“Our Father...”
NOW THIS MORNING
We are going to begin a deep dive into the most well-known prayer in the world. A 2000 year old prayer that Jesus unveiled in His Kingdom Manifesto, that we know as ‘The Lord’s Prayer.’
UNDERSTAND – Jesus after telling how those who live in His Kingdom are not to pray...
#1 – Don’t pray like the religious hypocrites whose prayers are about impressing people.
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. – Matthew 6:5
#2 – And don’t pray like the pagans who pray a lot of meaningless words to gods they are not even sure are listening or are ‘god enough’ to be aware of their needs.
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. – Matthew 6:7,8
This, then, is how you should pray:
(please stand... I’ll go first)
Our Father who art in the heavens, hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, forever and ever. Amen – Matthew 6:9-13
MGCC - think about it...
For 2,000 years, wherever people who love Jesus have gathered, they have prayed this prayer…
I MEAN – it seems as if I have always known this prayer…
Ray Pritchard in his book, ‘And When You Pray’ writes…
In twenty centuries of Christian history, no prayer has surpassed the eloquent simplicity of the Lord’s Prayer… I have discovered that all Christians know the Lord’s Prayer. It transcends language and ritual and culture and race. Simple though it is – and perhaps because of its simplicity – The Lord’s Prayer is part of the glue that holds the body of Christ together. We love to argue about doctrine and debate which church is right, but in the end when we begin to say, “Our Father who art in heaven” – our hearts join as one to repeat those ancient words that speak with such contemporary power.
[End Quote]
YEAH - I know exactly what he is talking about…
I MEAN – like, every time I have prayed this prayer with other believers this feeling of unity and closeness to God has always swept over me…
AND – our hearts really were joined together as one as we repeated those ancient words that really do speak with such incredible power.
AND LISTEN - it is so crazy, and so Jesus to pack so much power in a mere 72 words...
(that’s how many words are in the Greek text when you include the doxology at the end)…
AND MGCC – here’s the deal...
The truths, the concepts and the insights that Jesus packed into this prayer contain the power to mold and reshape our lives entirely. Our individual lives. Our Church. Our community. Our world.
Overstatement? Exaggeration? Not at all!
UNDERSTAND – in the coming weeks as we dive down deep into this 2000 year old prayer given to us by Jesus (God the Son) we will see… that yes it is a powerful template for prayer… BUT – we will also see that it is so much more.
We’ll see – that is a means, a key, a pathway to living the life we were created to live… and becoming the people God intended for us to be.
NOW BEFORE – we move over to the edge and begin our descent into this prayer.
I want to do some background/intro type stuff.
• Offer a simple definition of prayer
• Give you an outline of the Lord’s prayer
• Suggest two ways you can you use this prayer during our study
• And answer the question that some may have as to why we should even pray at all.
A definition
Prayer is a believers communication with God the Father, through the authority and person of Jesus Christ, assisted by the Holy Spirit.
Let me explain what I mean...
FIRST - of all we pray to God as Father. And we are going to deal with this in just a few moments.
SECOND - our prayers are to be offered through Jesus Christ. Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:5, there is one… one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
UNDERSTAND – the only reason you and I have access to God the Father, is that the door was opened by the blood of Christ…
WE CAN’T - come into the presence of a holy God without being escorted by the Son. That’s why we pray in Jesus’ name.
AND LISTEN - that’s not just a nice religious tag to tack on the end of our prayers. JESUS IS - our access to God, and because of what Jesus did on the cross we can, “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.” (Heb 4:16)
Prayer is a believers communication with God the Father, through the authority and person of Jesus Christ, assisted by the Holy Spirit.
THIRD - prayer is also assisted by the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:26,27 says the Holy Spirit helps us in our prayer because we are weak and don’t always know how to pray as we should. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us for among other things to teach us how to communicate with God the father. (Luke 11:13)
QUESTION – have you ever been in a place where you didn’t know what to pray or where you were hurting too much to say much anything intelligible?
B/S – this is when the Holy Spirit comes in…
…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. (Romans 8)
AND - that’s why you are not wasting your time praying even when you don’t know what to say, because the Spirit is organizing your confusion…
Prayer is a believers communication with God the Father, through the authority and person of Jesus Christ, assisted by the Holy Spirit.”
A simple outline.
Kind of a wide angle view of what’s going on before we zoom in for a closer look. NOW...
The first half of the prayer talks about God…
• His Name
• His Kingdom
• His Will
The second half talks about man
• Give us
• Forgive us
• Led us
UNDERSTAND – God and man form the two great subjects of this prayer…
AND – check this out… when we look at the second half of this prayer we find that all of our life is there…
the: past, present and future…
• The past – forgive us our sins
• The present – give us this day
• The future – lead us not into temptation
AND MGCC...
Did you notice the Trinitarian structure that is contained in both halves of the prayer…
• Hallowed be your name... the Father magnifies His Name
• Your Kingdom come... the Son establishes the kingdom
• Your will be done... the Spirit executes the will of God
• Give us this day... the Father provides
• Forgive us our trespasses... the Son pardons our sin
• Lead us not into temptation... the Spirit protects us from temptation
BOTTOM LINE – this pray is about...
• God (the Father, the Son and the Spirit)…
• Us – our: past, present and future, and…
• About God’s will being done (as His Kingdom comes)
Two ways to use this prayer
1. As a framework for your daily prayer...
pray this prayer stopping at each phrase turning it over in your. Or maybe pray a different phrase each... Like Monday, ‘Our Father who are in the heavens,’ Tuesday..
2. As a way to help you rest in God’s presence...
Slowly repeated this prayer over and over... in the rhythm of your breathing.
Now, for ‘type A’ people this will be tough, which is probably why you should try this.
Understand, meditating on Scripture is very Biblical.
Final intro stuff...
Why bother prayer at all?
I MEAN...
• If God already knows everything…
• If He has already said He would provide for us…
• If He already knows what is going to happen…
THEN - why bother praying at all?
Let me suggest two reasons.
#1 – because prayer is primarily about relationship… about communicating – having a conversation - connecting with God. So that you will know Him better and trust Him more.
#2 – because in a very real way God has chosen to limit what He does in the world so that we can join Him in the unfolding of His plans through prayer…
In other words... some things happen when we pray that would not happen if we do not pray, and other things do not happen because we failed to pray.
In fact, James (Jesus brother wrote in his letter) You do not have because you do not ask God… James 4:2
OKAY...
PICTURE – a dad watching his 4 year old daughter trying to put a puzzle together. She tries and tries but she just can’t get all the pieces in the right place.
Her dad watches in great interest but he does not interfere. Finally, she crawls in his lap and says, ‘daddy would you help me put my puzzle together?’
He smiles, and bends down and together they begin to pick up each piece. And one by one they finish the puzzle.
QUESTION...
WHY – didn’t he help her earlier?
For thing she didn’t ask…
For another, he wanted her to try on her own.
AND – most of all he wanted her to ask for help…
And when she did he was more than ready.
AND HEY – isn’t that how is with us and God?
I MEAN - He longs to help us, but He often waits until we ask. So that we grow and we learn and we come realize our need for Him
Understand every prayer is a child saying,
“Dad, will you help me I can’t do it by myself.”
Okay now it’s time to look at the first 2 words of the Lord’s Prayer…
I. Our
AND LISTEN – though we may be tempted to just rush over this little 3 letter word, I want us to, hit the pause button and camp out on this word for a little while... and talk about...
• The need for ‘our’... and The power of ‘our’
A) The Need For Our…
UNDERSTAND – as we talked about in great depth last Sunday (Practice of Community),
IF - there is one thing that this world needs it is ‘our.’
IN FACT – ‘our’ is the thing that is missing in so many places… It is missing in our homes, in our communities, in our world - even among God’s people.
LAST WEEK – I referenced a recent survey that found that.
Nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone or left out, and that their relationships are not meaningful (47 percent).
THAT MEANS – that 269 million people (81.63 % of the population) over the age 15 in our country, are starving for authentic community, for deep and real relationships.
As the authors of the book Creating Community write...
Americans are among the loneliest people in the world. In the midst of busy, over committed schedules, and congested cities, we feel alone. Although we drive on overcrowded freeways to catch overbooked flights and sit in jam-packed airplanes, we live in isolation... We are a culture craving relationship. In the midst of a crowded existence, many of us are living lonely lives.
AND – the truth is one of the loneliest places to be is to be alone while in a crowd.
B/S – here’s the deal...
Western Culture, our culture is seriously adrift…
YOU SEE - somewhere along the line, we left the moorings of community that anchored us securely and settled instead for society… AND UNDERSTAND – there is a HUGE difference between the two…
• Society - speaks to our ability to organize as a group of people.
• Community – speaks to our connectedness to one another
• Society – refers to structures and systems
• Community – refers to relationships
YES – the two terms share common ground – people – but their commonality stops there.
UNDERSTAND – a stronger society does not necessarily produce a stronger community.
THINK ABOUT IT – in the business world, companies no longer have personnel they have HR, ‘human resources…’
YEAH - we have reduced living and loving beings to recourses for getting the job done. And in the process we treat each other more like commodities than companions…
QUESTION – does this kind of thing ever happen in the church? Yes it does and it can...
YOU SEE - if we are not careful we can fall into the trap of seeing people as resources to get stuff done in the church...
(And there is stuff that needs to get done in the church)
BUT LISTEN – it is not simply about getting stuff done in the church, it is about connecting people to the good things that God has planned in advance to do, as His workmanship.
David Timms in His book, ‘Living The Lord’s Prayer’ writes...
As long as results trump relationships, we embrace the culture shift from human beings to human machinery. AND – in the process, we deny the most fundamental reality of our humanity, that we are made in the image of God – the Lover, the Friend, the Relational One.
Jesus rarely seemed hurried or harried. He stopped counting at 12. And He never called the disciples His team members. He called them friends and He lived like it. For Him, ‘our’ had an immensely personal ring to it....
BOTTOM LINE – too many people in and out of the church are doing life alone... and this is not good.
B/S – ‘our’ is so deeply needed in ‘our’ world today.
B) The Power Of Our
UNDERSTAND – this tiny word OUR forms an immediate bridge between you and me.
OUR – speaks of a shared experience – shared ownership, OUR – speaks of community – of relationship.
WHERE - Me and My produces isolation and loneliness…
OUR – produces community and family…
YOU KNOW – when you think about it… what greater way could Jesus have started this prayer?
I MEAN - in a single word HE calls us together… and unleashes ‘The Power Of OUR.
UNDERSTAND - ‘Our’ has the power to…
Refocus Our Hearts and Minds…
OUR teaches us that we are not an only child in this family, that it is not all about us or for us… OUR teaches us that we are part of something so bigger than ourselves…
UNDERSTAND MGCC
IT’S – not just about me and my needs…
IT’S – not just about me and my personal relationship with God. YES - I have one.
BUT - it’s about us and our.
NOW - you’re gonna hear those words a lot in the prayer – us and our. It’s about us – it’s about together.
‘Our’ is about how 2 are better than one…
HOW – a cord of three strands is not easily broken…
YES – praying our is powerful… it has the power to quickly refocus our hearts and minds…
AND – ‘our’ also has the power to
Help God’s Dreams For ‘Us’ Become Reality…
UNDERSTAND – rarely if ever do people fulfill the dreams that God has for them alone…
• Without the tin man, the scarecrow and the lion.. Dorothy would not have made it every far down the yellow brick road.
• Without the fellowship Frodo... never would have recovered the ring
• Without Adrian... Rocky never would have beaten Apollo Creed, Clauber Lang or Drago
• With Brady... it looks like Belechik may never win a playoff game... (double sad face emoji)
QUESTION... do you think that if...
Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Esther, Nehemiah, Shadraq, Peter, Paul, and the persecuted first century Jesus-followers Do you think that if they tried it alone.. that they would have fulfilled the dreams that God had for them?
NO - not a chance.
YOU KNOW – I have always loved the powerful picture of ‘our’ that we see in Luke 5...
UNDERSTAND - without his friends the paralyzed guy on a mat would never had been lowered through the roof to meet Jesus and be healed.
“Even if, we have to pick up your mat and carry you... we will not take another step in this journey without you!”
MGCC – our has power
• To refocus our hearts and minds
• To help God’s dream for us to become reality, and ‘our’ have the power to...
Diffuse Conflict
David Timms writes,
Many Christians and many congregations would benefit from making this solitary word their mantra and mission. A mantra is simply a commonly repeated word or phrase that
drives home a message or helps keep us focused on a certain truth… It would surely help defuse division if we recited endlessly that single affirmation… ‘Our.’
Let’s try that… “Our”
• When a friend fails us... OUR reminds us of our desire and commitment to live in grace and forgiveness.
• When a neighbor wounds us.. OUR calls us to love our neighbor.
• When we gather to worship... OUR helps us focus on the collective experience and not just on our own personal preference.
• When the first grade boys get a little ‘rambunctious’ in class... OUR reinforces the high importance of them being there.
• When our spouse hurts us... OUR revives the vows we took on our wedding day.
• When a fellow believer is dying of cancer...
OUR produces empathy in us as we see his struggle as part of our own mortality.
• When there is a wall, an issue between you and another Jesus-follower... OUR reminds of what Jesus prayed in the garden… reminds us that we are in the same family, that we have the same DAD.
• When we are undergoing an internal conflict… when we are hurting, and life is hard, too big for us on our own… OUR reminds us that despite what we may feel we ARE NOT ALONE…
UNDERSTAND B/S – each time we use the word OUR, we assert our commitment to remaining and doing life together…
MGCC – our has power
• To refocus our hearts and minds
• To help God’s dream for us to become reality, and ‘our’ have the power to...
• Diffuse Conflict, AND...
Meet our innate needs to be known and accepted
AND MGCC – one of the best places for ‘this’ and ‘this’ to happen is in Life Groups.
NOW – Life Groups came The Grove in January of 2011.
AND – in January of 2014 ‘Doing Life Together’ became our 3rd Core Value as a church.
AND - ‘Following Christ In Life-Changing Community’ became our vision. AND – those 2 statements have been hanging up there behind me ever since.
AND – over the years we have had many Life Groups.
At times they have been really strong
And other times not so strong.
But whenever they have been not so strong, the problem is not with the Core Value but with our execution.
While some of us may prefer a more private existence, perhaps even praying, “My Father,” the Prayer calls us to a corporate life, a life shared with others, a life in which God works through each of us to bless each of us.
Shane Hipps discusses the rise and apparent popularity of virtual community through the electronic media today. He writes:
In virtual community, our contacts involve very little real risk and demand even less of us personally. In this sense we experience the paradox of intimate anonymity.
This virtual community - functions a bit like cotton candy: it goes down easy and satiates our immediate hunger, but it doesn’t provide much in the way of sustainable nutrition. It spoils our appetite for the kind of authentic community to which Scripture calls us. . . .
If virtual community functions like cotton candy, then authentic community is more like broccoli. It may not always taste good but it provides crucial nourishment for the formation of our identity. Authentic community will undoubtedly be marked by conflict, risk, and rejection. At the same time it offers the deepest levels of acceptance, intimacy, and support.
The illusion of the virtual community will reap the wind in generations to come because it presumes that intimacy is compatible with anonymity. The two terms, however, remain mutually exclusive. While email enables us to control the conversation—answering only what we want to answer when we want to answer it and with as much or little detail as we like—we evade real encounters that incorporate loads of nonverbal language and wrest control from us.
Authentic relationships cannot be formed in a virtual environment. At some point, we must lower all masks and surrender all controls whereby we may truly know and be known. Such is the power of our as it escapes our lips at the start of the Prayer.
OKAY – let’s move on to the 2nd word
II. Father
A) Radical Shift
YEAH – I know that to us 2000 years on the other side of this prayer… addressing God as Father… is no big deal, pretty much routine…
I MEAN – we don’t really even think about it and we certainly don’t appreciate it like we should.
HOWEVER – at the time when Jesus first spoke it… addressing God as Father was absolutely radical and shocking…
UNDERSTAND – it was without a doubt a huge and radical shift in the way God’s people approached HIM.
NOW SURE – there are examples in the Old Testament of people using the image of a father to describe God.
YES - that had happened before.
HOWEVER - there is no record of anyone ever coming to God in prayer and addressing Him as Father until Jesus did.
IN FACT - in the time of Jesus the distance between men and God seemed to widening, and the names of God were increasingly withheld from public speech and payers.
BUT MGCC - this trend was completely overturned by Jesus. UNDERSTAND – in the Gospels Jesus speaks of and prays to God as Father at least 60 times.
There is only one time He did not pray to God as Father
(My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me’)
AND NOW – JESUS tells His guys, “yeah, I know that every time I prayed to God and called Him Father you were kind of freaked out…guess what? It’s going to get even freakier… Because you too can now pray to Him as Father.
AND MGCC – here’s the deal...
When you use a name, you make a statement about the nature of the relationship you have with another person. That’s why names are so powerful.
A NAME - expresses the relationship you have.
IT’S – a statement about how much closeness exists.
In a fairly formal relationship, you say Mr. or Mrs.
If it’s a friend, you call them by their first name.
If it’s a real close friend you might have a nickname.
If it’s a family member there might be a pet name, which expresses the fact that this is a uniquely close relationship.
NOW - there are only a few people on this earth that call me "DAD," (2 call me Baba) and that single word gets my attention probably quicker than any other.
(Lion King... ‘dad’ Simba)
AND LISTEN – not only is the word FATHER a radical shift in the way God’s people viewed Him…
IT IS ALSO – an incredible reality that we really need to embrace more fully…
A reality I think that never stopped blowing the mind of the apostle John.
B) An Incredible Reality
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
- John 1:12
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! - 1 John 3:1
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. – Ephesians 1:4,5
YEAH – I know it is hard to eat brains around the idea that The Maker of Heaven and Earth... someone who is all powerful is also our Father.
NOW - when John F. Kennedy was President of the United States, Life magazine published photos of his children, John Jr. and Caroline, playing in the Oval Office.
SHOW PICTURE
AND LISTEN - those images captured the hearts of the American people like nothing before or since. Why?
I think it’s because it bridged a gap between two thoughts: Kennedy was the President of the United States, but he was also a father.
LIKE - he held the ultimate political power in the Free World, but playing at his feet were two little kids who called him Dad.
NOW - I don’t think your kids or mine would have been allowed to do run in the Oval office and do handstands, or hide in His desk... But his kids were. Why?
Because he was not only President of the United States; he was also their Father, their dad.
B/S - in the same way, God is both our Father and the Lord of glory. Yes he is the Sovereign King of the universe – but we must never forget that we can approach Him confidently in prayer because we are His kids.
AND LISTEN – because He is our Father, when we come into His presence… we know that…
• He: loves us, listens to us, cares for us
HE is: great, good and available.
AND – we just need to talk to Him. That’s what prayer is.
LISTEN – too many people when they pray, their first thoughts are:
• "I haven’t prayed enough."
• "I feel guilty about my prayer life."
• "I’m not sure this will do any good."
• "I’m not sure I have enough time to do it adequately or know how to do it right."
UNDERSTAND - those thoughts are from the evil one.
They are designed to keep you from prayer and from your Father. SO YOU MUST - discipline yourself to not allow those thoughts to occupy your mind.
YOU MUST - set them aside and start with the name Father.
BECAUSE - when you say that it reminds you of how God see’s you – as His child.
AND MGCC – when you call out to God as Father.
I believe that God’s heart says,
Yes, you are my son. Yes, you are my daughter.
I love it when you call me Father.
And I love it when you set aside time to speak with me about whatever is on your heart.
Maybe what we have to say to each other will involve sorrow. Maybe it will be about joyful things.
Maybe you’ll want to express thanks.
Maybe you’ll need to confess.
It doesn’t really matter. Because once we’re together, we’ll get around to everything we need to. I’ll make sure about of it. But I so love these moments when you come to me in prayer, as my child.
Jesus, the master of prayer says, "Start with these words ‘Our Father’ because He wants us to understand exactly who it is we are praying to, we are praying to...
• our heavenly Father
• a perfect Father who loves us unconditionally and unrelentingly
• a Father who is big, strong, powerful and in absolute control of everything…
• a Father who is bigger than any problem we will ever face and stronger than any adversary who comes against us
• a Father who desires to bless us and give us good things
• a Father who has awesome plans for us
• a Father who will help and encourage us
• a Father who not only knows what we really need, but and is able to deliver what is best.
• a Father who longs for us to come to Him to be in his presence
UNDERSTAND – if you are a Jesus-follower, God is our Father. AND B/S – you really need to get this.
AND – when you do it will revolutionize your prayer life.
• You won’t feel like you’re going to middle management with a clipboard who’s keeping score hoping to fire you. God’s not like that.
• You won’t feel like you’re going to an impersonal distant force. God’s not like that.
• You won’t feel like you’re coming before an angry judge. God’s not like that.
Our God is a loving Father.
You can interrupt him. That’s okay.
You can make requests of him. That’s okay.
He always hears and answers prayers.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes wait.
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
1 John 3:1
‘Our Father’ – the combination of the two terms binds us together as family and refuses to validate private faith. It acknowledges the new community – a family – to which we now belong...
Our faith finds its footing in ‘Our Father’ – an inch of lettering that bridges our seclusion from each other and the Lord. It declares good news and reorders the foundations of our lives – lives now lived in the context of love and family; lives now marked by security and companionship; lives now devoted to grace and mutual support. - David Timms
