How to Pray When You Feel Worthless
Well next week we officially begin our series in the book of Hebrews. But
today we have one final topical sermon before we do that and the title of
the message today is “How to Pray When I Feel Worthless.”
Our church focus for the year is on prayer. As believers we are instructed
to pray. We are instructed to bring our petitions to the Lord to pray without
ceasing....We know these things, and yet there are times when we just
don’t feel like praying. And there are lot of potential reasons to why this
might be the case in your life, but the one we are going to be focusing on
today is this feeling of worthlessness. I have lost hope in prayer because
I look at myself and all I see is a sinful human who makes the same
mistakes over and over again and seems to make zero progress in the
Christian life. I feel like prayer doesn’t even work for me or something.
The thought of praying just kind of rings hollow. I just feel exhausted in the
faith. The harder I try the more depressed I get when I look inside.
Perhaps you listened to last weeks message on application and
you thought to yourself, “You know what, I haven’t actually put in any
effort whatsoever to change in the last year. I am pathetic.” Perhaps
you have thought to yourself, “Man, I ought to be further along in my walk
with the Lord by now. I am a fat cell in the body of Christ.” I committed
to changing last week and now here I am one week later and I haven’t
changed a bit. I am lame. And this feeling of spiritual inadequacy can
have a very draining effect of your life. You can start to question
your salvation. You might describe it as spiritual depletion. There is a
dissatisfaction with where you are and where you think you should be. This
is how one person put it in a letter that I received....
I have had great prayer times and fruitful times in the Word, but
they are few and far between. To be honest, I can go weeks without doing
either of those to any great extent and when I do, it is out of a feeling of
duty and guilt. Of late, I have had an undeniable lack of reaction to the
Word. I can’t help but feeling I am reading because I have to and that I
am only reading over and over the things I have known for so long. The
Word has felt dry and redundant to me when I have quiet time. As for
prayer, when I have the rare opportunity to be alone and pray intensely
for a long time, it can be good. But I lack a daily, consistent prayer life
almost completely, and almost always have. I have felt a need to get more
involved, but immediately recognize a wrong motive (looking like a good
Christian) behind most of my plans.
I am at a complete loss because everything in me wants to say that
this is on me, God has done His part and has equipped me fully to live in
holiness and to love Him with my whole heart, but I have dropped the ball.
I MUST read more and I MUST enjoy it and grow from it. I MUST pray
more. I MUST reach out more and MAKE myself love the lost. I MUST
get out of my comfort zone and face persecution, challenge. I have this
whole list of things I know I MUST do better, but history has proven to me
that I can do no better than I have been doing on my own. Not only this,
but picking myself up by my bootstraps to be a good Christian just violates
everything I believe about my own hopeless sin and reliance on grace. I
know it has to be a work of God and that He must continually work in our
lives to change and grow us.
So how do you pray when you feel like this? Is there something that I am
doing wrong or thinking wrong that is causing things to be so difficult?
What do I need to do different? This is a question every honest Christian
has in his or her life at some point.
Well today we are going to be talking about a passage of Scripture where
we read of a man who had significant failures in his relationship to God.
Seriously significant failres. In fact his failures more than likely eclipse your
failures by a significant amount. But here is what we are going to learn
from him today. Those failures did not prevent him from coming to the Lord
and asking the Lord for blessing.
In fact, there is a kind of strange confidence that we are going to want to
emulate in this man.
Today we are going to look at the passage about the thief on the cross as
a most excellent example of the attitude required to come to the Lord in
prayer. And at first you might think, what does this story have to do with
prayer? The thief doesn’t pray a single prayer on the cross. How is this
going to help us in the least bit? But the parallel is not very hard to
see if you take a second to think about it. If you are a living in the 1st
century and you want to open your mouth and talk to Jesus or if you are
living in the suburbs of Boise, ID and you want to get on your knees and
talk to Jesus, the attitude required to do both of these things is the same.
It is exactly the same. And there is a certain attitude we want to extract
from this thief that I am praying will be very instructive to us this morning
especially as it relates to prayer.
But before we get to that scene we have to back up a moment and
remember the scene. Jesus had eaten the last supper with his disciples
Thursday night. After Judus had slipped out to betray him, Jesus and his
disciplies slip into the Garden of Gethsemene for prayer. Jesus cries out to
the Lord in extreme anguish that the father would remove the cup from him,
but, not my will be done....but yours. After several long hours of prayer
and after enduring the agony of waking his sleeping disciples, Jesus is
arrested by the Roman soldiers and drug before the religious leaders in an
illegal mock trial until daybreak. By now he is undoubtedly exhausted. His
disciples have abandoned him. Peter has betrayed him. Pilates sentences
him first to a floggin and then to be crucified. He painfully marches outside
the city bearing the timber upon which he would soon be crucified. And we
will pick up the narrative in verse Luke 23:32.
32 pTwo others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death
with him. 33 qAnd when they came to the place that is called The Skull,
there they crucified him, and the criminals, pone on his right and one on
his left. 34 And Jesus said, “Father, rforgive them, sfor they know not what
they do.”2 And they cast lots tto divide his garments. 35 And uthe people
stood by, watching, vbutwthe rulers xscoffed at him, saying, y“He saved
others; zlet him save himself, aif he is bthe Christ of God, chis Chosen
One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and doffering him sour
wine 37 and saying, e“If you are fthe King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38
gThere was also an inscription over him,3 “This isfthe King of the Jews.”
39 hOne of the criminals who were hanged irailed at him,4 saying, “Are
you not jthe Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him,
saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence
of condemnation?41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due
reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he
said, “Jesus, remember me kwhen you come into your kingdom.” 43 And
he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in lParadise.”
You may have a hard time articulating it, but when you read this story you
can certainly sense a certain beauty. And there a lot of things we can learn
from the thief on the cross, but I want to redraw the connection that we are
making here today. Here’s a man who is about as sinful as they come.
They just don’t get much more ugly than this. And yet he comes to Jesus.
He draws near to him with affection. And he receives grace! That is what
we are trying to learn how to do. We feel sinful. We feel broken. We feel
our performance is subpar and we want to learn from this thief how to draw
near to God when our life is a mess of contradictions.
And this thief is such an outstanding example of this....I am so thankful to
God for this thief! Why, because from an objective point of view, the thief is
much worse than many of us. He has resisted God longer than us. He
made far worse decisions in his life that most of us. Historians tell us that
in order to be on the cross he was very likely a seditionist or an assassin of
some kind. We remember him as a thief, but that was probably the least of
his crimes. This guy was a hardened criminal in many senses.
Now compare the thief’s sin with yours. He just got done slitting some guys
throat and is hanging on a cross. You’re having a hard time reading your
Bible. Let’s keep things in perspective here. This guy is guilty of some
pretty serious sin.
But even though the spiritual performance of the thief is horrific, he does
not appear to struggle with the same things we struggle with. He does not
seem to struggle with his spiritual performance getting in the way of his
willingness to communicate with Christ. There is something he is doing
better than we are. And it is precisely that thing that that we need to focus
on today.
So what is it? How is the thief different than us? What is that secret
ingredient that allows him to approach the Lord without hinderence? There
are actually two things this thief does very well and we are going to look at
both of them. But see if you can guess first....Here is a hint. Think about it.
● His hands are outstretched on a cross and he has no ability to move
because huge spikes are crushing his bones to the beam
● His death is sure and immanent. Within hours he will surely and
certainly be dead. The Sabbath is fast approaching and he knows
beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Pharisees are not going to allow
dead bodies hanging around during the feasts. They will break his
legs before sunset.
● He has nobody left to impress. All his “friends” have deserted him.
● He has nothing in terms of an identity. Normally we find identity in
something we do or accomplish. But if you are hanging on a cross
at the mercy of the jeering crowd, when your clothing gets stripped
away, your identity pretty much goes with it.
● He has made a complete mess of his life and he knows it.
● In short, he has hit rock bottom and he has nothing to loose.
You want to know what this magic ingredient that the thief has that allows
him to come to the Lord without hinderence.....we so frequently struggle
with? Here’s the first one....
Ready to Receive Grace
The thief is ready to receive grace. When we are ready to receive grace,
it is then and only then God can help us. You might be incredibly thirsty
and the water fountain might be turned on, but you can’t get a drink if your
cup is turned upside down. There is certain attitude that is the spiritual
equivalent to “turning the cup.” In every case of spiritual stagnation that
I can think of it is our pride that is preventing us from growth. It is pride that
is blocking the help that we need from the Lord.
Pride is like a cork which plugs up the fountain of grace. Now we have to
stop quickly here and do some explaining. At first this may seem a very
insensitive thing to say to a person who is struggling with spiritual
exhaustion. It may seem very cruel and uncaring to say, “The problem is
you are a very proud person.” How in the world is this going to help? ...The
last thing you want to do is just discourage a person who is struggling
with spiritual performance and say, “Listen the problem is you are not
PERFORMING. Be humble. Work harder. Be better. Yes, here is another
thing you are failing at. You are proud failure.” That typically is not very
helpful.
But, when viewed correctly (that is to say biblically) this can be a very
exhilarating truth. The key to seeing this as good news rather than bad
news is to realize that humility is infinitely easier than pride.
Pride is an exhausting effort to project an image. It is building a house of
cards in a windstorm. Pride is the spiritual equivalent of running up all your
credit cards and projecting the image that you have wealth when you really
have nothing. The picture we need to have in our mind of a proud man
is a man who is holding onto a long rope thrashing around trying to hang
on. His strength is failing and he is sweating from the exhaustion of trying
to hold on. His identity is wrapped up in his performance, but he can’t do
it forever. Eventually he is going to tire, but the thought of it keeps him
gripping. The thought of admitting that he is weak keeps him fighting like a
caged animal.
Now contrast that to humility. Humility is not something you even have to
do. Humility is a soft surrender. It is open admission of weakness. You
know what humility is? Humility is just letting go! What could be easier
than letting go? Here is a thought that is truly liberating. What is keeping
you from seeing Christ and what is keeping you from following hard after
Christ and obeying Christ and praying to Christ is your irrational desire to
exhaust yourself by clinging to that silly rope. All you have to do is let go.
That is actually a very liberating thought. So let go.
And what that actually means in practical terms is stop finding your identity
in things you do.
● Just admit you are so impossibly lame.
● Just admit you can’t do anything.
● Just admit that everything you know is a result of others teaching you
and that you haven’t had an orignal thought in your life.
● Just admit that all the money you have is God’s and that he gave you
every opportunity you ever had to make it and he gave you the skills
you need.
● Just admit that those things that make you unique and individual are
gifts, they are gifts given to a crucified criminal who needs someone
to pry the nails out of his hand so he can reach out his hand to even
accept it.
● Just admit that all your sins need God’s grace.
We can learn so much from the crucified criminal. He is a good friend of
mine in the Scriptures.
Now what is going to prevent this from turning into licentious living? Is it
okay to just be lame? Is it okay to be rebellious and have weak affections
for Christ? Is it okay to just kind of accept our weakness and just apply
minimal effort to change? Is it okay to simply admit defeat as a polluted
soul and adopt a weak mode of existence that casually applies an apathetic
damage control. Why don’t we just sin that grace may abound? I’ll take
grace handouts as long as you are offering them.
Isn’t the surrender of self-effort also the surrender of any sort of progress in
the Christian life?
This leads us to the second thing we can learn from the thief. Reaching
rock bottom can be a form of humility, but it can also be nothing more than
humiliation. Remember there were two thieves on the cross. One
was humbled and was transformed into a humble man. One was simply
humiliated yet remained a proud man. There is a form of receiving grace
that is not humble. I am quite sure the other thief on the cross would have
received a free pardon for his transgressions and would have walked away
from his sentence just as proud as the day he was captured.
So it is not simply hitting rock bottom, it is not simply receiving that
transforms us into something different. That is not the definition of humility.
The key to truly being humble is the forgetting of self. And there really
is only one way to actually forget self. And that is to behold something
greater than yourself.
This is the second thing we learn from the thief on the cross. The thief
saw the person of Jesus and the shocking confrontation changed him at his
core.
The Forgetting of Self in Worship
One thing that is interesting when we do a harmony of the gospels is that
we discover that at the beginning of that crucifixion both of the criminals
were hurling insults at him. At first our thief was unconvinced. At first he
was ready to take out his anger on Jesus and extract whatever meager
pleasure he could at someone else’s expenses.
But something happened. The thief was actually saved while hanging on
the cross. What was it that caused him to have such a radical change
of mind. The text does not say specifically, but I don’t think we are
overstepping our bounds by any means to guess at the main reason. It
was the sight of our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
● Undoubtedly this man had heard of Jesus and he knew why he was
being crucified. He was being crucified for claiming to be the king of
the Jews. Even if he didn’t know it before he would have a certainly
known it now. After all there was a sign hanging over his head that
said, “King of the Jews.”
● And I am sure the criminal is thinking to himself, “Big claim....Messiah
huh? I’ve seen your type before....” But what he had never seen
before was how THE Messiah would respond to those around him.
● Men and women weeping and Jesus’ response to them as they
weapt.
● The self-forgetfulness of Jesus as he considered Mary and the
women around the cross.
● Imagine how startled he would be to watch the nails pound into his
hands and feet and hear the words of Jesus, father forgive them for
they know not what they do.
I am quite sure he was struck with this man’s character. It was if he was
seeing a new form of manhood that he never thought possible.
Something about Jesus had to grip him profoundly, because, think
about it....this thief has every reason to doubt. This Jesus is dying
on an instrument of shame and torture. If ever there is a picture of a
powerless man, if ever you have laid your eyes on a man who was
powerless to save, if ever you were able to look at the embodiment of
weakness and inability, it would be a man nailed to the cross.
● Even the disciples forsook him and fled, Peter denied him, Judus sold
him...
● Nobody else was confessing him as Lord that moment.
And yet the thief worships! He sees something in Jesus. I can imagine him
saying, “I have no idea what that thing is....but I want it. I will do anything to
get it. I lived my entire life to find this. This is something, someone wholly
other.” The character of Jesus had a softening effect on his spirit. And
you know he experienced a breaking at some point....the same breaking
we all experienced when we came to know Jesus.
● And can it be? That I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood?
● Why would he do this for me?
● I am not worthy. How can he know me and still love me?
Spiritual laziness that is not concerned with holy living has lost connection
with the marvel of our Savior. We will never abuse grace if we truly know
the person dispensing it. Because knowing the person changes you.
Here’s an example that might help. Why is it inappropriate to stand up
in the middle of a wedding an interrupt the minister and make a joke?
Because there is something really serious at stake. But it’s not just an
inanimate thing...there are people that are constraining your behavior.
The family members in the room and the people who are getting married
have an influence on how you carry yourself.
And in a very similiar way, those who see Jesus, who are astounded by the
character of the one they worship...they forget themselves. It alters their
behavior. They are different people.
One of the best indicators of whether Jesus has made this kind of impact
is to look at your affections. Are you moved at the emotional level by what
Jesus has done for you? Are moved deeply in your affections for Christ.
Here’s a quote in this regard from Jonathan Edwards who was used
mightily by God during the great awakening:
A person who has knowledge of doctrine and theology only – without
religious affection – has never engaged in true religion. Nothing is more
apparent than this: our religion takes root within us only as deep as our
affections attract it. There are thousands who hear the Word of God, who
hear great and exceedingly important truths about themselves and their
lives, and yet all they hear has no effect upon them, makes no change in
the way they live.
The reason is this: they are not affected with what they hear. There are
many who hear about the power, the holiness, and the wisdom of God;
about Christ and great things that he has done for them and his gracious
invitation to them; and yet they remain exactly as they are in life and in
practice.
I am bold in saying this, but I believe that no one is ever changed, either by
doctrine, by hearing the Word, or by the preaching or teaching of another,
unless the affections are moved by these things. No one ever seeks
salvation, no one ever cries for wisdom, no one ever wrestles with God,
no one ever kneels in prayer or flees from sin, with a heart that remains
unaffected. In a word, there is never any great achievement by the things
of religion without a heart deeply affected by those things - Jonathan
Edwards, Religious Affections
The thief on the cross was affected by Jesus. His affections were greatly
moved. He let go of the rope and he was ready to receive grace.
The Naked Gospel
Let’s try and summarize what we are saying here. We struggle with
coming to God because we feel that we are living a hypocritical life.
We struggle coming to God because we feel that our failure and
weak spiritual performance is an indicator that we are not walking
according to the spirit. We struggle coming to God because we feel guilty
that he has given us so much and yet we spurn that grace and continue
to live in disobedience. I am still the angry person I have always been. I
am still the impatient man I always was. I still am short and covetous and
unfriendly. I am not a good Bible student. I don’t pray like I should. What
should I do?
Do what the thief did. Come. Here’s one last angle that I hope will
be helpful... I’ll bet that most of you would feel uncomfortable with the
following statements.
● Jesus does not care how you live your life. He loves you just as you
are.
● You can live the rest of your life and never change an ounce and
Jesus will love you just the same.
● Jesus accepts you and loves you and died for you regardless of how
you have lived or how you will live.
Why do these statements make us feel uncomfortable? Because we know
that true saving faith results in a changed life.
But, don’t let your desire to protect the abuse of the gospel take away its
power....
I was reading a sermon this week by Charles Spurgeon, and I ran across
something he read that just froze me in my mental tracks. He said this:
Many good people think they need to guard the gospel; but it is never
so safe as when it stands out in its own naked majesty. It wants no
covering from us. When we protect it with provisos, and guard it with
exceptions, and qualify it with observations, it si like David in Saul’s
armor: it is hampered and hindered, and you may even hear it cry, “I
cannot go with these.” Let the gospel alone, and it will save; qualify
it, and the salt has lost its savor.
When you hear the gospel say, “God loves you despite what you have
done, and despite what you will do... “ This is when you change...
You may have forgotten that this was actually a sermon on prayer. I
thought about trying to preach an entire message on prayer without using
the word because so frequently we have wrong ideas in our mind about
what prayer is. Prayer certainly takes the forms that we are familiar with.
The scriptures speak frequently of group prayer and private prayer. Jesus
got away and prayed all night on several occasions. These are all forms
of prayer, but before any of that there is an attitude. There is attitude and
spiritual posture that under girds everything we do in prayer. And here it is:
Desire for God is the heart of prayer.
Application Homework:
1. Resolve this week to abandon your resolve. But this will result in
fruitless living. Not if you focus on the person of Jesus. People who stand
at the edge of the grand canyon are changed. They don’t jump. They don’t
resolve to jump before they come. They come and it changes them. Read
the gospel of John.