WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.360 Waiting is hugely frustrating. We appreciate that, especially when it comes to prayer. 00:00:06.980 --> 00:00:12.339 The thing is, we're in an instantaneous culture, aren't we? We want it now in society. We want 00:00:12.339 --> 00:00:17.920 people to do things for us almost immediately. We expect it. In fact, you know, send a text. We 00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:22.800 want a reply. We want something ordered. We want it tomorrow. And while we're waiting, we often 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:27.339 read wrong messages into the waiting, don't we? You know, people don't care. They don't like me. 00:00:27.339 --> 00:00:35.460 They're making me wait on purpose. All of those things that we sadly project into our relationship 00:00:35.460 --> 00:00:41.920 with God. This expectation that he should answer our prayers almost like an order, sort of straight 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:52.320 away, promptly, on time, and exactly as we ask them. And when he does answer, and especially 00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:58.980 if it's a no, sadly, then God doesn't get our positive feedback. And we say to friends, 00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:06.900 oh, God didn't answer my prayer. And the worst still is that we may delete God from our future 00:01:06.900 --> 00:01:15.780 communications because of it. In this morning's reading, Jesus is facing humiliation, injustice, 00:01:15.780 --> 00:01:24.420 torture, pain, and death. He prays for an alternative to the cross. And who wouldn't? I think I would 00:01:24.420 --> 00:01:30.280 if I was in his position. He asks these five words, the five words that he's never prayed before. 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:38.359 And he asks, take this cup from me. Or it says in the NIV version this morning, we've read, 00:01:38.359 --> 00:01:44.620 remove this cup from me. I'm afraid, Lord, I don't want this. I don't think I can do this. 00:01:45.299 --> 00:01:46.480 Have you ever prayed that prayer? 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:55.060 Jesus knows that the coming of the kingdom will mean drinking an unbearable suffering cup. 00:01:56.359 --> 00:01:59.480 And at this crucial moment, he simply doesn't want to do it. 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:06.359 There must have been an audible gasp in heaven. Tears flowed from the Father's eyes. 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:09.340 Perhaps a deep sense of, should I relent? 00:02:11.740 --> 00:02:16.460 Yet on behalf of us all for the victory of, that was to be born through the cross, 00:02:16.599 --> 00:02:19.539 through Jesus, through taking the sins of the world upon him, 00:02:19.539 --> 00:02:26.659 in that horrific yet victorious act, the Father says no to his son's prayer. 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:35.579 Knowing that he is going to see his son, watch his son experience and suffer horrendous pain and injustice. 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:37.419 But Jesus didn't leave it there. 00:02:39.460 --> 00:02:43.159 Not what I will, but what you will. 00:02:43.519 --> 00:02:45.139 That's the next thing he says. 00:02:45.639 --> 00:02:50.240 What a courageous prayer having asked. 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:56.000 In the light of this morning's reading, it sort of puts all my prayers into perspective. 00:02:56.659 --> 00:03:05.019 And Lutz says, if God can bring blessing from the broken body of Jesus and glory from something that's obscene as the cross, 00:03:05.159 --> 00:03:10.699 then he can bring blessing from my problems, my pain, my unanswered prayer. 00:03:10.699 --> 00:03:16.379 And yet I pray for miracles and I have seen a few. 00:03:17.199 --> 00:03:17.839 Praise God. 00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:22.079 I have also a list of unanswered prayer as well. 00:03:23.079 --> 00:03:27.120 Yet I remind myself and give thanks to God that he gives us free will, 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:32.759 that he doesn't micromanage my life, that he's not like a toddler and steps in at every moment, 00:03:32.759 --> 00:03:40.539 that I can learn lessons that he has taught me patience and waiting and also help me to deal with disappointment. 00:03:41.299 --> 00:03:45.620 Pete Gregg says in his book, when you drop a brick on your toe, it hurts your toe. 00:03:45.620 --> 00:03:51.099 Your father loves you and he knows the number of the hairs on your head. 00:03:52.140 --> 00:03:55.400 And therefore, by extension, therefore, he values your toes as well. 00:03:56.020 --> 00:04:03.219 He doesn't want you to suffer unnecessary pain, but he will sit back and let gravity do what gravity does. 00:04:04.180 --> 00:04:09.060 Bricks rarely hover in midair above the feet of cherished believers. 00:04:09.060 --> 00:04:16.459 I, like you, am waiting for the fulfilment of the kingdom when Jesus will come again. 00:04:17.199 --> 00:04:20.660 But we are in that not yet time. 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:24.079 We are in the now, but not yet. 00:04:24.759 --> 00:04:28.199 And there will be a place, there will be a time when Jesus comes again. 00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:31.220 There will be that time of no more pain, no more suffering. 00:04:32.759 --> 00:04:34.340 But that is not yet. 00:04:34.339 --> 00:04:43.079 And today's reading and theme focuses me on the fragility, but the reality of life as a Christian in that not yet world. 00:04:44.259 --> 00:04:52.139 Pete says, you know, the creator is not a cosmic slot machine waiting to oblige our prayers with a can of Coke or peace in the Middle East. 00:04:52.259 --> 00:05:00.539 I think sometimes we need to realise that the love of God isn't always going to be yes to our prayers. 00:05:00.540 --> 00:05:05.800 The great Christian writer C.S. Lewis wrote a book. 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:08.040 It was called A Grief Observed. 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:11.480 He wrote it after the death of his wife, Joy. 00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:16.820 It impacted me and it still continues to impact me in his honesty. 00:05:17.960 --> 00:05:24.500 He'd waited a long time for his earthly love and he found it in later life with this wonderful woman. 00:05:24.500 --> 00:05:25.899 Yet it was to be short lived. 00:05:26.420 --> 00:05:31.319 And four years after their marriage, at the age of 45, Joy died of cancer. 00:05:32.779 --> 00:05:39.040 He wrote the book asking that it wouldn't be published under his name until after his death. 00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:42.319 Such was the rawness of his emotion that he poured out. 00:05:42.740 --> 00:05:48.540 And yet in all the tough questions, his faith remains strong. 00:05:48.540 --> 00:06:00.700 In the film Shadowlands that reflects that, Anthony Hopkins, who plays Lewis, has a moment where he's leaving a meeting where he's been praying for joy. 00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:04.600 And his friend Harry meets him at the door. 00:06:04.700 --> 00:06:09.780 He said, I know how hard you've been praying and how God is answering your prayer. 00:06:11.320 --> 00:06:16.780 Lewis pauses as he puts on his coat to leave and says, that's not why I pray, Harry. 00:06:16.779 --> 00:06:19.659 It's because I can't help myself. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.259 I pray because I am helpless. 00:06:22.639 --> 00:06:27.339 I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. 00:06:27.859 --> 00:06:30.159 It doesn't change God. 00:06:30.839 --> 00:06:32.219 It changes me. 00:06:33.379 --> 00:06:35.819 The situation didn't change for Jesus. 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:37.899 He poured it out and he asked. 00:06:38.239 --> 00:06:40.699 And on that day, it was a no. 00:06:40.699 --> 00:06:46.819 Maybe we need to address the elephant that's sat in all of our rooms at the moment. 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:55.779 If God loves us so much, what's the purpose in seeing our loved ones suffer when we pray hard and we see miracles for others and yet not for us? 00:06:55.779 --> 00:07:02.399 All I can say is that it doesn't stop me asking and praying for miracles for my loved ones. 00:07:02.759 --> 00:07:10.419 My relationship with my Heavenly Father is enough that on that great day, whether my prayers were answered or not, 00:07:10.899 --> 00:07:17.579 in all my disappointments and in my pain, it will be enough that I can talk to him face to face. 00:07:17.579 --> 00:07:24.000 And I ask him about my unanswered prayer, my disappointments and my pain. 00:07:26.879 --> 00:07:30.279 Some, of course, may be answered before that great day. 00:07:30.819 --> 00:07:33.399 I really hope they are. 00:07:33.399 --> 00:07:45.339 But it puts it in perspective that when I meet with the Lord, I too can thank him for the thousands of prayers that he did answer day by day, week by week. 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:49.799 It's good to get unanswered prayers sometimes into perspective. 00:07:52.699 --> 00:08:00.620 In John 17, 21, Jesus prays a prayer that is still yet to be answered. 00:08:00.620 --> 00:08:07.220 And he prayed for you and me that we would be one, his church, his people. 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:17.699 And maybe we need to get onto that and get a bit intentional about that, about coming together more and more as Christians and looking for the coming of his kingdom. 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:22.360 Christchurch has been such a blessing in our ecumenical oneness. 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:29.300 Dealing with disappointment in life is life. 00:08:30.620 --> 00:08:39.600 Jesus didn't promise that the cross that he asks us to take up and carry would be without its pain. 00:08:40.560 --> 00:08:43.740 The splinters of life go deep into our soul. 00:08:44.759 --> 00:08:52.279 Yet as an atheist friend of mine kindly reminded me once as I tried to justify to him unanswered prayer. 00:08:52.279 --> 00:09:07.199 He said, do you know, it's far more comforting, Clive, to think God listened and said no than the alternative which I have, which is believing that nobody's out there, that nobody's listening and that nobody cares. 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:12.780 I'll end this morning with a car story. 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:17.960 Well, it was a story that I was listening to in the car and it was on the radio. 00:09:17.960 --> 00:09:23.840 The story being that a pastor of his church, they'd been praying long and hard for a guy called Ted. 00:09:23.900 --> 00:09:26.460 He was an older guy who had terminal cancer. 00:09:27.040 --> 00:09:32.620 And amazingly, Ted responded to treatment and became well. 00:09:33.379 --> 00:09:35.460 All within a very short space of time. 00:09:35.540 --> 00:09:37.780 On the Sunday, they were going to give thanks for this. 00:09:37.779 --> 00:09:49.139 Yet in that week, a younger guy in the church, a father with two children, was taken ill and tragically, he died very suddenly. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:54.799 The leaders came to the pastor and said, well, what are we going to say on Sunday? 00:09:54.939 --> 00:09:56.799 You know, how can we celebrate? 00:09:56.939 --> 00:10:02.379 The leader thought, said, and I'm going to say Ted, the older guy, he got healed. 00:10:03.179 --> 00:10:04.100 Praise God. 00:10:04.100 --> 00:10:08.920 Yet Pete, the younger guy, he got better. 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:12.800 Ted did get healed. 00:10:13.920 --> 00:10:22.240 Yet Pete, the younger guy, despite the pain for his family, he is in eternity with our Lord Jesus Christ. 00:10:22.800 --> 00:10:26.200 He just happened to get the better thing that day. 00:10:26.560 --> 00:10:32.500 And if you're a Christian, albeit in excruciating pain and the loss of a loved one, 00:10:32.500 --> 00:10:42.320 and as you grieve, and you may have grieved for many years, you may understand what the pastor says for your loved one, that they got better. 00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:49.879 On days like this, it heightens my resolve to tell people, to bring people into relationship with Jesus. 00:10:50.139 --> 00:10:54.320 We're reading this book at the moment, Unleashed by the Culvers. 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:56.020 It's an amazing book. 00:10:56.020 --> 00:11:00.780 It's about the Acts 2 church and how that relates today in a sense of urgency. 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:06.500 And I catch that for people that would come into a deeper relationship with Jesus. 00:11:06.500 --> 00:11:14.179 So on that day, when troubles come, and it will, because the Bible says that it will, and when this life ends, 00:11:14.279 --> 00:11:19.419 and sadly for some, often suddenly at a young age, in amongst the pain and the anguish, 00:11:19.759 --> 00:11:27.320 we may say they got better because they know Jesus and they are with him, just as he promised, 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:33.900 like he promised to the guy next to him on the cross on that day, today you will be with me in paradise. 00:11:35.040 --> 00:11:40.000 That's why I struggle, I think, with one of the top funeral hymns that's played at crematoriums, you know, 00:11:40.160 --> 00:11:42.180 I did it my way, you know. 00:11:44.640 --> 00:11:49.320 Not my will, but yours is perhaps better prayed. 00:11:49.320 --> 00:11:55.940 Because through death, pain and disappointment, there is joy on the third day. 00:11:56.220 --> 00:11:57.980 There is joy in an empty tomb. 00:11:58.400 --> 00:12:04.960 There is joy in the price that was paid by Jesus for each and every one of us because of him. 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:11.800 And because of him, we all get better in the end. 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:13.800 Why? 00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:23.299 Because on that one occasion, a loving father was strong enough to say no.