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2001
8th April (pm) - A Christian's Prayer
Matthew 6:5-15
Last week we noticed a little word, beginning with 'w' that Jesus uses no less than 4 times in Matthew 6, vs.1-18 - When.
When ...... you give, when you pray (x2), when you fast.
Giving, Praying, Fasting - long established ways of expressing faith which were clearly being endorsed by Jesus - 'when' tells us that he saw then as activities which were to be a disciplined part of our lives.
Tonight we want to concentrate, in particular, on what he said about Praying - out of the 3 aspects he talks about, he gives the largest section and the most attention to Praying, and in these verses he teaches what we know as The Lord's Prayer - so tonight we've come to a section of the Sermon on the Mount that most of us would know off by heart anyway!
The Lord's Prayer is found here in Matthew 6, as well as in Luke 11 - and while there are a few slight differences in wording, they are essentially the same. Indeed it may be that the Lord's Prayer was something that Jesus taught his followers on far more than one occasion - and it is very likely that he gave it to his disciples for 2 purposes:
it is a kind of model for all prayers - 'This , then, is how you should pray'. (vs.9) This is what any prayer should be like.
It is a prayer to be used in its own right - 'When you pray, say, Our Father ...' (Lk.11:2) You are to actually use this prayer that I am teaching you - and I think, we should assume, use it when you pray together as a group, in church, for it says Our Father ....' i.e. plural.
I know that some people worry about using it together because of the danger of it turning into the sort of meaningless repetition, of which Jesus warns in vs.7 - but it doesn't have to be so - the onus is on us to think about the words and meaning, just as we need to do with any prayer. What a loss for us, if we don't use the Lord's Prayer together, just as Jesus taught us to do.
We know the Lord's Prayer so well, that there is a danger of a sermon not being able to say anything very fresh or helpful - but I hope that the 4 headings that I am going to suggest to you will be helpful, both in highlighting the main sections of the Lord's Prayer itself, and in trying to pick out some lessons that apply to all praying. The 4 headings are as follows: When we pray,
- We pray to a heavenly Father, who is awesomely holy.
- We pray with a heavenly vision, which is utterly earthed.
- We pray for heavenly needs, as well as everyday necessities.
- We pray for heavenly power to meet earthly problems. We pray to a heavenly Father who is awesomely holy.
There is a remarkable putting together of 2 very different ways of thinking about God in the opening to the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
When we pray we need to think about the fact that God is both our loving heavenly Father and that he is the almighty God - immense in his awesome power and holiness.
Let's try to tease those things out:
Jesus teaches us to think about God as a heavenly Father, and to pray in a way that reflects the sort of everyday relationship - the conversation of home and family, children and parents - no special appointments needed, no formal language required, no doubt about being listened to and cared about.
Perhaps for disciples, brought up in a Jewish background, where God was only spoken of in the most careful and cautious of language, Jesus' teaching about God as our heavenly Father came to them with amazement. how could you come to God in this close and personal way?
But we are indeed to think of God as a Father - this isn't the only place in which he says so - see 7:9-12, but maybe we sometimes take it all rather too much for granted - we take this as the normal way of thinking about God, and it blinds us to the balance that there is in Jesus' opening to the Lord's Prayer - for as we call God our heavenly Father, he also reminds us that God is awesomely holy - hallowed be your name i.e. his name is to be honoured with the deepest possible respect and holy fear - for he is God, the Creator of the universe, the Lord of Life, the Ruler of Time and of Eternity, the Judge before whom all men and women must appear - and we must not forget this, or reduce God to some mere grandfatherly figure in our minds.
Perhaps we need always to remind ourselves of what Paul teaches us is the way things really are, in Romans 8 - God is a heavenly Father, and he cares about all and everyone as a father, but, truly, to call him, 'our Father' is a privilege given to us only because of what Jesus has done for us ... and through the H. Spirit who helps us to trust in Christ and cry Abba, Father - on this basis we may know in our hearts that we are indeed God's children.
There are a number of important ways in which we need to apply all of this in practice:
Maybe some of us put too much emphasis on God as a distant ruler of the universe - we miss out on the deep personal love of which Jesus teaches us, summed up in calling God, our heavenly Father - God is reduced to rules and regulations, to vague ideas and hopeful thoughts. Prayer is restricted to stiff formality offered in religious situations by specially ordained people.
If only we could think more about God as our heavenly Father, whom we may trust very personally, and with great assurance through saving faith in Jesus, then how much better is our hope in God.
Other people sometimes become far too familiar with God - he is unhelpfully reduced to some kind of 'pal' or 'mate' or next door neighbour - and when that happens, our prayers can often be very careless, ill thought out, bordering on the casual and even irreverent, and often mere lists of things we want our heavenly Father to do. Sometimes this is a particular weakness in contemporary Christianity, with its more informal style and relaxed approach - we fail to learn to come into the presence of God with a sense of his awesome holiness and greatness.
I suppose, overall, this first point should teach us that when we pray, we should begin by taking real time to focus on who we are coming to in prayer - rather than simply rushing into God's presence, or subconsciously feeling that it is us who are doing God the favour by making time to pray, or simply submitting a long shopping list of requests. Far better to take time to think about God and to meditate on all sides of his character - both his wonderful fatherly love for us and his amazing, heavenly holiness. Maybe if we take time to do that, it will help all of our praying, whether personal or together.
We pray with a heavenly vision, which is utterly earthed. vs.10
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Once again we have 2 aspects to what Jesus says.
He encourages his people to pray for that day when the kingdom of God will be finally and completely established - your kingdom come - when all difficulties, fears, questions and uncertainties of life in this world will be a thing of the past - the heavenly vision of Revelation 21, when it speaks of that day when God will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. What a vision, what a promise - what a prayer: Your kingdom come - may that great day come!
But then, just as in the first section, there is a vitally important balance - here Jesus instructs us to pray that God's will may be done, in the here and now, on earth as it is in heaven. Clearly, what happens in the here and now, nitty gritty of everyday life is a very import part of God's concerns and should be an important concern of our lives. Our heavenly vision, with all its hope and encouragement, must be earthed in everyday reality, not an escape from it - the inspiration of God's final heavenly kingdom must help us to place our feet more and more firmly on the ground.
How absolutely possible it is for us to be filled with the hope and the promise of God's final kingdom - but not really to be ready for the commitment of living as God's people in the real world. And yet Jesus makes it very clear in the Lord's Prayer that both aspects must be in our prayers, and therefore in our lives.
I'm reminded of the Palm Sunday crowd, shouting Hosanna, with such unrestrained enthusiasm and excitement for what they believed was the coming of God's King and God's Kingdom - and yet beneath that enthusiasm there was no willingness or readiness to commit themselves to Jesus or to accept the demands and the difficulties of being his people here on earth. Sometimes we can be desperately like them - we pray Your kingdom come, but we are not really ready to be the obedient, committed people of Jesus seeking to do his will in everyday life. Our lives get very departmentalised - the religious part and the real part - in the religious part there are pious prayers and heavenly hopes, but in the other part there are old attitudes, wrong priorities and selfish behaviour that does not belong to Christ or his kingdom.
So when we pray, it must involve a deep coming to terms with how God's will and way must impact on our lives - the prayers we offer must lead on to the lives we live - and that will cut out any cheap or easy words - the hypocrisy and the emptiness of which Jesus warns in vs.5-8.
For example how are we going to pray for God's kingdom of peace to come, unless we are ready to be peacemakers. How are we going to pray that God's kingdom of love will provide for the needs of others, unless we are ready to give and to share in ways that really count.
There must not be any impressive prayers uttered in the synagogues or on the street corners, or in our churches - unless we are ready to be God's people, seeking in earthly everyday, reality to do his will - as it was for Jesus, as he prayed those very words, 'Thy will be done', in Gethsemane, and steeled himself for what that prayer would mean that he would have to do at the cross.
So anytime we pray, it is absolutely right to fill our minds with the glorious assurances and hopes of our faith in Jesus - he is King and his Kingdom will come - but at the very same time, in our prayers we must be utterly down to earth and completely ready to get on with trying to live as his kingdom people on earth - concerned with doing his will.
We pray for heavenly needs, as well as everyday necessities.
The everyday necessities are very simply stated - our daily bread - apparently an unusual Greek word is used for that phrase, which the experts hadn't come across before, until it turned up in an archaeological find, which included what appeared to be a woman's shopping list - where she had jotted down that she needed to get a loaf or something for the tea - that's the sense of this little phrase: give us our daily bread - what we need for our everyday living - not just in terms of food, we can safely assume, but covering all the down-to-earth aspects of everyday life.
In this short model prayer, isn't it amazing that Jesus should make space to include praying for everyday necessities - even what we might think were trivialities!
It is an arresting reminder that these everyday lives of ours are of great significance to God - ordinary living at home and in work are given an important place and a definite dignity by their inclusion in the Lord's Prayer. It is a reminder to us that when we pray it is right to pray about the needs and the situations that rise in our lives from day to day - these things are not trivial!
And maybe this phrase, 'our daily bread' is a reminder to us that the prayer we call 'Saying Grace' is a very good practice - not just at special occasions or church functions, but in our own homes - a reminder to us, and an acknowledgment to God, that he is the provider of the everyday necessities and all that is good.
But Jesus puts the everyday necessities alongside the heavenly priorities of life - another remarkable set of 'pairs' that are to be found in the Lord's Prayer.
Here Jesus encourages us to pray that God will give daily necessities, and that he will forgive our debts.
Jesus uses the language of an outstanding bill or account that needs to be settled, in order to remind us that when we pray we ought always to be very aware that, for all of us, there is an outstanding account to be settled before God - a record of sinfulness that needs to be forgiven - a situation of complete dependence on God's mercy
We dare not come to God feeling good about ourselves - feeling as if we are the kind of people God likes to listen to, and that ours are the sort of lives he is pleased with - no matter how much we feel that we are people of faith and trust.
We are all sinful people - and we must see and know this, and acknowledge it before God - again and again! Faith in Jesus must always have repentance as its foundations - admitting our sin and seeking his forgiveness - a repentant spirit must be at the heart of our faith all the time - it's not an unpleasant one off moment , like taking a spoonful of medicine, but rather a deep down, on-going recognition of how things are in our lives and of how they always will be until the end - we are sinful people, full stop!
And as we confess our sin, then it is vital that we also remember, the terrible price that Jesus has paid in order to forgive us our sins - in order to pay off our debt - that he gave his life as a ransom for many - the only adequate payment - his very life given for our lives.
Today Communion has helped us to remember what Jesus did - his body broken, his blood shed - this coming Holy Week will help us to meditate on these things as we ought - especially, I hope, when we will not neglect the opportunities meet on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Give ..... Forgive ...... and as we rely on the great assurance of his forgiveness, we are to show our trust and our thankfulness by being forgiving people towards those who offend against us. So everyday necessities and heavenly priorities.
Finally, we are to pray for Heavenly Power to fight everyday battles.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us .......
Jesus seems to be making it very clear - as if we didn't know it - that living by faith, as the children of our heavenly Father, will not be all plain sailing - that the experiences of temptation will be very real and the pressures of evil forces will be very great.
In the words of a local advert, We need help, we need ....Harry!
And who amongst us here would argue with that. We know that this is the reality, and that we do need to have a very strong awareness of our own weakness and limitations, and therefore a very strong sense of reliance on God, our Father in heaven. How pathetically we fail and how often we fall, time and again - despite our best efforts at being people of faith and faithfulness - how surely we fail and fall whenever we slip back to thinking that we can manage pretty well by ourselves.
One of the purposes of prayer, one of the reasons why we need to pray regularly, with priority, is that we can constantly remember our need of help and express that need to God. We are meant to be practical, down-to-earth people, living in the real world - but we can only be so, in any adequate way, by being praying people. Being practical people and being praying people are not alternative approaches to life.
We may expect our experience of faith and living to be as it was for Jesus, when he was put under terrible pressure during his temptations in the wilderness, or as it was for the apostle, Paul, as he summed up his life of following Jesus, so openly and honestly, in Rom. 7: For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out ...... the evil I do not want to do I keep on doing.
No wonder, out of this honest statement about his life, and his awareness that this is how it would be for all of us, Paul wrote to the Ephesians, with prayer very much in his mind: Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.
And that's what the Lord's Prayer is alerting us to - God does not actually 'lead us into temptation' - we know that from the rest of Scripture - but sometimes God allows us to face it and experience it. We need to learn to seek his help in order to cope with temptation and to fight against the devil's schemes. We need to have the awareness of evil pressure and the sense of godly dependance which this last part of the Lord's Prayer teaches us to have.
So here are 4 headings from the Lord's Prayer which I hope might be helpful - drawing our attention to 4 matching pairs of important lessons about praying: When we pray:
- We pray to a heavenly Father, who is awesomely holy.
- We pray with a heavenly vision, which is utterly earthed.
- We pray for heavenly needs, as well as everyday necessities.
- We pray for heavenly power to meet earthly problems.