Sit, Stay, Watch, Pray, Go
(I was invited by Pastor Joel Balin to preach at Crossbridge Vineyard Church)
It’s so good to be with you today – I am honored and privileged that Joel and Trace invited me to come share with you guys. Paul really wanted to be here, too, but he’s with Peter, Jonathan, and Michael, our three sons who needed to be over at the Atlanta Vineyard today, and we’re doing what we can to keep balance and sanity in our lives during the continuing transition our family is in. Our three daughters, Cascade, Esther, and Karis, came with me today and I’m thrilled they get to have time with Miss Judy, who taught all our sons when they were younger, too! The Atlanta Vineyard has been our church family for over 19 years, and it’s a joy to finally visit CrossBridge where Joel and Trace and many other dear friends gather together each week! For those of you who don’t know, we’ve been living in Россия, the land of snow and ice; where the richness of culture encompasses wonderful cuisine, art, literature, and classical music; where you can experience a 40 to 70 degree temp change seven months of the year simply by going indoors; where grocery stores have an entire aisle dedicated to mayonnaise; where workers with birch brooms can be seen side-by-side with modern snow plows; where everyone carries the name of their father in their “patronymic” middle name, regardless of whether or not they’ve even met or have relationship with their dad; where children and elderly men are rare; where apathy and depression are commonplace; where the death rate far exceeds the birth rate; where alcoholism, suicide, abortion, homicide, and drug addiction are at epidemic proportions; but where God’s Kingdom is breaking through. Slava Bogy (praise God!) I’ll talk to you more about Russia as we go, and there are more stories and pictures on our blog, but we’re going to start by reading some Scripture. <Open in prayer>
Matthew 26:36 – 46 (x2)
“36Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
40Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
42He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
43When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
45Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46Rise, let us go!”
Usually we look at passages like this around Easter time. I’m no theologian, but this week, the Lord encouraged me through the truths in this passage, and I want to encourage you with them, too. Jesus said five things to the disciples that night that apply to us today.
The first thing Jesus said: Sit
The title of this message sounds like something we would say to a dog, doesn’t it? “Sit, Stay, Watch, Pray, Go”. Well, I’m not sure if you ever tell your dog to pray, but why do we talk to dogs like that? It’s because each of those commands is simple, and simple is good when communicating with animals. God knows simple is good when He talks to us, too, because we get all out of whack when things get too complicated. Jesus, in facing the most challenging hour of His earthly life, looked at His friends, and gave them a very simple instruction. The first thing we need to learn is to follow simple instructions, to walk in obedience to the Lord. Like puppies, we have a tendency to jump around and run from one thing to another, chasing everything that looks even remotely interesting. But God knows, as any dog trainer knows, that we need to be disciplined and trained to follow orders, for our own safety and good, and to be of any use to our Master. He gives us such simple commands, like “sit here”. We often have really great ideas about how we can do this or that wonderful thing for God, but God’s way is always the best way.
Whatever the Lord has asked you or me to do, we are to do it, even if we don’t see the big picture or fully understand or have all the answers. Our loving Father tells us what He tells us in His way and timing – we have to trust Him on that. I’m sure we can all look back at things in our lives and realize that if we knew what we were in for, we would have chickened out. God our Father definitely knows best! He never tells us to do something without giving us what we need to do it, whether wisdom, resources, strength, time, skill, courage, or endurance. Where God guides, God provides! Obedience is the pre-requisite for receiving all that God has for us. Jesus is not only our Savior, but also our Lord and Master – our job is to trust and obey.
One of the big question marks we had when saying yes to God’s call on our family to go to Russia involved the education of our firstborn, Peter. As you can imagine, this is also a question that many others asked us, since moving teenagers around isn’t generally regarded as an easy thing. If we weren’t 100% sure that this was God’s idea, we would never have attempted to undertake this risky proposition. But God gave us simple instructions, and we knew we were to follow those instructions, even though we didn’t have all the answers. Later, after we’d begun to move forward in obedience, the Lord totally surprised us by lining up an amazing opportunity for Peter that is so incredible that it seems like a personalized gift wrapped by God Himself. He will be studying one bus ride away from our apartment, in the field he’s wanted to pursue since he was 11, in a Bachelor of Science program sponsored by Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, and Intel, in English, in the international department of the most prestigious university in that very high-tech region of Russia. It is very humbling and way cool to see our Father’s great love and care for every aspect of our lives! As we trust and obey, God blows us away again and again with His plans that far supersede anything we could come up with!
The second thing Jesus said: Stay and Watch
What does it mean to “stay here”? Paul said in Philippians 4:12 – 13, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Staying with Jesus means that we are content to be wherever He has us – we are not looking elsewhere for contentment – He alone is our source of contentment. When we keep our eyes on Him, it doesn’t matter what our external circumstances are.
What does it mean to keep watch? In the body of Christ, keeping watch means three things – discerning enemy attack, discerning moves of God, and discerning needs of people. Jesus did all three of these by keeping His eyes on the Father. In John 5:19, Jesus said, “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” We need to be focused on doing what Jesus did, watching what the Father is up to. When the Father shows us what He’s doing, He’s showing us what He wants us to see, in order for us to know what we’re supposed to be doing. We are to have that same attitude of surrender and submission that our Lord Jesus had, and to do only what we see the Father doing, because then we will be doing things that will last, have eternal value, and bear much fruit for the Kingdom of God.
Going into Russia, Paul and I prayed continually that God would show us what He wanted us to see. One thing that stood out to us was a separation between various demographic groups in our church there, the Nizhny Vineyard. There are 3 main groups – older Russians, younger Russians, and international students who speak English. Historically, few have connected between the groups at a deep level. God has put it on our hearts to promote unity in the body of Christ wherever we go. The Lord gave us a simple strategy to encourage unity and connection by inviting mixed groups over to our home for food, fun, and fellowship. Some of the highlights of our time there happened during these laid back times, just being available, offering a listening ear, praying together, giving biblical advice and encouragement, serving good food, and just having fun in a place that’s often gray and dreary. God has really used our kids to bring joy to many. I will never forget Dima, a young Korean student who wept when he arrived at our apartment one Sunday afternoon, and said, “I really miss my family . . . I’ve been living on potatoes, and this is the first good meal I’ve had in two months.” It opened the door to talk about the love of the Father. Just “being” among the people, and modeling family, love, faithfulness, serving, peace, joy speaks much louder than words, which is a good thing since our Russian has a long way to go!
When you and I pray, as we seek to do what we see the Father doing, God is faithful to show us what He wants us to see, and gives us His strategies.
The third thing Jesus said: Watch and Pray
We’ve talked about watching . . . as God shows us things, we need to pray. In March, a Russian friend and I found that we were both burdened by the lack of men. Men are a rarity in Russia anyway – because of alcoholism and other factors, the life expectancy for Russian men is 14 years less than that for women. In the body of Christ, there is a notable lack of men, and the Nizhny Vinogradnik is no exception. In the previous six months, only 3 men had ever attended any prayer or leadership meeting at the church – the pastor, the assistant pastor, and Paul. My friend and I prayed in agreement, asking the Lord to raise up more men. A few days later, we were astounded when four new men showed up at the Monday night prayer meeting, having each visited the church for the first time the day before. Praise God for this very quick and encouraging answer to prayer! Three of them are still regulars at that weekly meeting. The best fuel for prayer is testimonies of answered prayer. We can all encourage one another by frequently sharing how God has answered our prayers – and spur one another on!
Recently I heard of a vision that beautifully illustrates what happens when we pray. Myriads of angels surround God’s throne, worshiping Him day and night. When a Christian prays, it’s as though a tiny door opens at the end of a long aisle leading to the throne. The Christian emerges through the doorway, and begins to walk towards God. Angels pause in their praises, poised on the edge of their seats, holding their breath, waiting to hear what this one who was created in God’s image, for whom Christ died, is going to say. Excitement and anticipation builds as the believer approaches the throne. God’s heart leaps as the Christian comes close, and He opens His arms wide to welcome this treasured child of His. The Father glances at the angels close by, verifying that they are ready to be dispatched to answer the prayer of this most beloved one. There is a hushed awe as the believer opens his mouth.
What an image! Through Jesus, God has given us free access to His throne—He has invited us in to the Holy of Holies! Imagine the disappointment if the believer’s prayer is mumbled, hurried, faithless, or vague. Hebrews 4:16 exhorts us, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need”. But how delighted God must be when we come to Him as He directs us, in confidence and boldness. The important thing to realize is that when we pray, God moves! We touch heaven, and heaven comes down to us and through us. It is impossible to pray with no results—God is faithful and always responds to us, His children, although not always in the way that we expect. God hears us when we pray. He never sleeps, He does not take breaks, He is never too busy. He’s waiting for us. Prayer means “depending on God.” Prayerlessness means “depending on ourselves.” It’s that simple.
Jesus’ instruction to keep watching + praying means that He wants us to wait, not a passive waiting, but an active waiting. I’ve come up with an acronym to describe what active waiting looks like.
W – Write it down. Bring to remembrance what God has spoken to you. Ask those close to you to help you remember. Exodus 24:3 says that Moses wrote down everything the Lord had said. Whether we journal like David or write letters like Paul, we need to record what God speaks to us. Then we can think about it, remember it, do it, and read it again when we doubt or get discouraged.
A – Ask God what’s on His heart. Prayer can take many forms, but it’s good to remember to regularly spend time seeking the Lord, with no agenda, to listen to His heart. There’s no way we can go wrong spending time focusing solely on the Lord. I don’t know how the Lord will speak to you, but I am certain that He will meet with you if you set aside time to seek His face. God is faithful. Hebrews 11:6 in The Message says that “God cares enough to respond to those who seek him”. I make it a daily habit to ask God what’s on His heart, but I’ve learned that often His answer comes at odd times and places, rarely during an official “quiet time.” God speaks to us most often through Scripture, but also through the Holy Spirit, circumstances, other believers, dreams, visions, and other ways.
I – Investigate His Word. We need to make sure what we think God has spoken to us lines up with the Bible! If it doesn’t line up, it isn’t the Bible that’s in error – God’s Word is true for all people for all time for all places. God’s Word never fails! In order to know what the Bible says, we need to read it and study it. Lutherans call the Word of God (written and proclaimed) a “means of grace”, one of the ways the Holy Spirit creates faith in the hearts of believers and causes us to grow spiritually. I’ve made it a habit to read through the Bible (aloud) about once a year for the last 17 years, and discovered this truth experientially – the more we apply ourselves to the study of God’s word, the more we are making ourselves available to God’s work in our hearts and minds.
T – Talk about it with other believers, especially those in authority over you. The New Testament model of church is community, in the way they prayed, lived, and made decisions. We are the body of Christ, not isolated individuals. The Bible says that there is safety in a multitude of counselors. You can move forward with more confidence when you know it’s not just you who’s come to a particular conclusion.
W-A-I-T – “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” (Psalm 27:14)
The fourth thing Jesus said: Avoid Temptation
Jesus said that by watching and praying we would avoid falling into temptation. There are countless temptations we could fall into, but the Lord highlighted 3 of them to me to mention today, all of which can get us off track in fulfilling God’s destiny for our lives.
- Idolatry
Exodus 20 makes it clear that we are to have no other gods before the Lord, and to not worship anything except God. Although we might not necessarily get a piece of wood and carve an idol out of it, we all have a tendency towards idolatry. We make idols out of other people, often leaders, putting them in the place of God in our lives. We make idols out of positions and titles, trying to derive worth out of what we do instead of because of who we are in Christ. We make idols out of possessions, trying to allow things to comfort our hearts, when only the love of the Father can do that. John concluded his first letter with the simple exhortation, “dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” Idols are tempting. If we don’t pay attention, we will gravitate towards them. This year I started practicing the “daily office”, a discipline that many believers in other streams of the body of Christ have practiced for centuries. One of the benefits I’ve discovered is that four times a day, built into this simple framework of liturgical, Scriptural prayers, is a frequent habit of self-examination, confession, and repentance. We need to be on our guard.
You may not struggle with idolatry as the idolater, but perhaps someone else has put you on a pedestal, as an idolatee. This is especially likely if you are a leader of any kind, and there is a very real temptation to succumb to. We all like and need affirmation, but affirmation can easily turn into idolatry if we allow it. It’s up to each of us to be very careful to give all the glory to God in every situation. The best leadership advice I ever received was, “Be very careful to always give glory to God.” King Saul started out very aware of His weakness and lack of importance, knowing that he came from the least clan of the weakest tribe. But Saul grew big in his own eyes and wound up trusting himself instead of God. His self-idolatry lead to his downfall, and he missed God’s best for his life.
We can avoid the temptation towards idolatry by giving God first place in every area of our lives, and by intentionally focusing all of the attention on Him.
- Busy-ness
12 years ago, the Lord gave me my life verses – Hebrews 4:9 – 11 – “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest . . .”
I believe that God gave me this life message not only so I can enjoy living in His rest, but also so He can use me to point others towards this truth. Our culture is plagued by busy-ness. The Sabbath-rest God promises us is not confined to heaven, and doesn’t mean taking one day off each week. It’s a promise that speaks of living life and doing everything from a place of rest.
When you become aware that God has given you a life verse, or a life theme, or a life message, it’s something that He will teach you and then take you deeper into it again and again. God’s been taking Paul and me more out of our comfort zone, and stretching our faith, moving us towards a daily attitude of, “Lord, what adventure do you have for me today? Who do you want us to connect with today?”
In Russia, we found daily life to be more time & energy consuming, because of snow, no car, fewer conveniences, etc. We’ve already seen how easy it would be to get sidetracked by a myriad of good but maybe not great things. We’ve grown more aware than ever of the importance of balance, intentionality, and space, and to daily rely more on the Father’s wisdom and direction. It’s important to be available. I think the enemy uses busy-ness to keep people so distracted so we won’t have time or energy to listen to God. Busy-ness is often accompanied by anxiety, stress, worry, fatigue, confusion, and an inability to concentrate. Living in a place of rest is characterized the fruit of the Spirit.
A good question to ask ourselves in examining our lives is: Am I doing this because of reaction or reflection? Is what I’m doing just reacting to people or circumstances? Or did this idea come to me out of reflecting on my life through the mirror of God and His Word?
We can avoid the temptation towards busy-ness by choosing to do everything from a place of rest and reflection and resist the urge to react.
- Cold heart
One of the things I enjoy is to work on “Karen’s adventurous project to read lots of great works in her spare time” list, a.k.a. “books I want to read before I die”. About 10 years ago, I compiled a list of great works, Christian and secular, fiction and non-fiction, mostly classics. (By the way, at the rate I’m going, I’m going to live to be 200 years old!) One of the first books I tackled, a 900 page treatise on psychology, published 120 years ago, contained one of the most profound truths about the human heart I have ever read:
“No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. With mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paved . . . The weeping of a lady over the fictitious personages in a play, while her coachman is freezing to death on his seat outside, is the sort of thing that everywhere happens on a less glaring scale . . . One becomes filled with emotions which habitually pass without prompting to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental condition is kept up. The remedy would be, never to suffer one’s self to have an emotion at a concert, without expressing it afterward in some active way. Let the expression be the least thing in the world . . . but let it not fail to take place.”
This warning to not allow our hearts to grow cold is even more relevant to us in the 21st century where we are influenced constantly through internet, TV, movies, magazines, etc. We cry about things that occur at a distance or fictitiously, but do we really care enough to do something about someone else’s suffering? If God has put something on our hearts, our response ought to be to not just feel something about it, but to do something about it. We need to constantly guard our hearts against growing cold, because coldness towards one person will lead towards coldness to others, and eventually coldness to God. It requires tremendous discipline on our part to guard against this.
James said that faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. In the Amplified Version, it says that our faith is “destitute of power” if it does not have “actions of obedience to back it up.”
We can avoid the temptation of having cold hearts by making it a habit to do something good every time our hearts are influenced, and using discernment in what we allow to influence us.
The fifth and final thing Jesus said: Go
OK, so you’ve sat, you’ve stayed and watched, you’ve watched and prayed, you’ve avoided temptation. Then one day, God tells you the time is right to move forward with something He’s shown you. Regardless of what it is, if it takes you out of your comfort zone (something God is really good at), it’s going to require courage, and it’s going to require action.
Early last year the Lord began to speak to both Paul and me about His heart for Russia and His purposes for our family. God had etched Russia on our hearts for many years, and we’d been there multiple times, but this time the Lord showed us that He was calling us to Russia for a longer period of time.
In our minds, going to Russia long-term was something Paul and I would do at a more convenient time, like when the kids were all grown. But God spoke to us and He kept on speaking and made it clear that He had a different timeline in mind. We got to a point where we realized that there was a line drawn on the ground, so to speak. We stood there, with our toes right up next to the line, and our Heavenly Father gave us a choice. He said in essence, “I’m not going to force you to do this, but my very best plan for you requires you to cross that line. Don’t be afraid. Trust me. I love you. I’m always with you. I want you to lay everything down before me. Are you willing? (And by the way, there’s no turning back.)” It was a terrifying decision, a momentous decision, one that evoked feelings of diving headfirst off a very tall tower through a thick cloud into a tiny and not-yet-visible tub of water. The Lord showed me how much selfishness I had in my heart – in my flesh, I didn’t want to give up seeing my friends face-to-face . . . I didn’t want to give up fruitful, life-giving ministries . . . I didn’t want to give up a comfortable living environment . . . I didn’t want to give up being known . . . I didn’t want to give up having more than one bathroom in our home . . . I didn’t feel like bending. But God is love, and He poured so much encouragement, so much grace, so much comfort, and so much courage and faith into our hearts to enable us to repent and to surrender all. He put a desire in us that we couldn’t possibly have manufactured on our own – He gave us the desire to give it all up. Now, it’s one thing to give up things that aren’t that great like clothes that don’t fit you anymore anyway, but another thing entirely to give up your most priceless treasures. We were living in a season of tremendous fruitfulness in every area of our lives. It is especially difficult giving up something that you’ve birthed, labored over, and loved from the depths of your heart, whether relationships, ministries, or math clubs. But God’s grace is sufficient! We took the leap of faith, just one step, actually, and we were across the line. The vision God put on our hearts is to pray, to mobilize others to pray, to promote unity in the body of Christ, and to raise up leaders. But what that actually looks like is up to God. Our job is to trust and obey.
Has God drawn a line on the ground before you? Of course, giving our lives to Christ is crossing the ultimate line. But periodically, the Lord draws other lines and calls us ever forward out of our comfort zones. The Lord has spoken to me a lot this past year about “abiding in Christ above the circumstances.” It’s easy to abide in Jesus when things are smooth and predictable. It’s when life resembles a blizzard, and we can’t even see the next step (let alone a pathway), that we need to consciously choose to abide. God is constantly pursuing our hearts, and He wants all of our hearts. Out of His great love for us, He will continually put us in situations where we need to trust Him more.
Mrs. L. B. Cowman, author of “Streams in the Desert”, says that “At certain times and places, God will build a mysterious wall around us. He will take away all the supports we customarily lean upon, and will remove our ordinary ways of doing things . . . We will be in a place where we do not know what is happening, where God is cutting the cloth of our lives by a new pattern, and thus where He causes us to look to Him. Most Christians live a treadmill life—a life in which they can predict almost everything that will come their way. But the souls that God leads into unpredictable and special situations are isolated by Him. All they know is that God is holding them and that He is dealing in their lives. Then their expectations come from Him alone.”
Let’s get off our treadmills, and let Father God orchestrate the Kingdom adventures He has planned for each and every one of us. He’s the Master, He loves us, and He’s good. His plan for each of us is the best, the absolute best possible scenario imaginable, in every aspect. As we sit, stay, watch, pray, and go, may God’s Kingdom come, and may Jesus Christ receive all the glory in each of our lives!
