- A couple opening points for the sermon series as a whole.
- First, the Lord’s Prayer is a good antidote to our limited prayer life.
- Many of us have prayer lives that are largely limited to asking for stuff, whether it’s for ourselves or for others. Now, that's a good thing to do, but prayer is supposed to be more than that.
- One thing this sermon series will teach us as we work our way through the Lord’s Prayer is some of the other things that we should be praying about.
- Most of us would say that our prayer life is not where we want it to be. One way to think about the Lord’s Prayer is that it is an invitation from Jesus toward a more expansive prayer life. He is bringing up more than mere asking. - These are things that can make our prayer life richer and fuller.
- Second, we need to understand that the Lord’s Prayer is more than just a few words to recite.
- That is often how people know the Lord’s Prayer - it’s words that we repeat in church sometimes or maybe at a funeral.
- Look with me, though, at v. 9. There is a key word there that clues us into the point that Jesus is trying to make here. Jesus says that this is “how” we should pray. Notice that He didn’t say “what” we should pray. No, He said “how.”
- Now, this is not to say that it is wrong to recite the Lord’s Prayer in a church service or as part of our private devotions. Absolutely not. There is nothing wrong with that - it’s a perfectly good prayer to literally pray.
- It’s just that reciting the prayer is not the point. Jesus says that this is “how” we should pray, not “what” we should pray. If all we were to do is repeat His words, Jesus would have said that this is “what” we were to pray. We could then repeat “what” He said to say and then we would be done.
- But He said “how.” What’s that mean? It means that Jesus is here saying, “This is the kind of prayer that you should be praying. These are the kinds of things you should be talking about to God. This is a good, basic outline of what a solid prayer would look like.
- Therefore, we aren’t just to mindlessly recite the words and go on. Rather, we are to read and study the Lord’s Prayer, asking, “What would it look like to pray like this in my daily prayer life?”
- Jesus is showing us the way. He is showing us “how” to pray.
A SOLID STARTING POINT FOR EFFECTIVE PRAYER: Prayer is largely asking for help.
- Prayer is an acknowledgement that we need help.
- Now, not all of prayer is that. For instance, part of prayer is praise and as we praise God we might not be doing anything in that part that requires that we were asking for help. (Although it does need to be said that a lot of our praise comes from us being thankful after God met our need. But that isn’t necessarily true in every instance.)
- This is easily proven. There are many people who don’t pray regularly. When do they pray? Is it when everything is going well and even though they don’t fully understand God they feel the need to thank the universe? No, that pretty much never happens. Is it when life is in a reasonable routine and they feel like they have things under control? No, that pretty much never happens.
- People who don’t normally pray will pray for one situation in particular: a need they can’t handle. They pray when they need help.
- Maybe it’s a child who gets seriously sick. They pray, asking for help.
- Maybe it’s potential layoffs at work that seem likely to devastate the family financially. They pray, asking for help.
- Maybe it’s when their marriage starts going sideways and divorce is being talked about. They pray, asking for help.
- We all understand that prayer is asking for help because there are some situations that are bigger than us and make us feel powerless.
- This is not a surprise. After all, the beginning point of becoming a Christian is grace. Grace involves the idea that we can’t earn our salvation so we need to ask for God’s help by receiving what Jesus did for us on the cross.
- So it is deeply entrenched in the fabric of Christianity that we need God’s help.
- In light of that being the nature of much of our prayer, it’s helpful to look at the phrase with which Jesus begins the Lord’s Prayer because it gives us encouragement in that direction. I want to divide that line up into three parts to unpack each.
“OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN”:
1. “OUR”: I have help around me.
- This is an easy word to overlook in this first line but it’s an important one.
- It’s worth a moment’s thought that Jesus could have started the Lord’s Prayer: “My Father in heaven.” But He doesn’t.
- Now, it is certainly true that we each need to have a personal relationship with God and not rely on our family’s history or having friends who love God. No, each of us needs to make a choice to receive the salvation that is offered in Jesus to make peace in our connection with God.
- So He could have started it “My Father” and it would have been ok.
- But He starts it “Our Father.”
- Why? Because we are part of a family of God. We are part of something bigger.
- America is a heavily individualistic culture. We too often make it sound like a walk of faith is just “me and Jesus.” Anything beyond that is optional.
- But that's not true. Faith was never meant to be an individualistic endeavor.
- The biggest proof of this is the church.
- Too many people claim to be Christians but think that participating in church is optional. It’s not. It is Jesus’ Plan A for the promulgation of the gospel. The book after the gospels is “the Acts of the Apostles,” telling the story of the early church. This is how Jesus intends the Good News to be spread.
- There is no doubt that the church is imperfect. Many use that as an excuse for shunning it. But as you read the epistles it’s clear that the church was always imperfect. That's not an excuse that justifies walking away.
- The simple reality is that a Christian who is not participating in church is a disobedient Christian. He may be loud about what he believes but that doesn’t change his disobedience.
- Someone might respond, “But there are people in the church who are difficult for me to love, so I’m going to stay away.”
- No, that gets it exactly wrong.
- You are right that there are people who are difficult to love in the church. That comes with the reality that the church welcomes everyone, including some deeply broken people. So there are going to be some people who aren’t going to be a joy to be around.
- But that's part of the plan. We are supposed to learn how to love like God loves and that includes loving people who are difficult to love. (For instance, God loved you when you weren’t a joy to be around.)
- Having people who are difficult to love in the church provides an opportunity for us to grow spiritually. And the goal of the Christian life is not for our life to be easy but for us to be formed in Christlikeness.
- One implication of this is that for us to claim Jesus but avoid the church is essentially to look at Jesus and say, “Your plan is stupid.”
- We know without question that the church was His Plan A. When we refuse to participate, we are questioning Jesus’ wisdom.
- Now, I don’t know everything but I do know that I’m not as smart as Jesus. If He thought it was a good plan, then I think it’s a good plan.
- Now, where does this hit with prayer?
- We have people around us praying with us.
- We have people around us through whom God can answer prayers.
- We have people around us for whom we are praying, so that we can be a part of how they see God moving in their lives.
- The biggest one for our purposes this morning is that God often answers prayers through our brothers and sisters in Christ around us. We are, again, His hands and feet.
2. “FATHER”: I have help above me.
- It is that we’ve heard so often and for so long that we take it for granted: Jesus here invites us to call the God of the Universe “Father.”
- It’s such a loving, intimate moniker. It speaks to the type of relationship that God wants with us: loving, family, caring, personal.
- Many people think of God in impersonal terms.
- He’s “God Almighty” or the “Creator.” Now, those are both legitimate titles and speak to part of who God is. But they are also somewhat impersonal.
- “Father” is a title that speaks to such a close relationship.
- This should give us great confidence in God’s watchcare and concern for us.
- We aren’t a number, like when you call a big bureaucracy. We are His child.
- When we think about how much we care for our own kids, it’s stunning to think that God loves us more than we love our own kids.
- This is a wonderful thing to have on our side when we are coming asking for help in prayer. God loves us and is looking out for us.
- I am sadly aware of how this title brings bad memories or feelings for some people. You had an absent, distant, or abusive father.
- It’s important to state that is not the kind of father that God is. He is a loving, caring Father. We can trust Him.
- This ties directly into the greatest commandment.
- We are called on to love God, not merely respect Him or acknowledge Him.
- This dovetails perfectly with the title of Father. It’s a loving relationship that God wants with us, not a business relationship.
- God loves us and wants us to love Him.
3. “IN HEAVEN”: That help is coming from outside my circumstances.
- Knowing the nature of the One we are asking (our Father) is important. It’s also helpful to think about where He is.
In one sense, God is everywhere. In another sense, He is enthroned in heaven.
- That second sense gives us an awareness of help coming from outside our circumstances. It’s a thought that I like.
- We walk into our life situations with the gifts, abilities, resources, friends, money, connections, and intelligence that we bring to the table. Sometimes that's enough; sometimes it isn’t.
- It’s a nice thought that we are asking for help from heaven. Heaven doesn’t have resource problems. Heaven doesn’t have money problems. Heaven doesn’t have wisdom problems. And on and on.
- Heaven has everything that we need. That's one reason why there are so many stories from church history of enormous needs being met miraculously. Would filling that need be a problem for us? Absolutely. In some cases, not just difficult but impossible. Is filling that need a problem for heaven? Absolutely not.
- It’s a beautiful thing to ask for help from a place that has such unlimited resources.
BEING SOMEONE WHO IS ALWAYS ASKING FOR HELP: Be joyfully dependent.
- In all that we’ve discussed, it’s clear that the first phrase in the Lord’s Prayer points us to how we are asking for help.
- How are we going to look at that? One way would be to be grumpy about that. We could resent the fact that we have to ask for help. We could despise our neediness. We could grit our teeth each time we have to ask.
- Or we could be joyfully dependent.
- What does it look like to live and pray like that?
a. It involves laying down our pride.
- Thinking we can do everything is prideful. We need to accept our limitations.
b. It involves embracing how much of the world and our needs are beyond our abilities and resources.
- I am just one person. I don’t have the ability to do everything. I am relying on God to do greater things.
c. It involves excitement that God has greater things for us that can only come to fruition if we invite His power into our lives.
- Seeing greater answers gives glory to God.
