Stop for a moment and think about your life. Why do you do the things you do? Why do you do the work you do? Why do you live the way you do? Why do you buy the things you buy? In the end, what is it all for?

The theologian H. Richard Niebuhr describes what motivates people as centers of value. As he understands it, every human being has an ultimate center of value. The thing that most occupies our thoughts. It affects every action that we take. It colors our thinking about every aspect of life. It is the one thing that makes us move and be; the one thing that gives our lives meaning. Without that center of value, there would be no reason to live.

As Christians, we claim the triune God as our center of value. We believe that God calls us into relationship so that God can give our lives ultimate meaning. But, too often, that is not the case.

As we have heard previously in this series of sermons, sin wreaks havoc on our intention to make God our center of value. Many times sin gets in the way and changes our focus. God is removed from the center and something else is put in that place. While God may still be in our thoughts, God is not the center. We violate the very first commandment that God gave, “you shall have no other gods before me.”

If we truly want God to be the center of our being – the ultimate giver of value to our lives – then we must spend time thinking, studying, and being in the presence of God. It takes practice to have God as our center of value. It does not come naturally. This brings us to the topic of the seventh sermon in our series “What Is Christianity?” Today we will explore “Spiritual Disciplines and the Christian Life.”

In our passage from Psalm 139 this morning, the Psalmist describes what life with God is like. God knows all of our thoughts and God knows them even before we do. Now, in the current age of the heightened need for “Homeland Security,” it feels like Big Brother is watching over our every move. Because of that, what the psalmist describes doesn’t seem as inviting to us as it did to the writer. But think of times when you were sick or a little down and someone anticipated a need you had. Maybe they brought you some warm food. Maybe they sent you a card to wish you well. Just knowing that they were thinking of you and were able to sense your needs probably made you feel better. This is what God wants to do for us. God wants to provide for our every need. We only need to be open to receiving God’s help.

Not only does God know all of our thoughts, but God is constantly present with us as well. No matter where we go God is there with us.

As the psalmist points out, this is true even when we are in places where we would never expect God to be. God wants to be such an integral part of our life that we never feel lonely or abandoned. We are never truly alone as long as we recognize God’s loving companionship.

God, in God’s grace, reaches out to us and offers us these promises of close relationship. But, the psalmist reminds us that we cannot say the same about ourselves. There is much that we do not know about God. And, there are many times when we avoid the presence of God (whether intentionally or unintentionally). We are limited in our ability to respond to God’s gracious offer.

This is what the psalmist points out by saying, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. …How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!”

And yet, in spite of this acknowledged shortcoming, he does not stop trying to know God. He exclaims, “I try to count them – they are more than the sand; I come to the end – I am still with you.”

The psalmist knows that in this life he will never be able to grasp the fullness of the mystery of God. But he keeps on trying. He wants to have a heart that can be tested by God and be found pure. He wants God to find that God is his center of value – that there is nothing that comes before God in his heart and in his mind.

As Christians, we are called to be like this psalmist. We are to desire that God test our hearts and minds. But we should not make this bold challenge unless we are confident that the result will prove that God is our center. Obviously, the psalmist was confident that he would be proved righteous. He was sure that his life was one that showed forth the glory of God.

How can we be similarly confident? What can we do to make God the center of our lives? What can we do to be proved righteous by the testing of our hearts and minds?

This is where the example Jesus set for us can help. Luke tells us, “Jesus went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God.” The Gospels recount numerous occasions when Jesus prayed to God the Father. This was the way that Jesus entered into the presence of God. Likewise, prayer is to be our way of entering into the presence of God. As the Heidelberg Catechism explains, it is through prayer that we receive God’s grace and God’s Holy Spirit.

When we think about prayer, we probably picture a few specific ways in which it is done. These images probably include both ways in which to pray individually and ways to do so in groups. In the Gospels, Jesus models both for us. In Luke’s passage this morning, we see one example of individual prayer.

It is the model that most readily comes to my mind when I hear the word prayer. Maybe it’s a result of the art work that I saw in Sunday School as a child where Jesus is shown sitting in a garden looking up with his hands cross and there are light beams streaming down on his face. I’m sure many of you are picturing the same painting now as I describe it.

Through this type of prayer, Jesus is seeking communion and guidance from God. Luke’s description gives us a couple of clues to what is necessary to make this type of prayer meaningful. The first thing that Luke notes is that Jesus went to the mountain. This means that he sought solitude. He needed distance from the throngs of people who came seeking him. He needed distance from the busyness of the towns and cities. He needed silence so that he could hear God’s voice speaking to him from within.

And, secondly, Jesus needed time. It says that Jesus spent the whole night in prayer.He didn’t whip off a few quick lines to God like, “Hey God. Glad your still there like you promised. Uhm, yeah, so I’m needing a little guidance right now. I think I should have some followers. Yea, I think that’s what you want too. So, I’ll get right on that in the morning. Thanks for listening. Bye.”

No. Jesus’ approach was quite the opposite. He didn’t assume he had the answers when he started his prayer. Instead, he spent a long time in prayer. He gave God time to answer back.

This type of prayer is more along the lines of what we call “meditation” today. Jesus didn’t come to God with a list to get through. Jesus came seeking communion with God. He knew that the result of this communion would be knowing God’s will for his life. Luke tells us that after he spent the night in prayer he knew whom to call as his disciples. That was no small decision. He was only able to reach it through guidance from God. And that guidance came through prayer.

We, also, should seek to have meditative prayer time in which we seek communion with God and God’s guidance. This seems hard for us to do. We have many demands on our time – our jobs, our families, our volunteer efforts, and much more. But, if God is truly going to be our center of value, then this type of prayer needs to be a regular part of our lives. It is essential for understanding God’s will for us.

Not only do we need to find time in our busy schedule to pray like this, but we also need to find a place of solitude in which to do it. Jesus’ favorite haunts included mountains and gardens. We have plenty of those around here. Maybe that type of setting will work for you. Maybe not. Maybe walking a labyrinth like the one found at Grace Cathedral is more your style. For me, I find running long distances gives me the time and space I need to truly find communion with and guidance from God.

Meditative prayer is a type of prayer that Jesus practiced often in the Gospel accounts – but, it wasn’t the only type of prayer. There were many times when Jesus did pray quick prayers to God. He prayed prayers of blessing and intercession. He prayed prayers of petition for himself and on behalf of others. Sometimes these prayers were individual but many times they were prayed in front of a group. And, of course, Jesus gave the ultimate example of praying when he offered the prayer that we now call “The Lord’s Prayer.” It wasn’t long. He got straight to the point – magnifying God and asking for specific human concerns.

Jesus was able to hear God speaking to him through prayer because he entered into true communion with God. He was able to know God’s will because he had God inside of him. We have quite a bit more difficulty in finding God’s way and will for our lives. We are sinful people who are not in complete union with God. Often we deny God’s very image in our lives.

Because this is the case, we need help in understanding who God is. Only when we begin to understand God will we be able to know how God wants to work within our lives to meet needs and to give comfort and guidance. This is where the discipline of Bible study is crucial. As we heard in last week’s sermon, Christians believe that the Bible is the Word of God. In it, God reveals God’s self and God’s will to all of humanity.

We can get a sense of God through our interaction with the amazing world that God has created. But a true understanding of God’s loving nature and God’s desire for shalom for all of creation comes through reading the accounts written in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. When we read the stories, when we meditate on the images of God given there, when we hear of God’s love shown in the covenants God makes, then we will begin to know who God is. Then we will begin to know God’s will for us and for God’s world.

According to Richard J. Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, there are two different ways in which we can and should become familiar with the Word of God given to us in the Scriptures. The first is through the study of the scriptures. In this activity, we place a high priority on interpreting what we are reading. We want to find out what it means. The second is through devotions on the Scriptures. Here we place a high priority on applying what we are reading to our own lives. We want to find out what it means for us.

Both of these activities can and should be done individually as well as corporately. We need to have time alone with the Scriptures to form our own opinions of what we hear God saying to us. But we also need to hear how other people understand the texts so that we do not become too narrowly focused on our own understandings. God is bigger than any one of us can ever imagine. Only through combining all of our different perspectives will we even come close to understanding how truly huge God is.

The God we seek to understand is a triune God – a God who lives in community. This triune God reaches out to all of creation, inviting us to join in God’s loving community. We come to know what it means to believe in a triune God when we come together as a church to worship. Through this time spent together praising and worshipping God, we learn of the joy that God desires to fill our lives with. We experience the loving touch of God through the interactions we have with those who surround us.

In our singing we lift our hearts to God so that God can fill us with the Holy Spirit. Through our prayers we confess our missteps and express our joys and concerns. Through the preaching of the Word and through the administration of the Sacraments, we edge ever closer to understanding our mysterious God who wants to be the center of our lives. We participate in all of this in the hopes that when we go out from this place, our lives will witness to others about the amazing love that God has for creation. Having God as the center of our lives should lead us to living lives of gratitude.

It should well up from within us because we can claim as the Psalmist did that God knows us completely and is always present with us, no matter where we go.

So, stop and think again about what motivates you. Think about what you really want to have as your ultimate center of value. It will take practice to make God that center. The practice of prayer, of interaction with the Scriptures, and of corporate worship. But it is a rewarding practice. God offers us lives full of gratitude and grace if we only accept the invitation to make God our center.

Let us pray:

Loving and gracious God, you continually reach out to us and invite us into communion with you. But we struggle to respond appropriately. Help us in our efforts to make you our center of value. Let our lives shine forth your love. In Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.