Praise: Recognize Who God Is
Series: Meeting with God in Prayer
May 10, 2020
NOTE: The following message was share during the season of the Covid-19 pandemic...and as such... one will note some references to this being streamed from home and to the challenges such a season of being unable to meet with others included.
Intro
It’s great to welcome you again from our home.
It’s such a privilege and pleasure to be able to share this time together.
Today we are continuing in a new series and focus... Meeting with God in Prayer.
During this time in which our lives are not as free to meet with those who are in our usual social circles and paths.... we have the opportunity to stop and recognize the significance of the one relationship that is always present.
God who is Spirit... is always present.
Whether during this time in which we may feel more isolated... or anytime we feel alone... the truth is that God is always present.
God is fully present... never divided by time and space.
As I noted last week.... bound by our sense of time and space...we may wonder if God is present...because we can’t see God like we see physical bodies...but in truth....God is actually more present than we are. God is waiting for us to show up.
And as those following Jesus began to see...Jesus was living life in relationship to his Father in heaven... something they saw forming in the time he spent by himself in prayer... and so they asked “Lord, teach US to pray.”
And it’s helpful to realize that prayer was a common part of their life. They all were raised having learned various religious prayers to recite... but they knew they didn’t have a personal relationship with God.
So they ask, “Lord, teach US to pray.”
Last week we heard how Jesus seemed glad to teach them...and to teach us...and he began sharing some principles. He spoke of the need to stop hiding... to get real... and to show up.
Prayer is the place we meet with God. It is where we bring our real selves in real time and real space to engage God.
And then he shared a pattern for prayer.... that which has come to be known as “The Lord’s Prayer.”
Jesus said essentially “pray like this” or “in this manner.” What he shared is a great prayer for us to pray together...but it was shared to be an example... a pattern for prayer. The prayer is a pattern for shaping the central matters of relating with God…matters of the soul.
What we find in could here reflected in the Lord’s prayer...as well as throughout everything the Scriptures teach... could be described as four elements in prayer. And I introduced an acrostic using the four letters of the word PRAY... to simply help us keep four elements in mind. These four elements are....
Praise (Recognize who God is)
Restore (Confess whatever is out of alignment with God’s heart)
Ask (Bring your needs to God)
Yield (Listen and respond to God’s leading)
Each week during this series we are going to develop one of these four qualities that help shape how we can meet with God in prayer.
The purpose of forming these into this acrostic isn’t to create some contrived formula that we have to follow.... but to provide a way of shaping how we learn to relate with God.
We might think of how we learn anything during our formative years... what are usually our school years. If we are learning to write, we begin with learning how to write sentences and paragraphs. If we are learning music we learn how to play the instrument and to recognize notes or chords. In athletics we learn the fundamentals of the movements involved.
When we first learn these fundamentals, they may seem like a form of discipline and structure and exercise that we don’t naturally relate to...but then it leads to an ability to naturally draw upon them...whether in writing or playing music or playing a sport.
That’s the nature of identifying and developing these four elements.
If you have never developed any regular way of praying... this is a GREAT opportunity. I believe that you will find these four elements can provide a great guide for your own personal experience.
But I also know that many of us can find great value... in going back to fundamentals ... to re-develop these four aspects. At times we can go back and let it serve us again.
I have used this acrostic at times when journaling my prayer time... using those four letters...as I form and even write prayers.
So while it’s not a formula....I do believe that these four elements are reflected in the pattern that Jesus gave us...as well as throughout the whole testimony of Scriptures. And as such we do well to become familiar with them.
So today... lets consider the role of...
Praise (Recognize who God is)
Meeting with another begins with recognizing who they are.
If someone comes up to you and calls you by the wrong name... and then begins talking to you in ways that clearly show they don’t realize who you are....how would you feel?
It doesn’t create connection…in fact it accentuates disconnection.
(I’m afraid I have had a couple times where someone come up to me... out of context or out of the past...and I was at a loss for making the connection.)
Any intimacy with another... only truly begins with the recognition of another as other…as distinct from ourselves…and honoring who they truly are.
And so it is with God.
So Jesus begins his pattern for prayer...
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” – Matthew 6:9
Jesus begins with us acknowledging who God is and is to us.... “our Father in heaven.” We are to recognize God as our Father in heaven. Try to take that in. God is your Father in heaven. [1]
Jesus is extending to us the eternal relationship that he has had with the God the Father. Jesus is revealed as the one eternal son of God... one in nature with God the Father. But through our union with Christ... we who were created in His image...can once again know him as our Father.
In God the Father... Jesus reveals a relationship which Jesus as the son honors and serves the Father... while the Father is bound in providing for the good of the son. That is the relationship Jesus has eternally... and now extends to us.
When Jesus includes the distinction “in heaven”... it’s very clear that God is not just like any earthly father.
He is our Father “IN HEAVEN”… He does not bear the limits of earthly fathers.
He is not just a source of our lives...he THE source of life.
He is not just one we hope is strong and able to defeat evil. He is all powerful.
He doesn’t try to be good... He is the One who is good and only good.
He doesn’t just try to love us...He is the One who is love... it is His very essence.
And Jesus extends this thought saying...“Hallowed be your name”... he is saying let your name rightly be related to as holy...as set apart.
Referring to one’s name…means referring to one’s nature…one’s essence. This is reflected in the way we might say someone “made a name for themselves.” What we mean is that they have proven something about their character ...their nature.
He is declaring that the nature of God is holy…which means set apart... different than any other.
Jesus goes on to say:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” – Matthew 6:10
With those words everything is given it’s true place.
He is the One who rules.... and is bringing his reign to this created world.
We may spend much of our time exercising our will... ruling what we believe to be the space we live in.
But the truth is that all life ultimately exists in relationship to His will.
It is His house.
In these opening words to the way Jesus says we should pray... Jesus is teaching us that prayer begins by recognizing who God is.
And as I noted last week...this is the hardest and easiest element of prayer.
It’s the hardest because most of us have a hard time getting beyond ourselves. We tend to operate as the center of our existence... as if we are the orbit around which everything revolves. It takes effort to break out of our gravitational pull.
You may recall that when a rocket is sent up and out of orbit...nearly all the fuel is used to get out of earth’s gravitational pull. And that is where the power of praise and thanksgiving serves us well. Identifying who God is... and what he has done... launches us out of our own false orbit and into that in which he is the center.
So Jesus reminds us that prayer begins with realizing who we are meeting with.
And that is why it is also easy once we start…because there is so much to acknowledge once we choose to. There is no limit here.
What Jesus used in these phrases we just looked at is foundational: God is our Father...in heaven...who is holy.... distinct from all of creation. We do well to let our minds constantly rest in those foundational truths.
But Jesus knew that there is so much more about who God is that we can praise...and so much he has done that we can give thanks for. So let me help us expand our sources of praise. Here are a few sources.
We can draw praise and thanksgiving from seeing...
The CREATION of God (Life, Beauty, Magnificence, Order, etc)
The Scriptures tell us how the whole of creation itself speaks of God. Creation declares the power of God through the vast cosmos that God brought into existence.
The Psalms continually speak of the majesty of the skies and the oceans and the mountains.
It declares that there is order that transcends the disorder. [2]
Jesus himself told us to look at nature... to consider the birds... and how they are cared for.
And ultimately there is life itself. Our existence is a gift. Every breath is a provision.
So consider creation...and secondly...we can praise...
The NATURE of God (His Attributes, Goodness, Names)
Everything that is good in this world...is only a small reflection of the source from which is comes. In God lies all power... all knowledge... all love... all justice.
We can also consider the many names that capture who He is... that speak of him as our provider... our fortress...our refuge.... our peace.
So we can give praise the many ways in which God is both good and great. [3]
And we can draw praise from...
The FAITHFULNESS of God (Remembering the undeserved provisions and grace he has extended to us)
In various moments God tells his people to “remember”... remember what he has done. Remember that he has provided more than we deserve... remember how he brought truth to hep us...remember his grace when we disobeyed him.
And finally, there is so much we can recognize about who God is through...
The INCARNATION of God (The life and sacrifice of Jesus)
Jesus is the one whom the Father sent to reveal himself...and give himself. As the Scriptures tell us, Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature... and the ultimate expression of God’s kindness and mercy. In him.... we can recognize who God is... forever.
Now I want to take a moment and let each of us consider something...even in this moment... that we want to give praise to God for.
What do you see in this moment that you want to give praise (recognition) to God for?
As we take this moment... if you are on the YouTube chat... go ahead and share it with us.... just send it out by way of chat.
In all these things, we are recognizing who it is that we are meeting with in prayer.
This is whose presence is waiting for us to come meet.
And such praise is more deserved than we can imagine. As the Psalmist declares...
Great is the LORD! He is most worthy of praise! No one can measure his greatness. - Psalm 145:3 (NLT)
God deserves our praise...more than we can even fathom.
But it’s important to understand that what is equally true is that God does not need our praise. He is not changed by it. We are.
What God seeks is to align all life with His goodness. He wants is to have the influence in our lives that he is meant to have...and in recognizing who he is...and who he is to us... we begin to live in relationship to the way things really are.
Our praise is not about propping God up so he can rule... He already rules. It’s about coming into alignment with His influence.
God meets us in our praise...because it is when we come into alignment with Him... and with reality. And what comes from such recognition?
As we come with praise...recognizing who God is...
1. We find rest.
When we know that God is our Father in heaven...and he reigns over eternity... we find rest.
We can find freedom from living as those who try to control the world. We can find freedom from trying to be like God.
Most of us don’t believe we are God...the source of all existence... but a lot of us assume we control far more than we do.
When we begin to meet with God in prayer... it may be the place we begin to truly find rest.
And on this Mother’s Day...I believe that God wants many mother’s to hear God’s heart for finding rest in Him. Many of you carry a lot in your heart....and some for things you can’t control. May you find that in the process of praising God...in recognizing who He is... you can experience more clearly what is God’s and what is yours.
Secondly, as we come with praise...recognizing who God is...
2. We find a bigger and better world.
Praise helps us to live in a world with sadness and sorrows.
When Jesus came he is spoken of as one equated with sorrows. But Jesus understood that there was something bigger and better at work.
And that is the process that we find in prayer.
Jesus often quoted the Psalms... which are one of the Books within the Bible... and are essentially a journal of praise and prayers. Many are written by David... the King of Israel...a man who God said was a man after God’s heart.
And David captures the heart that declares to himself...the greatness of God.
And what’s interesting...is that he also presents God with his questions...and his sorrow. That is... his prayers express openly what causes him distress... and what he doesn’t understand.
But they reflect the power of turning to what is good...and what he can understand.
That may be the most important gift that many of us need right now.
Some of us may feel like we are just slowly sinking in the unsettledness and uncertainty of life right now.
God knows what you feel.
God doesn’t need us to deny what we feel. He wants us to see the bigger world... the larger reality in which He rules.
Some of us really need to stop and let the larger reality pierce the deception of despair that may be claiming to rule over the world.
This current virus does not ultimately rule the world.
No political forces will ultimately rule the world.
God ultimately rules the world....and his goodness will prevail.
The love that we see rise up in the midst of these times... that is what will prevail.
The beautiful sunset... it is what will remain and far more.
In God lies beauty beyond what we have ever known... justice beyond what we have only caught inspiring pieces of... love that is without limits.
When we begin to meet with God in prayer... and let ourselves begin to take in who he is...we will discover a bigger and better world.
And thirdly, as we come with praise...recognizing who God is...
3. We find His presence is our greatest gift.
When we recognize who we are meeting with... we can begin to realize that the presence of God is it’s own provision.
When we’re young.... our relationship with a parent is more transactional...which simply means that we tend to see them as a source that we need to meet our needs. I know all too well that for years I tended to call my dad when I needed something. Now I get those calls... and I welcome them.
But I know now that the greatest gift is the relationship itself.
If we realize that all goodness exists in God...we realize that connecting with God is not merely a connection to His provisions... but to His presence. [4]
God is our ultimate reward. As we read in Psalm 16....
"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." - Psalm 16:11 (ESV)
When we meet with God... we are meeting with the source and path of life... the source of all joy...and the source of all pleasure ... pleasures that will last forever.
No matter what the circumstances of your life may be... God wants to be with us.
In the Book of Genesis there is the story of God making man. It says “the LORD God formed a man’s body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And the man became a living person. (Gen 2:7)
In the creation story...God breathed intimately to give human life spiritual life. In the original meaning, there is a sense of intimacy, God breathes into the nostrils of the formed human.
If you've ever taken a CPR class you have learned that to help give life back to someone you had to get pretty intimate. I have to get face to face, mouth to mouth to give my breath to someone else.
We were created to know that our life comes ultimately from God....and to know that we were created to be intimately united with God ...forever.
God has always wanted to be close to you. He’s waiting to meet with each of us.
Closing Prayer:
Notes:
1. Jesus declared that indeed we were created to know God as our Father… those who were created bearing His iage…to share life as partners in this created world. We left the household (as Jesus described in the parable of the Prodigal Son)…and have chosen to to be separated from life with Him. This is what Christ came to restore…to reconcile us by bearing our sin…our separation. So if we receive Christ…his life…his death on our behalf…and his life now lived in us… we are restored as children of God…and God is our Father.
There is something so powerful in those words “Our Father.” We do well to pause long enough when we pray to appreciate the right to say, “Our Father.” It’s not something you have earned. It is something Jesus has earned for you. Don Carson says, “When believers pray ‘Our Father in heaven,’ they cannot but be hushed and humbled.”
2. We seek control to avoid chaos. But we are NOT facing mere chaos… or meaninglessness. If we look, we find a world rooted in profound order… even if not fully aligned with that order. That is exactly what God has communicated. We are not in ultimate control… but we can unite ourselves with God who is. This is what Jesus meant by the good news of God’s kingdom. We each have a small kingdom… the sphere of our will.
It is the realm for which we do have control… responsibility. He is inviting us to bring our kingdoms under his kingdom. In this way gain life by losing it…. we align with the true control. The control of everything around us… people …circumstances… is an illusion.
It comes not through exerting our will… but submitting our will.
3. A couple great resources for exploring the attributes and names of God:
Discover God’s Attributes by Josh McDowell Ministries
Praying the Names and Attributes of God – by the Navigators
4. When we begin with praise... we do well to come not just to seek God's help... but to seek God himself.
Consider the difference between being connected to someone for what they can do for us....verses who they are.
Naturally we can't fully separate them...they are bound up in the same person... one’s provision reflects their nature. But it's reaching through another person's provisions to what lies in the person that defines whether the relationship functional or truly relational.
Illustration: I could tell my wife all the things I appreciate about what she does for me....and it would be a sincere and meaningful compliment... but missing something.
So with God....we may naturally desire His help... but we won't really know Him until we desire His presence.
In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis described approaching God in a similar way. At a young age, when C. S. Lewis learned that his mother was dying, he remembered that he had been taught that prayers offered in faith would be granted. When his mother eventually died, Lewis prayed for a miracle. Later, he wrote:
"I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Savior nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when he had done what was required of him I supposed he would simply—well, go away. It never crossed my mind that the tremendous contract which I solicited should have any consequence beyond restoring the status quo."
Anytime we expect God to fix our problems, restore the status quo, and then go away so we can live without him, we've treated God like a service provider.
There is a very subtle but significant distinction between seeking God as the end...and using God as a means to an end.
Not uncommon for us to say something like: “I am waiting on God to bring me my husband...or wife."
It might sound like one is putting God first....but is that what it may really imply? If that is the ONLY THING that we are waiting on, we have an incorrect perspective.
Picture this: You are at a restaurant and have just ordered a pizza. A friend walks in and sits down with you and asks, “What are you doing?” And you respond with, “I am waiting on the waiter to bring me my pizza.” (Does this sentence structure sound familiar?) In this example, you do not have much regard for the waiter. The waiter is only the vehicle by which you get what you are truly there for: your pizza. You are not expecting the waiter to come and sit down and talk with you, but to simply deliver the pizza.
“I am waiting on God to bring me my husband...or wife." [5]
He is not our waiter... to fulfill what we are really giving our greatest worth to. God is not simply a means for us to receive things.
