Getting Away to Pray

We’re in the middle of a sermon series that we have been simply calling the Ministry of Jesus, where we are trying to take the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and doing a bit of what we call a harmonization. So where the goal is to look at all of the gospels as one unit and look at everything Jesus did and everything Jesus said and every interaction that Jesus had. We are attempting to do it in chronological fashion passion. And we have been in this series for about a year, a little bit more than a year, and we will continue in this series until May of 2024. So it’s a short series that we’re doing here in the Church. But something to note really quickly. Also, I have to say this. My wife just texted me while on my computer, which I really shouldn’t even accept, but she said that there’s no food for the July 4 event. There are just other wonderful things. So I apologize.

Okay, moving on. We’re doing this series. It’s a year long. We’re keeping going. But something that you have to note is this. John, chapter 21, verse 25. This is what it says. Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. So what I’m trying to say is that our task in some ways is impossible. We can’t actually cover everything that Jesus did and everything that Jesus said because much of it isn’t written down. And so our hope is to just do our best. We’re going to do our best by looking primarily at the Gospels. And in this series, what you’re going to find is two things. Number one is, as I mentioned, not everything is written, so we can’t discuss everything. And then two is that not everything fits in a perfect narrative order. Things like parables and sermons and practices that Jesus had, don’t necessarily fit into our sermon series perfectly. And so we have to find a place for them. And so we’ll be going through a narrative, and then we’ll have to stop and kind of adjust and make some thoughts. And so this is one of those weeks.

So one of those weeks where we’re going to take a pause on the actual storyline and just talk a little bit about something that Jesus did in our story. Let me tell you where we are. We find Jesus in Judea, which is the southern part of Israel, leaving the Temple Mount after a lengthy rebuke of the religious leaders. And he is on the way to the very end of his life. But what we’re looking at today goes back to the beginning of his ministry. And I want to discuss something that we see throughout Jesus’s ministry. We’re going to look at a practice of Jesus that we see from the very beginning of his ministry that will continue all the way until the night he is betrayed. We’re going to study it and then hopefully I want to convince you or maybe reconvince you to follow the practice of Jesus and then after that we’re going to practice that practice together. That’s what we’re hoping to do. Mark chapter one is where we’re going to be. So if you have a Bible you can go ahead and turn there. If you don’t have a Bible, no need to worry, it’ll be up on the screen. We’re at the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry. Jesus has been baptized. He’s already begun to call some of his disciples.

He is in a place called Galilee, that’s the northern part of Israel. And the crowds that we call the multitudes have been following Him. They are there because he’s a healer. They’re there because he has been feeding people. They are there because they want their needs to be met this is the first big crescendo in Mark chapter one of Jesus’s ministry. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people are following Him every place that he goes. And it’s within this text and within the context of Jesus’s popularity that we see the first instance of Jesus’s often repeated practice that we’re going to study out this morning. This is Mark chapter one, verse 35. It says this remember, Jesus is a superstar. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him and when they found him they exclaimed, everyone is looking for you. Jesus replied, Let us go somewhere else, to the nearby village so I can preach there also. That is why I have come. This is the text we’re going to use to explore a countercultural habit of Jesus.

Jesus in the midst of his popularity. Jesus is in the middle of a moment where he is the most sought-after man in all of Galilee. He is the one who everyone is seeking, desperately wanting to get hold of. This is what the Bible says Jesus did. He got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed. This is what we’re going to talk about today, Jesus’ practice of getting away to pray and how it’s a desperate need for all of us. Look, I would say the need to get away from life’s craziness, from work, from the bills, from relationship issues, from your own fear and your own anxiety, from pleasures and pursuits and pressures that need to be still and to commune with the Holy One is as needed today as it has ever been. Would you agree? My hope is to help you follow Jesus in that way. See this is one of the most dominant habits of Jesus in the Gospels. He does this again and again and again and again. In fact, Luke chapter six, explicitly tells us that Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. The word lonely places is sometimes translated as places of the wilderness. Jesus often got away from everyone else to pray. Luke, chapter six, verse twelve says, one of those days Jesus went to the mountainside to pray and he spent the night praying to God.

Mark, chapter six. Immediately Jesus made his disciples get in the boat and go to the other side of Besida. Everyone has been following him, everyone has been pursuing him. While he dismissed the crowds, after leaving them, he went up to the mountainside to pray. This is the same account, but it’s in John chapter six, verse 15. Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. Mark chapter 14, verse 32. This is just before his death. This is what it says they went to a place called Gethsemane and Jesus said to his disciples, sit here, stay here while I pray. The Scriptures unambiguously tell us that Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, the eternal, the preexistent, omniscient, creator of the universe, often withdrew, got away from the crowd, and pursued quiet, meditative, reflective prayer for Christ. Quiet places, desolate places, were his sacred places. He escaped the noise and the frenzy to be alone with God. And what’s amazing to me is that the thing that sort of juxtaposes the silence and the prayer is Mark, chapter one, where again the crowds are as thick as they have been. Think about this. There is so much noise.

It’s a cacophony of noise and people praising every single man and woman who had any bit of a disease would have been there awaiting, wanting a piece of Jesus. Jesus was a healer, the greatest rabbi there has ever been. Mark, chapter one, verse 28, said that his fame had spread everywhere. Think about it. It said that the whole town gathered at the door, which is his door. Want you to imagine this. Imagine you become so famous that you have tens of thousands of people waiting outside your home door waiting for you. Can you even imagine what that would be like? I once read a quote from Harrison Ford. He was talking about this at the height of his fame. He said that you never figure the cost of fame will be the total loss of privacy. You never figure it out, and he says what a burden that is. This is what Jesus is going through. He doesn’t even have a moment of quiet. He doesn’t have a moment to be alone. Everyone needs him, everyone wants him. And it’s amazing to me that Jesus has lost all privacy. Jesus again is as famous as a human being can be.

Imagine there was a man in Miami, or a man in Davy, or a man in Plantation, or a man in Tamarac, who could heal any disease. How famous would that guy be? I’m not talking about, like, a doctor. I’m talking about someone, not someone who can heal you and then send you to rehab for six months. I’m talking about someone that could heal you and you would be totally and completely healed. Jesus would be like, hey, see? And then the blind man would see. Just be like, hey, you have no arm. Well, now you have an arm. Imagine how famous that guy would be if every disease and every ailment and every illness could be healed by him in an instant. You would be seeing helicopters flying over the place where he lived. You’d have a 24-hours news cycle. There would be YouTube videos. It would be a madhouse. And basically, this is what Jesus is experiencing. Jesus is beyond famous. Everyone has come to him. Everyone needs him. And it’s in that setting that Jesus decides to have a time of quiet reflection with his father very early in the morning while it was still dark. Okay, I’m closing up shop for the night.

The healing is over. Have a good night. People are camping outside his house like they’re waiting for tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. They’re sitting there. The line is long. Everyone goes to sleep. And then while they’re all still sleeping, Jesus gets out, travels away, and has a time of prayer. Some might say he left behind a great opportunity. How could you leave behind those 10,000 people that you could help? Some might say he could have had a better he could have had more of an impact. Some might have even advised him to shorten or even skip this private discipline so that he could bless and encourage the swelling masses. But I think the way Jesus did this and the timing of it is supposed to be a wake-up call for all disciples at all times. I think it’s supposed to echo into our lives today. See, in the middle of the chaos, in the middle of the madness, at a moment when people wanted him most when he was being pushed and stressed, and when his possible anxiety he didn’t have anxiety, but possible anxiety was at his highest, and the feeling of being burnt out would have reached his climax. Jesus got away to be with his Father.

And this text leaves us with a pressing question. Where do you go when your life is chaotic? Where do you go when trouble is brewing, when anxiety is rich, when you’re afraid, when you feel burnt out, where do you go? You know, I’ve noticed that getting away to be with God is not always on the top of my list of things to do when things are crazy. In fact, I’ve noticed that we’re living in a time when it’s really difficult to be alone with God. Would you agree? I mean, it’s not difficult to be alone, right? I could be alone. Like, I could find times to be alone. I mean, it’s difficult to be alone with God, to be still, to listen to Him, to have unhurried, unrushed times of prayer and reflection, to have times of quiet. And I think it’s because you and I are bombarded 24 hours a day, seven days a week with noise all the time. And I think we’re uncomfortable with silence. Like, every moment of the day. You have an endless supply, and I have an endless supply of entertainment that I can participate in. I can have a video game system where I can get lost in another world. I have a phone where I can get lost in another world. I have a computer where I could also get lost in another world. I have Instagram where I can get lost in someone else’s world. I got music I can listen to. I got TikToks and shorts and reels, and I don’t know what else we have, but we have screaming children.

We have overzealous bosses who want us to really be alert at every given moment. And it never ends, it’s really hard to be alone. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes the times I do get alone and I try to turn off the outside noise, there’s actually a lot of noise in my own heart and mind. It’s like, all right, I’m going to be quiet today. And then I hear a flood of voices. It’s like, but tomorrow you have work to do. You better write it down on your agenda. It’s like okay, important. Yeah. And then you feel anxiety about your own bank statement, and then you feel concerns about your children. And then you’re like, what are the plans that I have tomorrow? And what are my plans for the future? And then all of a sudden, these things start running through your mind. And it’s like, maybe it’s a quiet space, but emotionally, it’s quite loud because you got feelings, you got things to think about. You got places that you think you should be. You got things to see, and you got ideas to have, and you got money to make, and you got children to raise, and you have people to save, and you have houses that you have to buy on Zillow that you can’t afford, and you have lots of things. You got noise from everywhere. And then you realize that when you actually get to silence, as I mentioned, the noise is sometimes overwhelming.

heard this said one time, and I agree. Sometimes I wish I had an airplane mode for my mind. Wouldn’t that be great? Like, you could just like and then all connection would be lost. But we don’t, and so it’s no wonder that it’s challenging to seek stillness in God. This is the other thing I’ve noticed about stillness and quiet, and maybe you’ve felt this too, but sometimes you get into quiet and you realize that you have a battlefield in your own mind. You’re like, I want to pray. All right, this is my time. I’m going to pray for ten minutes, Lord. And then you’re like, you’re an idiot mind. Your brain is telling you you can’t pray. You have no right to pray. Look what you did yesterday. Or you’re thinking about the sin of your youth, or you’re thinking about the things that your parents did wrong, or you’re thinking about that relationship that’s messed up. Or there’s a battlefield in your mind. It makes me think. In Luke, chapter four, Jesus goes to a solitary place to pray, and he fasts before going to a solitary place. In Luke, chapter four, do you know who he finds in the solitary place? Satan.

That’s who he finds there. Sometimes you go to find some quiet and peace with God, and instead, you find Satan. Instead, you find your own fear. You find your own frustration. You find your own anxiety. And so again, it’s no wonder that we are all tempted to drown out the noise with more noise and just I want to give you a little bit of a warning before I get into why Jesus did this and what I think is important for you to do it. Here’s a little bit of a warning. It comes from Isaiah, chapter 30, verse 15. It says this. This is what the Sovereign Lord says, the Holy One of Israel says, in repentance and rest is your salvation. Quietness and trust is your strength. But you would have none of it. You said, no, we will flee on horses. Basically, God is telling the people he wants to offer them peace and arrest. That would feel like salvation, quietness, and trust. But the people preferred a rushed, overburdened, hurried, flying off on horses type of life to the rest that God had to offer them. I don’t know about you, but I feel like this is me. God’s like, I want to offer you some rest, some stillness, some quiet. And I’m like, I want to figure out what I can do for vacation next year in February. It’s like, Take it easy, buddy.

God’s like, I want to offer you rest. And you’re like, well, there’s enough TikToks to last me forever more. And I trade the rest of God for the pursuits of man and the rushed and hurried life of man. I run from quiet because I think it’s challenging, and I’m so easily bored. And I would venture to guess that you’re so easily bored. And in doing so, I think we miss the rest of God. We miss communion with God, and we also miss opportunities for transformation. And here’s a statement of fact that I think we should own. If Jesus lived this way and we’re disciples, we can’t even live without it. Do you get what I’m saying? This is the way we’re supposed to be. Blaise Pascal has a great quote. It says all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. Maybe this is an overstatement, but I would say how hauntingly true might it be that we’re unable to sit quietly in a room alone. But here, Jesus himself modeled for us the very kind of habit and the rhythm that our age needs and that I need even as God Himself.

Jesus prioritized time alone with his Father. And if Jesus, even Jesus, carved out this time, shouldn’t all of us do the same? You and I must learn to get away and to go into the presence of God. But if you’re like me, you might wonder, well, what practically? How do I practically do it? How is this service important? Why is this going to be motivating for me? And so I want to share with you something a little bit interesting. Here’s a thought. The account of Jesus’s withdrawal heals in Mark chapter one. The account is immediately followed by Jesus preaching with power. What do I learn? Something I think we can all learn. Jesus deliberately withdrew from people in order to return to them again. So think about this when you think about getting away, it’s about this idea of recentering yourself so that you could get to work. What we’re talking about is not self-focused alone time. It’s not a spiritual justification for your own narcissism. It’s not a spiritual justification for your own laziness. I do need to get away for the next twelve days. I’m going to play video games.

I just need to get away for my children. So that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about not being like you get away so that you can be selfish. What we’re talking about is, again, a recentering. It’s a moment where you’re still enough to come to grips with what God has called you to do. I think about it this way. You retreat and then reenter. Retreat and then reenter. And we get a sense of it in the text. This is what it says. It says it begins by saying, very early in the morning, Jesus goes off to a quiet place. That’s what it says. And then it says this, and they come looking for him. And when they found him, they exclaimed, everyone’s looking for you. Jesus replied, Let us go somewhere else, to the nearby villages so that I can preach there also. And then what does he say? That is why I have come. Jesus is able to clarify and to clearly articulate, this is why I have come only after the withdrawal from the crowds. And I think about how these quiet times away with God are supposed to help us clarify the purpose of why we’re here. And let me just make a comment.

If you’re struggling to figure out why on earth you’ve been here, you may need a retreat. You may need to get away. Away from your phone, away from the computer, away from the television, and just reflect, why am I here, Lord? Would you tell me? Would you speak to me? You can’t get that answer while going, why am I here? What’s on Twitter? It doesn’t work like that. Why am I here? That question isn’t solved in a heartbeat. It’s solved with quiet reflection. Jesus found clarity in the quiet and then he gets back to work. See, Jesus chose to be in lonely places in the middle of high stress. Jesus chose a season to separate himself from the pressures. Jesus chose to separate himself from all the drama and all the demands. And we see it again and again and again and again. But he never stayed in that place. He went away and then came back resolved, ready to go and see. For 2000 years, Christians have been following this type of rhythm. We retreat in order to reenter. The healthy Christian life is neither wholly solitary nor is it holy communal. It’s not a monk living in the desert. It’s about retreating and then re-entering. Just like Jesus. He withdraws from the hustle and bustle of daily life in order to reenter it.

The healthy Christian carves out a season for spiritual respite, in order to have momentary sacred places with their God, in order to feed their soul, in order to get clarity about what they’re supposed to do. So you may ask, how do I do this? How does this happen? Do you think I have 40 kids? I have three children under the age of six. I have a full-time job. Maybe you think I have aging parents. I have a house that’s for sale. I just got my wisdom teeth pulled. How am I going to have quiet? There are things and I get it. All of us want quiet. At least we think we want quiet, but none of us think we can have it. And so I want to just encourage you with two things. First is that this is a practice. A practice which means you don’t get it the first time you do it. You have to practice it. You have to go, okay, I’m going to carve out time at 630 in the morning. Okay? That’s what I’m going to do. You carve out some time and you learn, hey, that time does not work for me. So instead I’m going to carve out time at 930 at night. Instead, I’m going to carve out time at some other time until it works. It’s a practice. But if you don’t practice it, you will never do it.

You’ll never, ever, ever do it. And so there are three practices that I want to encourage you to have. The first is a daily practice. Every single day. You should be having a time where you get away for quiet reflection, prayer, and reading of the Bible. We used to call these times quiet times. You can call it quiet times if you want, with an open Bible and an open heart. Maybe you’re like, I’ll just use my phone. I warn you, you may not be able to use your phone because it’s not very quiet on your phone. There are a lot of things coming your way on the phone. So maybe you need to go to Barnes and Noble and buy a Bible. That’s way too expensive. Just buy one of those Bibles. Or go on Amazon and buy a Bible. You may just need to do that in order to actually have a time of quiet daily practice. All of us need a daily practice, a daily practice of prayer, and a daily practice of reading. How long do you ask? Well, that’s not really important. It’s a practice. Some of my friends who feel like they can tolerate more time are doing a daily practice of prayer and reading. And then they’re setting a timer for ten minutes where they do nothing, they think about nothing. They try their hardest to kind of empty themselves of their thoughts. Maybe you can do that. But again, don’t start there. Start with just reading and praying every single day

Second, all of us need a weekly practice, the Bible institutes something called the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments. And again, we’re not a Sabbath-keeping church, which is, like a traditional idea, but we are. A Sabbath is a smart church, which means that we think that human thriving needs a time when you shut down, when you spend time with your family, where you reflect, and you worship. And you don’t have your TV on all day long, you don’t have your phone on all day long, and you kind of get away from that. Some of us in this church are picking days where we’re going, look, we’re not going to turn on our TV, we’re not going to turn on our phone. We’re just going to be with our family. We’re going to rest and worship our God. Maybe you’re like that’s extreme. But maybe you need to pick 3 hours where you do that or 5 hours where you do that. I don’t know. You need to figure it out. But you should have a weekly practice this a daily practice and a weekly practice. The last thing I want to encourage you to have is a seasonal practice retreat. Our men’s retreat. Some conferences that we go to.

The goal of these times is to get away from the monotony of your life, to have some time where you’re spending like an extended period of time with God in a really good way. Some of the men here take hiking trips. We’ve taken three hiking trips to three national parks, where we hike. And at the top of the hikes, normally we will stop on the top of the hike, set a timer and sit there in absolute silence. And the silence in those areas is deafening. It’s really loud because you’re not used to it. There’s a ringing in your ear that happens. You’re like what’s happening here? And you realize, man, I’m not really away as often as I should be. I’m not as quiet as often as I should be. So I want to encourage you. Daily practice, weekly practice, seasonal practice. Now, let me add this. It’s not going to be easy. It wasn’t easy for Jesus. Even when Jesus went away, do you know, people came looking for Him? You might go away and go, oh, you know what? I’m going to have a time of quiet today. And your children may come looking for you.

You may go away, and your boss may come looking for you. And fear may track you down and anxiety may track you down. But again, it’s a practice. You need to practice it. And so, because I know it’s a practice and I know it’s hard to do, I want to give you day one of your practice. Are you ready? We’re going to do it here for ten minutes. Now, before you leave, and you think to yourself, it’s not that important. Don’t do this. I want you to stick with me. This is the perfect time to practice this. Here’s what we’re going to do. By the way, if you have kids, your kids are in Kingdom Kids. You don’t have to worry about them. They’re like perfectly taken care of you’re in church. For goodness sake, put your phone away. Do it now. If you’re watching online, you all of you people, this is not the time to walk around, find a spot to sit down, take off your phone, put it all away, and have time. Ten minutes, quiet, we’re going to keep the lights just like this so that no one’s falling asleep. We’re not going to play a bed of music behind you. This is about quiet.

Don’t fall asleep. Resist the urge to adjust, to go to the bathroom, to get up. If you have to get up, go get up. But resist the urge to do it. And just try to sit still. Pray if you need to, pray if you’re like. I just can’t pray for ten minutes. You can open up the Bible, a physical Bible, and try to read it for ten minutes. That’s fine. And then I’ll end our time with Communion. But while you’re sitting there, if you’re willing to do this, I would like to give you two questions to reflect on. If you want to sit in stillness, that’s even better. But these are two questions to reflect on. Who am I? I want you to have an existential thought. Who am I? Who am I? Think about that. And then, what would God have me do? For those two questions, I’m going to set a timer for ten minutes. You don’t set a timer because then you’re going to be looking at your timer the whole. Time, sit there in silence and stillness. We’re going to have ten minutes. I’ll come back when there’s about two minutes left. I’ll say a prayer for communion, and for the last two minutes, we’ll reflect on the cross of Christ.