Drawing Closer To God

Drawing Closer to God

The Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:9-13

January 9, 2022

As we’ve started the new year, I don’t want to ask you about your New Year’s resolutions. If most of us are normal, whatever that means, then half of us have already given up on those lofty resolutions.

Instead of resolutions, I want to talk about ways we can draw closer to God. I’m convinced that we’re called to be in an intimate relationship with God, yet that scares many people - - - - and because of that we give God lip service and really don’t connect with Him as we should and could.

God doesn’t make it difficult, we’re the ones who do! We have lots of opportunities and ways to move closer to God, but we struggle with it and because of that we don’t experience the blessings that are available for us.

Last week, we began looking at the wise men meeting Jesus for the first time and the intense and passionate joy they experienced. I don’t know about you, but sometimes you read a story or meet someone and you say . . . YES! I want what they have! I want that relationship with God! Wouldn’t you want that type of joy?

As we move through the next few weeks, I’m going to try to get as practical as I possibly can, so we can move closer to God together. I’ve talked about prayer and plans before, and the next few weeks may not be very different, but I want to do something different I believe the Lord impressed upon me in December.

We’re going to look at different prayers from the Bible and see how we can use those prayers to help us move closer to God. Then we’re going to do something very different at the end of the message for the next 4 weeks! Hopefully, this helps us experience God’s presence on a regular, consistent basis.

Today and next week, we’re going to look at the Lord’s Prayer as a means to move us closer to God in prayer. In Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus said - - -

9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. - Matthew 6

It’s going to take us 2 weeks to move through this prayer. We’re going to break down this prayer and see how we can use it for ourselves to draw closer to God.

So, we start out with that first line, which is packed - - -

9 Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

I look at this as the praise and worship portion of our prayer.

The word “hallowed” means “honored as holy or to revere something.” So often we jump into prayer and give God our list of wants and needs without recognizing who God is. He’s not a genie to grant us our every wish. So, it’s great to start our prayer by honoring and praising God. This helps us to get our heart, mind, spirit and body into the prayer.

We also view God as Father. Now, this can be dangerous for some folks, because when they think about a father, they didn’t have a great earthly father and for some that gets in the way of looking at God as a Father. Yet, I really do believe we need to look at who God is, and that’s part of the prayer.

God is not a capricious, mean spirited Father. God loves us, died for us, adopted us, gives us a full inheritance, is always there for us, loves us unconditionally, offers us grace, mercy, strength and more. That’s how we can look at God as our Father. He is giving and loving and always with us.

God is your creator, yet He wants an intimate relationship with us, which really is what this series is all about. It’s to help us draw closer to God on a daily basis.

So, we start this prayer by praising and worshiping God. We have reverence and awe for Him, yet, we have a relationship which is intimate with God. We know and trust that God is not a distant powerful tyrannical king, but He’s a loving, compassionate and merciful Father who deeply loves us.

You can use other scripture to lead you into prayer. Psalm 100 would be good - -

1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into His presence with singing!