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Feb 11, 2024

Pray for your Lives

Pray for your Lives

Passage: Genesis 3:1-15

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Practice the Presence - Prayer

Keywords: god, shame, fruit, seed, serpent

The first recorded address of God by humanity--the first “prayer”--comes in the context of humanity’s tragic choice–what we know as the fall from grace. And while that moment offers no explicit or intended teaching on the warrant, substance, or practice of praying, it does suggest this truth that the point of praying is tied to the recovery of fundamental things easily lost to us: our profile, our purpose, and the plot we’re in.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 141:1, 2
LEADER: O LORD, I call upon you; hasten to me!
Give ear to my voice when I call to you!

ALL: Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH / SCRIPTURE READING: Revelation 3:14-20
LEADER: And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.15 “ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

CENTRAL TEXT: Genesis 3:1-15
Gen. 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Gen. 3:8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Gen. 3:14 The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”

BENEDICTION: Hebrews 4:14-16
LEADER: Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Who is the last person you hadn’t conversed with in a long time, but when you reunited, talking with them was like no time had passed? What was it like? Why them?
  2. When you think of praying, what questions or hesitations surface? Why those? Who in your life would you point to as the clearest picture of someone who seems to understand praying more than you? Why them?
  3. Refresh your memory of the sermon from the first, if tragic, exchange between God and humanity. How is what occurs in this moment a profile of our condition?
  4. Where is the hint–the faint echo–of the gospel here in Genesis 3? How does Jesus and His good news answer what is true of our condition as we see it portrayed in Genesis 3?
  5. Speak for yourself, or for what you might say to another: how would praying be of help to us in our struggle with frailty, shame, hiding, blaming, and forgetting our purpose or the “plot” we’re in?

ILLUSTRATIONS:  

QUOTES:

  • Oh God please make my mind clear. . . . Please help me to get down under things and find where You are. I do not mean to deny the traditional prayers I have said all my life; but I have been saying them and not feeling them. My attention is always very fugitive. This way I have it every instant. I can feel a warmth of love heating me when I think & write this to You. Please do not let the explanations of the psychologists about this make it turn suddenly cold. My intellect is so limited, Lord, that I can only trust in You to preserve me as I should be. - Flannery O’Connor
  • Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon. The crescent is very beautiful and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see; but what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that it blocks the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing. - Flannery O’Connor
  • “I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child's faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do. What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you fell you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God. ” - Flannery O’Connor
  • For so long, so many have assumed that sin and guilt are outdated categories, suited for a medieval era but not for this one. The prophets and apostles, though, told us that sin and guilt — along with the search for a meaning to life, the fear of death, and an answer to shame — might be culturally amplified realities, but they are not culturally created. Guilt and shame are fallen human conditions, not ancient or premodern or modern or postmodern ones. The question is not whether the world around is grappling with guilty consciences but how. - Russell Moore
  • My brethren, if prayer is anything at all it is everything. - Alexander Whyte
  • [The Doctrine of Original Sin] declares that he [man] ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge—he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil - he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor—he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire—he acquired the capacity for sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy - all the cardinal values of his existence. - Ayn Rand
  • It is natural for man to be on speaking terms with God. - Peter Leithart
  • I was also curious about Flannery’s crutches. They were the kind that wrapped around her upper arms. And I couldn’t stop looking at those crutches. I wanted to know more. One time, I asked her the awkward question, as children are prone to do: “Why do you have those?” Maybe sensing my parents’ uneasiness, Flannery quickly replied, “They help me walk.” -Joe Duke
  • So I remember when we were drivin', drivin' in your car
    Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk
    City lights lay out before us
    And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
    And I had a feeling that I belonged
    I had a feelin' I could be someone
    Be someone, be someone.
    - “Fast Car,” Tracy Chapman

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