Importance of Structure

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:00:14] Speaker A: In the Gospel reading, Jesus says, blessed are those servants whom the Master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he, the Master will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. Now, the Master, like when the Master comes home and he finds the servants awake, he's going to serve them now. [00:00:44] Speaker A: That's right. It's odd, isn't it, that the Master would come home and serve the servants. [00:00:51] Speaker A: But that's how our Master is. That's how Jesus is. He comes to us to serve us. He comes to us to, well, prepare a table for us. Think of him giving his own body and blood for us, giving Himself to us so that we would receive him, participate in him, receive all that he is, receive his life and his forgiveness. That's the kind of Master we serve. And he came to us. That's what Advent is about. It's looking forward to his coming, both his coming as a baby, looking backward, as Pastor Pete said on Sunday, and looking forward to his second coming. There's a third kind of coming, and that's his continual coming to us every day. He's coming to you and to me. He's there. Think of him knocking on the door like the Master coming home. Right. And are we awake to receive Him? You know, there's no situation. [00:02:04] Speaker A: That he doesn't want to. [00:02:07] Speaker A: Stick his hands in. There's no difficulty that he doesn't want to have anything to do with. There's no situation in which he's not ready to help. He's there all the time within us by faith. But, well, we can kind of block him out. We can be unprepared for his coming. Let's say in a difficult situation, we look to our own strength or throw up our hands in frustration or those kinds of responses are different from prayer that recognizes him beside us, within us and looks to him to serve us. Isn't that wonderful? The Master is there to serve us at any moment. [00:02:59] Speaker A: If, see, it's like, does it depend on us? Well, I mean, thankfully, no, in the sense that I can't by my own reason or strength do any of this. [00:03:14] Speaker A: But he does say, stay awake. He tells you to stay awake, to be alert, to be ready and to watch for him to pay attention. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Because that's how we receive Jesus. He's drawn our attention to Himself. And he calls us and gathers and enlightens by His Holy Spirit. [00:03:40] Speaker A: So be ready. Now, I Want to talk about. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Readiness also in terms of worship, because the very. I mean, we can talk about being ready, we can hear it from this scripture passage, but we have tools also. [00:03:58] Speaker A: That help to make us ready, that can help our prayer. And then there are also patterns that can hurt our prayer. There are patterns that can make us ready for Jesus, help to make us ready for Jesus. And there are patterns that can take our attention off of Jesus and put it on other things. And we have some role in shaping those patterns. An obvious one is coming to church. Come to church and you hear God's word and there he's calling you through his word and he's showing you your sin and then giving you forgiveness. And we're calling upon him in prayer and he's answering. And all those kinds of things happen in church. And well, if I, you know, decide that I'd rather go do something else every other Sunday, then that's. Well, it's not taking advantage of this pattern that could be helping my faith and then is, you know, whatever I'm replacing it with, is that. [00:05:02] Speaker A: Helping my faith equally or is it harming? You know, it's like patterns do different things and. [00:05:13] Speaker A: Our surroundings matter. Okay, not only for our own faith though, but for the faith of those around us. [00:05:20] Speaker A: If I'm on my phone all the time. [00:05:24] Speaker A: What is that pattern teaching my children? [00:05:28] Speaker A: I was just in front of Evelyn, you know, our four month old the other day, and I had to get something done. And so I'm sitting there on my phone and thinking like she right now is learning that I go to my phone for things all the time. You know, like, do her surroundings matter to her and her view of the world, her understanding of what's important, what's worth my attention? [00:05:54] Speaker A: In fact, I should probably use a physical Bible at home as often as I can. How great would that be if my kids saw me reading scripture? That would for them be a pattern that would shape them. We're shaped by our surroundings and that's what worship is all about. So worship and services, I keep saying they're ancient. And that's just to say that these patterns are shaped the way they are. [00:06:25] Speaker A: Because. Well, because they've been shaped by Christians who recognize that these are life shaping things, that the liturgy is a thing to shape our lives. In it, we, let's just talk Sunday morning. [00:06:44] Speaker A: We confess our sins and we receive forgiveness. And that pattern is shaping us to confess our sins throughout the week. [00:06:56] Speaker A: And hear God's forgiveness, to look to him for forgiveness. [00:07:01] Speaker A: We say, lord have mercy. Sometimes, Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. And that's shaping us to sit at God's feet and to see him as above us and ourselves, always in need of his mercy. And the goal is that we would, throughout the week, pray, Lord, have mercy. When something comes up, you hear something devastating, or. [00:07:27] Speaker A: You come up against your own weakness. [00:07:32] Speaker A: And your response, since it's been burned into you through the liturgy, is to say, lord, have mercy. You see, it's like every part of the liturgy is for all of life. It's this ritualized pattern that's to shape us for life. For life. Paul said in Romans 12. [00:07:57] Speaker A: Do not be conformed to this world. [00:08:02] Speaker A: Don't be shaped after the pattern of the world. Do not be conformed to this world. [00:08:10] Speaker A: But be transformed. Another kind of shaping, be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. [00:08:28] Speaker A: How does that happen? Well, not just in worship. It happens throughout the week. It happens all the time. [00:08:40] Speaker A: So then the question is, in what pattern are we living? [00:08:46] Speaker A: And the goal then would be in Christ's pattern, a pattern shaped by faith. And for that, we can all ask for forgiveness. [00:09:00] Speaker A: And ask for discernment and wisdom and encouragement and strength and courage to. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Form and develop habits that prepare us for the coming of the Lord. So that we would have our lamps burning and be ready, and not just us, but our children and those around us, our church family, one another, that we would all be ready for the coming of the Lord, to celebrate with. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Sincerity and truth as lines from a prayer that we say. But you know. [00:09:41] Speaker A: The birth of our Lord at Christmas, to be ready for Jesus coming when he comes back, so that when he comes, we receive him with joy, but also to receive him in every moment, to remember him, to look to him in prayer and receive all that he comes to us, to give. All that, all the ways that he comes to serve us. Thank God, in Jesus name, amen.