys is, who do you say Jesus is? Can you say he's your Lord, your Messiah, your Saviour, your Redeemer? Are you at the point where you say, I'm not quite sure, who he is? Pray for revelation, pray for understanding, pray for asking God what he wants to say into your heart. It was an invitation where Jesus, in this situation, of to respond and exclaim, you are the Lord, you are the Messiah. So out of that deep, deep understanding, a deep time of personal prayer and meditation with the disciples in there withdrawing and looking for revelation, this comes to the surface. Now seasoned veterans in Christianity will probably say, yeah, we know all this stuff. The challenge I have every day, I've been a Christian for over 40 years, is to have that fresh revelation from God. I don't know it all. I certainly don't know all the ins and outs of much at all. Only what God can reveal to me when I stop talking and listen to Him. Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. He said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray. Jesus was seeking an audience with his Father. This was the Gethsemane, this is the prayer where he's saying, you know, we know as we read through the rest of this part of the passenger scripture that this is where he's asking his Father's will to be done, comes back, finds the disciples, all praying and being on task. Yeah? No, they were asleep. The Jesus is the one asked for revelation. Jesus is the one asked for affirmation. Jesus asked the one, Lord, what's your will here? I know what my mission is and I hope you've called me to do, but what's your will? You gave enough to ask God that, in that without any distractions around with any pre-consumption, your worldview has come humble before him and pray for revelation. As a church, we're going to embark in a few weeks' time on praying for revelation like this as we look at the vision for our church for the next year and the years beyond. There'll be some pamphlets coming out with some directions, there's some guided prayer, but it's not asking what you think, it's asking what's God's laying on your heart. It's asking for revelation from God about what can happen in the life of Cabal Chebatra's church and how it can be a light in the community, how it can reach people and save people for the kingdom of heaven for all the resources that he's given us. We can have lots of ideas, we need them to come from God, we need to come from revelation from him and this is the opportunity we have. We learn from this little passage of Scripture too that observation is essential and patience is necessary. When you're praying for revelation and Jesus comes back to disciples, I was thinking about this the other day, He asked them to stay awake and be alert. So we can say that the challenge for us is that observation is essential in prayer, it's patience, it's necessary, the third one. They prayed in private places to prepare for and or replenish in Luke 6, 31 and 32. Then because so many people were coming and going, but they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, come with me, buy yourself to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. I'm sorry fishermen, this is not your out. This is not, oh the Bible says I need to go fishing and be with God. I'll take a few lines just in case. What do you think about that? They were so rushed, they were so overwhelmed. What did He say? Hey, let's take a bit of time out here, rest in me, come with me. Let's go and find a place of solitude for a while. When you're involved in mission and ministry in the life of a church, when you're involved in outreach, you're involved in all the things that are happening, it is great to stop and pray. Just pray and ask God just to be with you and give you peace. Just say, Lord, my mind is overwhelmed, please keep me calm in this situation. Lord, I'm just not sure what to do next, but I want to listen to you, just speak to my God and He will minister to you. When we withdraw with Jesus, He replenishes and He prepares. It's about taking a step back which is essential and required. One of the great things I love about life in the church family is that when we go to do something, we always stop and pray and sometimes when we finish doing something, we stop and pray. If you're a youth leader, you definitely stop and pray because you never know what's going to happen and Lord, just go before us and keep everyone safe tonight and did that for many years will become very dedicated proponents of prayer. Jesus is about resting in Jesus, is both physical and relationship enriching. Do you think Jesus said, let's go away and have a sleep? Did Jesus say, let's go and have a time out in the corner? No, He said, come away with me. Come away with me and we'll get some rest. Come away with me, we'll spend some time together, we'll replenish together, we'll prepare for the next stage of whatever's happening. Come away with me, away from the distractions and all the things happening and we'll be prepared and replenish. Mark 11, 29 says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and will find rest for your souls. Sometimes the hardest thing for us to do is to give our burden to Jesus because we want to hang on to it, because sometimes it defines us and that's a scary thought, but sometimes just giving stuff to God as simple and as almost as trivial as that statement is is the only way we can grow. When Jesus calls your way to rest and we'll spend time with Him, I encourage you to do that. Don't go and have a sleep, don't spend time with Jesus. Find that time to prepare and get yourself ready for the next session that He's got you called to do. The disciples are watching all these three years of watching this man. Wouldn't you think that when it comes to a time when things, the rubber hits the road, they'd have a better response? And that for me says, man, there is humanity in things, isn't there? We can grow though. We can be better. We can be encouraged by the King of Heaven and we can be encouraged by the words of Jesus. Number four, praying a private place gives opportunity for teaching. Praying a private place gives opportunity for teaching. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place, when He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught His disciples. Can you imagine the picture here? It says in Scripture, Jesus was praying in a certain place. Do you think the disciples were standing there watching Him, waiting for Him to do something? Do you think they were praying with Him? Do you think they were together with Him? Do you think they were inspired by the words that you're speaking and the way He was talking to His Heavenly Father? They said, we want some of that. Lord, teach us how to do this. Have you ever asked God that? He ever said, Lord, just teach me to pray. I don't know if you ever noticed, but before I get up to preach, I'm usually sitting over where my seat is, wherever it is, and I'm praying. Lord, I can't do this without you. Whatever happens up there on that pulpit thing, I just need you to give me the words, because I know this is Doug, and Doug is dodgy. I need you, Lord, to help me out here. No one is immune to this understanding. There's always a time for teaching. So what did He teach them? Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, give us each day your daily bread. Forgive us our sin, for we also forgive everyone who was sinned against us, and lead us not into temptation. When we read that sometimes, have you ever read that in church and it sounds like a chant? When I was a young Christian, that freaked me out. I've asked you to say the Lord's prayer now, to our Father who art in heaven, to be sort of shimmering through the church, not disrespectfully, just how we do it as a group. You break it up, and it's quite profound. That's off by saying Jesus is teaching them here. The first thing he says is, Father, hallowed be thy name, glorifies your name, your name is above all others. He's putting a kingdom perspective in place. Then he talks about the imminent kingdom that's coming, and how that's going to affect so many lives. Then he takes it right back down to the sin that we have in our life, and he deals with that sin. Then he reminds us that there are others that we can sin against, and they sin against us, and all those sin, because that's humanity. And at the end of it, he says, and lead us not into temptation, because temptation is something we struggle with. His example was so profound, ignited desire and disciples. When Jesus was praying, whatever he was doing ignited something in them, and it gave them a deep desire to get close to Him. The space in which they prayed encouraged openness with God. Find a space where you can be with God, allowing him to speak to your heart. When Jesus withdrew with his disciples to pray, he was intentional about it. He had a desire and a purpose. It wasn't just, oh, I've had a gut full of this. Let's get out of here. These guys stink. Oh, they're too hungry. They're too needy. Let's get out of here. What is it about? Hey, let's take a step back, so that we can have this opportunity, and what can we learn from that? Jesus' response was unhindered. He could give freely. He just said, this is what it's about. And priority of a kingdom perspective in prayer, above and above all. Okay, so, what does your quiet place look like? I asked some people to send me some photos of their quiet places. And in a moment, we're going to see those up on the screen. But the question I have for you, do you have a quiet place to spend with Jesus? Or does it fit in somewhere, dovetailed in? It's like Edmund was saying, he was saying that we sometimes compartmentalize our Christianity to a point where we just fit things into neat little pockets. Make your quiet place with God. I'm going to give you a withdrawal with Jesus and pray. It's a challenge for this week. At the end of the study, there's a little part you can fill out. Now, if you advise the leaders who are reading through it to say, well, don't push the point, but get people to share. I'm going to revoke that leaders and make them say something. No, I'm joking. It's about between you and God. But here's the first photo of someone sent me. I was going to do, can you guess who it is? Do you want to have a guess? You won't guess. There's a key there. That's, I think that's the rising sun in the background. That's looking towards the east. Next one, please. Someone just sent me a great photo of their notepad where they write their journaling and they've got their Bible app open. I did check and make sure it was a Bible app and not the TAB app. But it was their quiet time with God, with Jesus. Next one, please. Some people go up on a mountaintop and they sit up on a mountaintop and they think there's a whole place to get rid of. Everything can round them. That photo is actually from out near Winton, Dinosaur Plateau, out near Winton. I'll give you another. We love the bush. Shari and I have been blessed to go there so many times. Next photo, please. Someone gets really comfortable and has a fan. This person put their A-game on, their prayer game on. Next one, pretty spartan, isn't it? Not much. Just a person in God and whatever they take to read and pray in journaling and the last one. A pastor friend of mine uses this and he says he stays on that until he can't sit any longer. But he stays there for a long time. He says, I think I'm getting calluses on my bottom. No padding on it either. That's what I love about it. Ready to do business with God. If you're struggling to know what and when to pray in your quiet time, can I encourage you, just with these words from Romans 8.26, in the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We didn't know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for us, for God's people in accordance with God's will. Can I encourage you to read perhaps Romans 8.26 if you're struggling just to get that focus right? Sit down in your quiet spot this week. You're going to have to go to your home groups and your discipleship groups and say, yeah, I've got a quiet spot and share what that's about. Worship team, if you'd like to come up, I'd love to have you to join me up here as we just finish up this message. So the challenge for us is when you pray with Jesus, when you withdraw and pray with Jesus, a time and a place to eliminate distractions, just let it be, just set it aside as a habit, not as a discipline, sorry, not as a habit, a place and time for opportunity for revelation. When you withdraw with Jesus and pray, it is a time to prepare for ministry or replenish and reinvigorate. And lastly, it's an opportunity for teaching an open heart and an open mind. One of the authors who've been looking at had this to say about what it means to be in that little space of solitude with Jesus. Without silence, there is no solitude. Solitude sometimes involves an absence of speech. It always involves the act of listening, simply to refrain from talking without a heart. Listening to God is no silence, so we need to be able to listen to God. That is the essence of withdrawing. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, that you gave us many examples of how to be a disciple as we read through the Gospels and beyond. Father, we thank you, Father, that you want us to grow, you desire us to grow. You inspire Paul in his letters. Father, to bring people to maturity and Christ, to not be timid about our faith, Lord, to reach out for you, to look into the fields and see that they need a harvest. Father, you prepare your disciples every day. And I pray, Lord, as we go through this week, Father, prepare us even more, Lord. Make it profound for us, Lord. Make a heart wrenching for us to say, Lord, we know who you are, Father. We open our hearts to you that we may know your will and purpose for our life. But I pray there's no rest. Rest in that emotional state, Father, until we do business with you. Unless we do business today with you, Father, if we set time apart just now to be honest with you and authentic with you. But, Father, as we continue through this week, Father, you'll show us your way, your will, and your revelation. Well, we humbly ask this in your name, amen.