A 4-year-old boy was asked to give the meal blessing before dinner. The family members bowed their heads in expectation. He began his prayer, thanking God for all his friends, naming them one by one.
Then he thanked God for Mommy, Daddy, brother, sister, Grandma, Grandpa, and all his aunts and uncles. Then he began to thank God for the food. He gave thanks for the turkey, the dressing, the fruit salad, the cranberry sauce, the pies, the cakes, even the Cool Whip.
Then he paused, and everyone waited-- and waited. After a long silence, the young fellow looked up at his mother and asked, "If I thank God for the broccoli, won't he know that I'm lying?"
Prayer at meal time with children can be interesting. Sarah has learned to grab hands, bow her head, close her eyes and say, “Thank-you God, our food, amen.” Been trying to add some other things in there but that’s what we’ve got so far. It’s just hard to teach a three year old much more than that about anything especially somethings are important and meaningful as prayer.
We’re going to be spending the next few weeks talking about prayer. Not just what prayer is, but what it should be. Prayer is a lot of things to a lot of people, but there are things that it should be. We’re going to see that the Jewish people in Jesus time considered prayer to be literally like spiritual life’s blood. I think that one of the most important questions asked in scripture was “Lord teach us to pray.” So as we look at prayer we’re going to look at Jesus answer. We’re going to look at the Lords prayer as Matthew recorded it.
Matthew 6:9-13, “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”
1. Some Thoughts on Prayer
As we begin our series I want us to start with looking at some general thoughts on prayer. Maybe these don’t apply to you, but I believe that they apply to most people so we will find them useful. The first thought is this, prayer doesn’t come naturally it is a learned skill. I mean think about it, how many people do you know who could honestly say that they have a healthy prayer life all the time? Most people will admit that even though there are times when their prayer life is healthy, that they run through dry spells. For a lot of people their prayer life is never healthier than when there is a problem.
When times are tough, when there are challenges that we know are beyond anything we can do, those are the times that most people turn to God in prayer. Think about it, those people who say that they are Christians but we never see them in church, yep, problem comes and they’re talking to “the man upstairs.” The problem is that isn’t His name, He is God and we’re going to see that His name is very important.
That attitude show how great a misunderstand of prayer that most people have. They tend to treat God like a waiter, here to take our order when we call. Or they act like God should be honored that they take the time to talk to Him at all. Some people pray, but it’s almost like a Christmas list, Lord let me tell you all of the things that I want and what you can do for me. Then when we either get what we want or the crisis passes we go back to forgetting about God. Talking to a God that we can’t see, who doesn’t tend to talk to us audibly isn’t natural. That’s why so many people don’t do it, because it’s not natural If you think it comes naturally then let me ask you this question, why do so many people pray during a crisis and stop praying with the crisis is past. Prayer is not supposed to just be a crutch.
When we do take the time to pray, we don’t really understand it, we haven’t studied it, so we don’t do it well. Even most Christians don’t really have a proper understanding of prayer. Yes, we get that most basic ingredient, that when we pray we get the amazing opportunity to speak to the creator of the universe. We understand what an awesome privilege that is.
But prayer is more than just a privilege. It is a time when we build our relationships with God. It is a time when we grow in faith. Yes, it is also a time when we bring our requests to God. But those requests are for more then just provision, more than just our earthly desires. It is a time when we can come and ask for understanding, a time when we can ask for peace in the midst of the storm, for the strength to endure when deliverance doesn’t come.
Because prayer is so many things it is useful to have a model when learning how to pray. To a certain degree prayer really is simple, it is us talking to God. But if you want more than just simple results out of prayer then you need more than simple prayer. The more you put into your prayer, the better your prayer life, the better your relationship with God will be, and the better your own spiritual health will be.
Because prayer isn’t simple when Jesus was asked to teach His disciples to pray, He responded by giving them a model. Understand, He didn’t mean for them to pray this way every time, but to pray like this. It is a matter of attitude, it is a matter of respect, but it is also a model of completeness. You’ll notice that this prayer asks for a lot of things, but they are not just for the person praying the prayer, this is a kingdom prayer, and the whole earth is the kingdom of God.
Here’s a really fun thing to understand, this model was designed to clear your spiritual arteries and open you to a full relationship with God. See the Jewish people at that time viewed prayer like the circulatory system. There were 6 major arteries that flowed between you and God. If those arteries were blocked, then so was not just your prayer life, but your spiritual life. As we walk through this prayer we’re going to see that each segment of this prayer is designed to clear an artery and give you a healthier spiritual life. Just real quickly. The six are, relationship, priority, provision, forgiveness, protection and praise.
As Jesus is starting the prayer, He starts with the artery of relationship. He begins to pray, “Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name. This is a make sense starting point right? I mean you begin a conversation by addressing the person that you are talking to, otherwise that rude. Have you ever had someone come to you with a problem or a request and they don’t say your name, they don’t say, “hi” or “good morning” they just start right in? We think it’s rude, well why shouldn’t that apply to God?
This is a make sense place to start but understand that the idea of addressing God as our “Father” was unfamiliar. In the entire Old Testament God is referred to as “Father” fewer than seven times. Even those tend to be distant and remote. The Jews just didn’t have the idea that they could have this type of personal relationship with God. He was distant. He was other. He was the one who asked the question, “You thought I was all together like you?” But that was a question to people who weren’t following Him. God’s desire has always been to be with us. That is why He walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, it is why He walked with Enoch. It is why He came to Earth. So when Jesus is asked, “Teach us to pray.” He starts with being personal with God. This would have been a startling idea, but Jesus came to make everything new, not just people but how we viewed our relationship with God. God is our Father, He is near, He is with us, and He loves us.
So Jesus starts with, “Our Father,” it is a picture of the relationship He desires to have with us. This is a make sense place to start, but for some people it is a stumbling block. Let’s just be honest, no human father is perfect, even the best have times when they work too long, or bring anger in from the outside, or get caught up in outside things and neglect their family. But some fathers are absent. Others are abusive. To those people when they hear God compared to a father it doesn’t bring up warm fuzzy images. To them it reinforces pictures of who God is not. He is not a God who sits around waiting to judge us for our mistakes, just waiting around to zap us for what we have done wrong. Do you realize the even Hell, as horrible as it is, isn’t God’s plan for anyone? God’s plan is salvation and He was serious enough about it to send His Son to die on a cross for us, so we could avoid it.
The image of a human father is like everything else compared to God, at best a dim reflection of reality. Just like the best island paradise won’t compare to the reality of Heaven, so even the best father on earth could only give an idea of what God is like. But God wants to be that for everyone. I love the promise of Psalm 68:5, God wants to be a “Father to the fatherless.” I worked with youth for over 20 years, that was such a blessed verse to know and use because so many people don’t have a true father, but God wants to be that for us. He desires to be the perfect Father that our souls have been longing for.
So Jesus gives us the picture of God the Father, then He says, “in Heaven.” Their idea of what “Heaven” meant was really different than ours. They saw the sky above us, the air, the clouds, all of what we would consider Earth’s atmosphere as a “heaven.” Then they thought of the place where the Sun and moon and stars are, what we consider to be outer space, the universe and all of its galaxies, was to them the second “heaven.” Then they thought of the place beyond the stars where God dwells to be the third “heaven.” This is what we think of as “Heaven” but they thought of all of them as “heaven” and God was and is in all of them.
What a great picture of our God, because He is everywhere. He is in the sky and He holds space itself together, and He is on His throne, all at the same time. God is everywhere. He is all of those places and He is right here with us. He is with you and me. How amazing is it that a God who is that big desires a relationship with you and me. On the one hand this is one of the most comforting promises in scripture. God is with us everywhere. Sometimes we take that for granted, but sometimes I think we ignore it on purpose.
Think about it, God is always with us. Do you realize that there is nothing that we do that God does not see. Not just the good things but the bad things to. Sometimes I think we forget about the fact that God is always with us because we are ashamed to think about the things that He has seen us say and do. It’s kinda embarrassing. But the beautiful thing about this picture is that God is everywhere, He knows everything and He still desires a relationship with you and I. That is the first artery that Jesus had us clear. Our understanding that we have a relationship with God.
To understand the true blessing of this is to look at those next words, “hallowed be thy Name.” Hallowed, it’s a word that we just simply don’t use in everyday conversation. It is related to “holy” and means to consecrate. Jesus is telling us that as we pray we remember who we are praying to, yes God desires a relationship with us, but that doesn’t change who He is, He is the Holy One. He is the One who is so Holy that the Jews were afraid to say His name, they called it the unpronounceable. When they wrote it, they would leave out the vowels out of respect for God and His name.
Rather then call Him by His name they would give Him names based on what He did. He was Jehovah-Jireh, it means “my provider. He is the One who provides for His people, not just Israel but all of us. He is Jehovah-Nissi it means, “My Banner of Victory.” Armies would go out into battle with their banners declaring their victories and strengths, the Jews were saying that God was their banner and just saying God was with them meant that victory was coming. Romans 8:31, “If God is for us who can be against us.” When times are hard in this world when enemies surround us, we remember the command to Joshua to be strong and courageous because God is not just a banner before us, He is the banner of victory, and His presence means that we will be victorious. We may lose a battle, we may get knocked down, but because God is there and God is faithful we will not stay there.
Which allows us to appreciate the next name, Jehovah-shalom, my peace. We find that name in Judges 6 which in the story of Gideon. You’ll remember that the people were being oppressed by the Midianites. They cried out for help and God answered, he came to Gideon and told him that God was going to use him to drive the Midianites out. It was a wonderful promise, but it was also a promise of having to fight a battle against overwhelming odds. This was a promise of conflict and danger. But it was also a promise of the presence of God in those things. So we read in verse 24, “So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace.” It was a response that doesn’t make sense to most people, but it make perfect sense to people who have walked with God for a while. Because we know that no matter what the circumstances are in our lives that as long as we have the presence of God with us, we have peace, because God is so much greater then any circumstance.
The thing about those times is that we can come through, wounded and scars. Sometimes life is what knocks of over and leaves us so that we don’t know if we can ever be well again. Sometimes it is just the decisions that we make. We wonder if we will ever be the same, or if we will ever get back to normal. During those times remember that He is also Jehovah Rapha, my healer. We find that several places but one of the best is in the Exodus. The people were traveling and they were in need of water. They came to a place called Marah where there was water but it was bitter the people couldn’t drink it, so they grumbled to Moses about it. God told Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water and the water became sweet. It was restored to usefulness. Then God said in Exodus 15:26, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD< who heals you.” No matter what has happened to you in the past, there is nothing that God can not heal, there is danger that He will not face with you.
He is the one that we pray to, isn’t it good to know that we can call Him Father, isn’t it good to know that He is in Heaven, He is on His throne but He is also everywhere. He desires a relationship with us, that is why we begin prayer by addressing, HIm but He is also God that is why we also begin with “hallowed by thy name.” Because He is holy, he is all of those things that the Israelites noted an more. We need to carry the proper respect for that in our prayer. But prayer shouldn’t be just an exercise that we do for a few minutes a day, it should be with all that we are and do, because of all that He is and does. We should lift His name with more than our lips. We said in our series on worship that worship should change us, well prayer is a part of worship and it should change us.
Notice that in Exodus, God doesn’t just say He will be our healer, He puts somethings in front of us. If we really our people of God then it should show up in our lives. We get the privilege of calling God our Father but it comes with the responsibility to live as if He is.
This should be a response of love. There are a lot of reasons that people come to God. Some people come for fire insurance. They don’t want to go to hell. It is a worthy motivation, Hell is real bad, I don’t think that anyone who really understands what it is wouldn’t be afraid to go there. That’s part of why so many people who choose to reject God have a challenge about Hell, they question if it’s real and they question if it’s fair. Why because they want to be free to do what they want to do without having to be afraid of the consequences. The problem is that Hell is real, the bad news is that since Heaven is only for the holy Hell is fair. But the great news is that God choose to pay the price so that anyone who would accept His Son and the price He paid as Savior could be saved. If someone makes the initial decision to accept that gift because they were afraid, so be it, but if they stay there, it’s a problem. See we accept Christ as Lord of our lives, that means we are supposed to do what He says, saying some words to get a “Get out of Hell” free card isn’t enough it must be a commitment with your life.
Fear is not a good enough motivation and neither by the way is greed. Let’s be honest, when we only pray to ask for what we want we’re really being greedy, we’re just coming to God to try and get what we want to get. Fear is not enough and greed is not enough, because both of those will fade in time. People have the ability to forget what they are afraid of until it’s right in front of them. Greed isn’t enough because God isn’t Santa Claus, He gives us what’s best for us, when it’s best for us, and if it’s best for us.
Those things fade but love should grow. Jesus died on the cross for us because of love. He went because He loved us, in our sin, in our shame, with all of our faults, He looked at us and chose to come and sacrifice Himself for us because of love. What’s even more amazing to me is not just that He’s done it, but now after it has been completed, with all that He did, when so many people not only reject His gift but literally curse His name, He is still willing to save us. He is still willing to give eternal life to all who would come to Him. It is amazing.
In our lives with all of our faults, with all of the times that we fail, He not only saves us, but lives with us to grow us, to bless us, to give us eternal life that isn’t just no, but is forever. How great is His grace. How great is His love. When someone loves you like that, when someone treats you like that, how can the response of your heart be anything other then love. We serve God because of who He is, but also when we walk with Him, because we love Him. He is worthy of it because of what He has done, and is still doing. Isn’t it good to serve and love a God who is still at work in the world.
We life God’s name out of love, but we also need to remember that we carry God’s reputation. It is a serious thing when we take the name of Christ, because it is His name. This is not a think to take lightly. Yes He chooses to have a relationship with us, and we choose Him back, but He is still God. When we tell people that we are followers of Christ and then we do not live like it, we have harmed His reputation. The name of Christ is not something to take flippantly because of who He is.
He is God our Father, there is no other. His name is above all names, because He is above all. But He wants to have a relationship with us. When we pray we are talking to the creator of the universe who wants to give us abundant life from the moment we pray. Have you invited Him to be a part of your life? If not will you do it now.
